York Co Set Up

[bwhite]

I'm trying to set up my 396 and 996's so that York County comes through in a manner that makes the audio intelligible. Most of the time it sounds as if the voice is "underwater". Are there settings that minimize this garbling? I see a lengthy York County thread that has 400+ posts, I was hoping not to have to plow through that. Thanx for any assistance weeding thru the data.

 

[bwhite]

Is it safe to assume that York County has that "underwater sound" for everyone scanning them? I see that this post has been viewed over 100 times so it appears that there is more than a casual interest in the issue. Thanx to anyone that can offer any insights.

 

[markandjere]

My pro -96 sounds good . I can't speak on how to "fix" a Uniden as I don't have any less than 20 years old let alone digital . LOL

 

[ocguard]

I had awful luck with my 396 and the decode quality of York county's system. The only thing that ever helped was adjusting the P25 decode threshold. I can't remember how it's done but it has something to do with the function button and the knob.

I upgraded to the 396xt in hopes that it would be better. It was worse. And there was no option for manual P25 threshold adjustment.

As fate would have it, I was programming up a friend's psr500 (same as the RadioShack pro 106) and noticed how awesome the p25 quality was, without any tweaking. I've never looked back. I sold my unidens away and have since owned a pro 106 and a pSr800. They do great. GRE just makes a better p25 scanner.

 

[bwhite]

Thanx OC. Is Balto Co better too on your psr500 ?
I use programming software so I'm hoping there is an adjustment for the decode threshold since you mentioned that.

 

[troymail]

I agree with Matt -- when I switched to the PSR500 years ago from my 396T, the digital decode was significantly better "out of the box" - no tweaking required. Same for the PSR800. Now I only use my 396 as a "search" radio (almost never gets used).

Keep in mind you still have to deal with the digital simulcast issues in Baltimore County (and other places) - but that didn't seem to be a huge problem with the York system.

 

[ocguard]

Baltimore County still had their analog system when I had my Uniden.

But as Troy mentioned, Baltimore County's simulcast setup is different than York County's, which really causes problems for ALL scanners. York County's simulcast timing is set up so that this signal from simulcast transmitters arrives in the overlap areas at the same time, so all scanners and radios are optimized to reduce simulcast multipath distortion. Baltimore County's system uses what's called linear simulcast -- basically the signal's digital packets are "shaped" in such a way that a subscriber radio can differentiate simulcast transmissions arriving out of sync and reject late-arriving signals.There is much less emphasis placed on timing and syncing. Because scanners are not equipped to "see" the shaping of these packets, they are plagued with out-of-sync signals, and thereby, inundated with multipath distortion. Your best bet with Baltimore County is to turn on all applicable attenuators.

 

[ocguard]

Thanx OC. Is Balto Co better too on your psr500 ?
I use programming software so I'm hoping there is an adjustment for the decode threshold since you mentioned that.

I don't believe you can adjust the P25 decode threshold with the software. I think you have to hold the funtion key and press down on the multipurpose knob. That puts it into adjustment mode, they you spin the knob until you maximize your decode success rate. However, like I mentioned, it's a very minimal fix.

 

[bwhite]

Thanx, I'll do what I can based on that advice. I guess this is preparation for the days when everything is fully encrypted and, like the early 800 trunking days, we won't be able to listen to much again.

 

[dcr_inc]

York county is C4FM while Baltimore county is Q-PSK.. It's the modulation scheme that makes the two different.. Has little to do with timing but more to the packet size and phase..

 

[bwhite]

Makes sense, both distort but the distortion is of a diff kind.

 

[Twister_2]

Back in my Pro-106 days, York County sounded THE BEST!!!! I'm from near Hershey and it was the only digital system that actually worked 100% at my location with my scanner. Dauphin Co is terrible with my 106. I had to upgrade to the 996xt and that works great with Dauphin Co. I haven't tried it with York Co yet, but I am certain that the 106 works flawlessly from Hershey!

Good Luck!

 

[ocguard]

Back in my Pro-106 days, York County sounded THE BEST!!!! I'm from near Hershey and it was the only digital system that actually worked 100% at my location with my scanner. Dauphin Co is terrible with my 106. I had to upgrade to the 996xt and that works great with Dauphin Co. I haven't tried it with York Co yet, but I am certain that the 106 works flawlessly from Hershey!

Good Luck!

Not to hijack the thread, but I find that listening to Dauphin County with my Pro-106 is best if I listen to the non-simulcast sites. This can be troublesome in the Hbg area, since the simulcast is the strongest. It's the simulcast distortion that causes most of the problems, Single-sites are flawless.