BCD396T Custom Search off frequency

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CqDx

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Helllo all,

I bought a brand spankin' new 396 (after one was lost in a trade) few days ago and I've been impressed by the audio quality of P25, but I have one problem. When I use custom search, the scanner stops on frequency way off from the actual frequency. (ie. The signal is at 166.3375, but the scanner would stop at as high as 166.375, or as low as 166.3125.) What can be done to this? Could it be intermod problem (I'm getting a lot of pager signals on VHF highband) or something else?

Thanks
 

DaveIN

Founders Curmudgen
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Did you try the pager block in the search settings? How close are you to the pager towers, did you try using the attenuation feature?
 

MarkWestin

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Apr 21, 2005
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Caribou, Maine
Make sure that your lower and upper frequencies are "legal" for the scanner. If you are unsure if they are or not, try putting the frequency in as a normal channel. If the scanner takes the frequency, it is "legal". If the frequency you input is (becomes) rounded, it is not "legal". If you search from a frequency that is not "legal", the scanner may be searching at a set step for that frequency range, and some (or most) of the frequencies may not be in a normal range. On Close Call, I see lots of hits that aren't really on the exact frequency. As Dave said, you may need to use the attenuator function, or use an antenna which is not as good as the one you are using now. Also try Data Skip while searching. I had the custom search problem on one of my communications receivers, and it was acting just like you are describing. (my lower and upper limit frequencies were incorrect)

Mark
 

CqDx

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I turned pager block, data skip and the attenuator on for all my custom search bands.
I believe the search ranges are legal, I set them at 403.0000 to 420.0000. The antenna I'm using now is a diamond RH77CA. It did well on my previous BC250D, but I will try the mobile mag mount later one.

I'm gonna try to manually set the steps to 12.5khz instead of using auto and see how this goes.

Thanks
 
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