i'm in essentially the same boat here -- i just got a 396xt which i've programmed for my area (which in itself took a while to understand, but i think i'm good now). i'm near houston, connecting to the txwarn p25 system. the site in my county is listed as a "5-site simulcast" (P25 LSM - CQPSK) and unfortunately it's all but useless to me when using this site. there's extreme times of silence and when something does break through, it's all garbled. i've gone a few years without having a scanner since they made the change to digital, so now that i've finally gotten this new scanner, it's very very disheartening to be having these issues.
there are a number of other sites in my general area, in neighboring counties, which are not simulcast. interestingly enough, if i connect to the next closest one, i don't seem to have any of these issues with garbled or choppy voice, but i also seem to be missing quite a lot since there's mostly silence. when i do hear stuff it's pretty clear.
for reference, the system i'm connecting to is
Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) -- the
Montgomery County Simulcast site is the simulcast one which is all choppy and garbled, and the site which sounds pretty good but SEEMS to be missing too much is
Tomball.
as for antennas, i've used the antenna included with the radio, a radioshack 800mhz using the included bnc adapter, as well as a diamond rh77ca also using the adapter -- i get similar results across the board. the thing that bothers me is that, although when i'm able to connect to the tomball site, i seem to not be hearing nearly enough as it should be a really busy system (and no, i'm not limiting to just my programmed talk groups) so i think i'm missing a LOT, even when it seems to be working on that site.
i've tried changing settings and all to no avail -- am i just essentially screwed? i'd really hate to have to return this scanner, as it otherwise seems pretty excellent. but, that being said, it's also a huge expense for something that seems so obviously crippled.
any pointers?