Attenuator for the Pro 2096 receiver

[mrlthse]

Greeting All,
I have a question of "Attenuation" for the Radio Shack Pro 2096 digital Police scanner.
In the owner manual on page 36 it describes the two version of the ATT button on the receivers.
Does anyone know the amount in Db is activated when this function is pushed
and the letter "A" is displayed on the screen.

 

[tvengr]

I believe it is 20 db which would be 1/10 of the voltage when the attenuator is off. This is from Mark's Scanners for the PRO-106/197:

Using the Attenuator

The attenuator reduces the amount of signal at the receiver input (20 dB) and may help reduce interference from strong nearby transmitters

 

[wtp]

-20db would be about 1/100 of the original signal.

 

[tvengr]

-20db would be about 1/100 of the original signal.

1/10 of the voltage, 1/100 of the power.

 

[mrlthse]

I have a couple of Radio Shack Pro 2035 and Pro 2042
And they have a 10 Db switch on the back of the receiver unit itself.

 

[Ubbe]

Some old scanners can have A 10db attenuator and others 20dB, that are the most used one. A 10dB are probably more useful value in most cases as it usually only needs a little attenuation to stop it from overloading. I think that my Pro96 has a 10dB attenuator so could be 10dB in a 2096. Unidens SDS scanners has something more like a 30dB attenuator. From the Uniden SDS manual:

14. Attenuator
ITEM UNIT NOMINAL LIMIT
(NFM) 40.840 MHz dB 33 10 Min
(FM) 72.515 MHz dB 33 10 Min
(AM) 127.175 MHz dB 33 10 Min
(NFM) 161.985 MHz dB 31 10 Min
(AM) 272.950 MHz dB 27 10 Min
(NFM) 406.875 MHz dB 24 10 Min
(NFM) 857.150 MHz dB 22 10 Min

/Ubbe