Is anybody else experiencing a static/hissing noise on various TG's during the day on MARCS in lorain County, seems to be heard the past week or so.I'm using a pro-106 scanner. Sounds like it is hanging on a carrier for several seconds and then releases, no motorboating noise. Scannerdweeb
What it could be is that one of the voice channels on the site(s) you are listening to has static (when there are no MARCS transmissions) - and you press Scan and it scans fine. Then it stops on traffic and switches to a voice channel that has static - the MARCS signal may or may not be strong enough to override the static. If it is strong enough, the traffic plays - If it isn't strong enough, it motorboats because of the interface. At any rate, once the MARCS transmission si done and it attempts to return back tot he control channel for scanning, it doesn't and instead sits on the VC (which still remains open to hear the underlying interference/static).
It shouldn't do that, but it does do that - I've noticed it happen on all of my GREs. Basically, if it stops on a trunked system voice channel and can't get a good decode, it apparently doesn't know when to switch back to the control channel - and so it sits there and makes you hear the underlyign interference/static/hiss.
It happens to me because on one particular voice frequency for one site there is interference. So if I scan that site, I know that as soon as traffic hits that voice channel and combines with the interference, I won't get a good decode on the MARCS audio - and then when the MARCS traffic is done, all that is left is the noisy interference. The scanner should switch back to the control channel but it doesn't. I end up having to hit SCAN.
That's the only "static/hiss" I can imagine you would hear. Otherwise, it should all either be (a) recogizable decoded voice traffic, (b) motorboating because of poor decode, or (c) the decoded encrypted audio (which has an interesting quality of its own that I can't describe other than to call it annoying).
If I were you, for the site in question I would program the offending frequency in conventionaly and listen to it unsquelched to see if you hear more than just the normal noise/hiss of an unocccopied when it is unsquelched.
If you don't know what the voice frequency is, watch closely the next time the transmission occurs - your scanner display will toggle between the data channel frequency and hte voice channel frequency.
Mike