346xt cutting out on me

[berksguy]

Just got the scanner a month ago and I must have programmed a setting incorrectly or something, at least I hope that's what it is! I used freescan

I notice i cant pick up an entire conversation. I set some local channels as priority and I think even set it for 3 seconds but even if i hit hold, i cant hear the conversation. It will kick in for about 1-2 seconds then totally go out, no signal, then pop in and be strong as ever.

So any clues as to why, even when i have a channel on hold, it wont stay locked in and instead i get zero bars and no talk? It's impossible to listen to as it is now.

 

[rdale]

Turn off priority and weather priority.

 

[torontokris]

also close call (if its on)

Turn off priority and weather priority.

 

[sjlamb]

Turn off priority and weather priority.

I experienced the same problem when I first got my 396XT. As noted by RDale; turning off Priority and Weather Priority eliminated the "chopping" of audio as the scanner performed it Priority samplings every few seconds.

 

[DaveIN]

To quote UPMan on the subject: "If it is every 5 seconds like clockwork, then it is WX Priority. If it is every 2 seconds, regardless of system type, it is Close Call Priority (try Close Call DND instead). If it is random, then it is a signal issue, try improving antenna or location."

 

[berksguy]

thanks for all the advice, i'll have to try the suggestions later. I guess i had my priorities fighting among each other? So how do you choose what to do priority on? I do admit i must have gone wild and put in like 30+ of my local channels as priority and did see one change to another mid call. Thus what you guys are probably talking about

so is priority just for ,say, my ONE local PD that i definitely want to kick in?

funny you mention close call, i didnt even know we got FM on these things until my local station kicked in. I did permanent lock out on but i guess ill try killing close call too until I'm sure i dont have this cutting in/out problem

the issue doesnt seem to be weather priority since it only does this when a local PD is broadcasting, actually, i have yet to hear anything on weather so maybe I dont even have it programmed

 

[UPMan]

Whether 1 or 100, the scanner will still interrupt other transmissions whenever you have priority turned on. However, the duration of the "break" will be affected by the number of channels, so to minimize the drop-out, you should just use priority on channels that you really never want to miss a transmission on (I use for SWAT, Hostage, Emergency, etc). By default, the scanner checks priorities every 2 seconds, but you can change it to any value from 1-10 seconds (PriorityScan < UnidenMan4 < TWiki).

Note that trunked priority is not handled the same as conventional channel priority. Trunked priority does not interrupt transmissions, but only works when the scanner is sitting on an idle control channel (except for Motorola systems that include priority channel data in the Low Speed Data (LSD) stream on the voice channels).


You can turn on Broadcast Screen to prevent hits from broadcast sources (as well as some other common frequency for "annoyance" hits).

WX priority would interrupt any broadcast, regardless of who. The interruption would be every 5 seconds like clockwork. WX would be in the display when WX priority is turned on.

 

[berksguy]

Ok i reloaded only my local county stuff and turned off priority at all. sure enough it worked. But then I found out that the local intermediate unit was on a lot so i had to delete the frequency..they were congratulating a guy on his retirement lol

I do want to go back in and do priority for local fire and PD but i have to figure out which channels they are.

I almost wish the scanner could do different 'profiles'. Most of the time i'm just gonna want the local PD etc, but there may be a time in the future i want to do scanning of everything...airplanes etc etc.

I know with freescan i can do Save As and load different things that way..but is there a way to do it through freescan but then switch 'profiles' on the unit?

 

[UPMan]

You can do something akin to seperate profiles. Assign the same Startup key for all systems you want for a particular profile. When powering on, holding down that startup key will unlock all those systems while locking out those with a different startup key (and leaving those with no startup key assigned alone).

I use this to switch from desk mode (no GPS control, include Dallas stuff) to car mode (all GPS controlled) to home mode (no Dallas, but a bit more to the south and east).