BC346XT "reception"

[boeingphan]

Hello,
I have an issue while scanning other towns other than my own. First and foremost, I live in north jersey where there are a lot of mountains. Anyway, I can here my town completely clear, when I scan, though, I can hear other towns too, but it randomly cuts out. Priority is NOT on, and I don't think it is the reception because I can here them pretty clear and it just cuts out, It doesn't get really scratchy then cut out.

--Any suggestions??

Thanks.

 

[ka3jjz]

What you didn't mention was whether you were using an outside antenna. That little duckie is OK for local stuff, but will fall way short if you're trying to hear further out.

The general idea is the higher and clearer you can get it away from obstacles the better (within some limits, of course). Now I would hesitate to put a big Yagi on a little handheld - it would simply be too much signal and likely overload. Being from your area (native of Waldwick), you're also going to have to contend with heavy FM broadcast usage - too much antenna, and you're almost sure to get some of that creeping in there.

We have a bunch of options in our wiki (anything blue is a link) - see what whets your fancy, but keep in mind, it's very likely you will need to add some external filtering (like from PAR electronics) to nail all that FM stuff...

Scanner Antennas - The RadioReference Wiki

Discones are quite popular, since they are very broadbanded (and thus have little gain) - both Diamond and Icom have very good ones. Some folks have also had some success with the RS model, but watch out - heavy winds might tear that little antenna to pieces pretty quick

HTH...Mike

 

[nanZor]

Like Mike said, it may mostly be just the need for a better antenna / location setup. However...

One possibility is that you have the squelch on the 346 turned waaaay up by accident - usually by a lot. The squelch is so tight that weak signals really chop off immediately, especially if mobile. This can happen while trying to adjust your volume, but had the function key active first, changing the squelch, and forgetting to reset it when in a hurry.

You may also be getting desense from an intermittent strong transmitter, that doesn't affect the local signal strength too much, but is enough to drop those weak stations immediately. Do you ever seem to miss the beginnings of weak transmissions too?

I'd check the squelch, and then possibly do some Close-Call monitoring to see if anything comes up.

 

[boeingphan]

My Squelch is 2. When Im in the other towns, I can hear them fine.

 

[ka3jjz]

In a car, with that miserable little duckie, you're going to be seriously limited as to how far you're going to hear. Of course when you're in a town, you'll hear it well. The little duckies on most handhelds are really lossy antennas - they're compromises at best. While there are better duckies on the market, they will do you little good in a rolling RF cage, which is what a car basically is.

Like I said before, a better antenna is a step in the right direction, and get it outside (in the case of a car, mounting it nice and high will help), but don't get too much of an antenna, or you're almost certain to get into overloading issues. If everything you want to hear in your mobile is on VHF hi band/UHF/800, Larsen makes a nice tribander which isn't very big (and doesn't have a whole lot of gain, and in this case, it's ideal for that area), and many folks use this for their vehicle. You have to buy a separate mount for it; it will improve your reception of towns further out to a degree, just keep in mind that there are limits to what you can hear in this situation.

Of course, Hertzian's suggestion about getting a bit of desense (remember where you are) is certainly a possibility.

Mike