tdnuerf
Member
Da Problem: BCD396T with Marin County's MERA programmed as one system with six groups. Everything works fine until a broadcast is received on the voice channel at 482.9375 MHz. The transmission is heard normally until a few seconds after the sender keys off. I know the transmission's over when the display (line 3) changes from "482.9375 P25" to "482.9375 LNK", followed shortly (~1 second later) by the speaker going silent and display line 3 changing to "482.9375 ". Approximately 2 seconds after that, squelch opens and I hear the motorboating sound of a control channel. The display freq still reads "482.9375 " at this point. If I do nothing, I hear the motorboating sound until another voice comm uses that channel, at which time I hear the voice traffic, after which the radio may or may not return to a control channel for further scanning. Note that when this subsequent voice traffic is heard on 482.9375, the first two display lines continue to show the System/Group Name and TGID Name of the TG that previously used the voice channel. If, when the motorboating is happening, I rotate the tuning dial, the radio locks onto the next control channel and acts normally; until the next voice comm picked up is on 482.9375MHz.
Succinctly put, the problem is "whenever this system (MERA) receives a voice communication on a certain frequency, it doesn't return to the control channel at EOT, but sticks on the voice channel just used." Note that this voice channel is also a control channel per the system map, but the radio doesn't behave as if it's now monitoring this as a control channel (i.e., it doesn't scroll "ID SEARCH" on display line #2.)
If I manually tune to an active control channel other than 482.9375MHz (e.g., 488.7000, which is primary for Site 001), I hear the distinct motorboat sound of a control channel. If I manually tune to 482.9375, it sounds like a control channel with an extra layer of hiss on top of it.
I have tried the following with no change in the problem:
-- switching antennas. RS 800MHz, Antenex ABSCANC, Diamond RH771, RS 20-006 all give same results.
-- switching radio/system settings. Hold Time, Delay Time, AGC, Status Bit, End Code, Attenuation, all tweaked one at a time. Same results.
-- tuning P25 decoding per the RR Wiki's "Decode Level" article. (This resulted in the pre-transmission motorboat time decreasing from > 0.5 to < 0.5 seconds per comm. Still too much, but from what I'm reading here, it's normal.) Same results.
-- wiping the radio and programming the system by hand. Same results.
-- updating firmware; currently at 1.09.00. Same results. (Except that the digital decode time dropped a lot -- thanks, Uniden!)
When I take the radio mobile, the problem does not exist. Okay, something in/near my house may be the culprit. Like maybe the high-voltage towers three houses away that I can hear 'sizzling' quite often? But if this is so, why doesn't my PRO-96 have the same problem (see below)? Regardless of local environmental conditions, I'm not going to relocate my family for this problem.
This system is set up as Motorola UHF Type 2. Signal strength is okay (at least 3 bars on average) for control and most voice channels. Note that when the post-transmission voice channel motorboating is happening, I have zero signal strength bars. Zero bars when I manually tune to 482.9375MHz and hear the motorboat as well. Why would this be?
Hmmm. (He thinks to himself... no signal, but still hear noise... squelch?) Late-breaking news. If I set squelch to max (level 15), this problem decreases. Level 14 doesn't help. Of course, max squelch hurts when scanning the four conventional systems I want to scan along with MERA...
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that my PRO-96 works fine on MERA; sounds a lot better than the BC396T, as a matter of fact. Although the BC396T does seem to bounce back to the control channel(s) faster than the PRO-96, and as a result picks up more calls... unless the last call was on 482.9375, that is.
What should I do? Please tell me I missed some little setting somewhere that'll get rid of this very very annoying issue.
Thanks muchly,
-Don
Succinctly put, the problem is "whenever this system (MERA) receives a voice communication on a certain frequency, it doesn't return to the control channel at EOT, but sticks on the voice channel just used." Note that this voice channel is also a control channel per the system map, but the radio doesn't behave as if it's now monitoring this as a control channel (i.e., it doesn't scroll "ID SEARCH" on display line #2.)
If I manually tune to an active control channel other than 482.9375MHz (e.g., 488.7000, which is primary for Site 001), I hear the distinct motorboat sound of a control channel. If I manually tune to 482.9375, it sounds like a control channel with an extra layer of hiss on top of it.
I have tried the following with no change in the problem:
-- switching antennas. RS 800MHz, Antenex ABSCANC, Diamond RH771, RS 20-006 all give same results.
-- switching radio/system settings. Hold Time, Delay Time, AGC, Status Bit, End Code, Attenuation, all tweaked one at a time. Same results.
-- tuning P25 decoding per the RR Wiki's "Decode Level" article. (This resulted in the pre-transmission motorboat time decreasing from > 0.5 to < 0.5 seconds per comm. Still too much, but from what I'm reading here, it's normal.) Same results.
-- wiping the radio and programming the system by hand. Same results.
-- updating firmware; currently at 1.09.00. Same results. (Except that the digital decode time dropped a lot -- thanks, Uniden!)
When I take the radio mobile, the problem does not exist. Okay, something in/near my house may be the culprit. Like maybe the high-voltage towers three houses away that I can hear 'sizzling' quite often? But if this is so, why doesn't my PRO-96 have the same problem (see below)? Regardless of local environmental conditions, I'm not going to relocate my family for this problem.
This system is set up as Motorola UHF Type 2. Signal strength is okay (at least 3 bars on average) for control and most voice channels. Note that when the post-transmission voice channel motorboating is happening, I have zero signal strength bars. Zero bars when I manually tune to 482.9375MHz and hear the motorboat as well. Why would this be?
Hmmm. (He thinks to himself... no signal, but still hear noise... squelch?) Late-breaking news. If I set squelch to max (level 15), this problem decreases. Level 14 doesn't help. Of course, max squelch hurts when scanning the four conventional systems I want to scan along with MERA...
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that my PRO-96 works fine on MERA; sounds a lot better than the BC396T, as a matter of fact. Although the BC396T does seem to bounce back to the control channel(s) faster than the PRO-96, and as a result picks up more calls... unless the last call was on 482.9375, that is.
What should I do? Please tell me I missed some little setting somewhere that'll get rid of this very very annoying issue.
Thanks muchly,
-Don
