BCD996p2 Not Getting NJICS Control Channel

[slingshot202]

I recently realized my Uniden BCD996p2 in the truck is no longer receiving NJICS, I attempted another antenna in the truck.

I have also attempted to factory reset the radio, do a clear all settings with an upload from FreeScan, I did the same from ProScan to no avail.

Yesterday in order to compbat the problem realized I was not on the latest FW, so I updated to 01.08.01.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? I know where I am I should be able to receive the NJICS West Orange Simulcast and if I channel through the frequenices I am seeing carrier.

I checked other trunks, Morris County Phase 1 and West Orange EDACS both work.

I am at a loss. The only thing I can say was in the beginning of January I cleared the scanner to upload another setup for some travel, nut not the first time I have done that and I have never had an issue going back.

I am definitely open to suggestions at this point.

Thank you.

 

[tvengr]

If you attach your programming file, I will be happy to look at it and check for any problems.

 

[Tech792]

Make sure your squelch is set low enough. I had the same problem with a local system and found out my squelch was turned almost all the way up. Must have hit it by accident. After that, never had a problem again.

 

[slingshot202]

Make sure your squelch is set low enough. I had the same problem with a local system and found out my squelch was turned almost all the way up. Must have hit it by accident. After that, never had a problem again.

Oh Lord, this sounds familiar.......I hope it is (and hope it is not) that simple!!! LOL

 

[slingshot202]

Make sure your squelch is set low enough. I had the same problem with a local system and found out my squelch was turned almost all the way up. Must have hit it by accident. After that, never had a problem again.

I am not sure why this works this way, but I was at 13 squelch when I got in the truck, lowered to zero and it returned the carrier. I was then able to move it up and down as I wanted w/o any interferance. I had this happen once before and I totally forgot. Guess I will play with building the configuration again tomorrow.

 

[maus92]

I am not sure why this works this way, but I was at 13 squelch when I got in the truck, lowered to zero and it returned the carrier. I was then able to move it up and down as I wanted w/o any interferance. I had this happen once before and I totally forgot. Guess I will play with building the configuration again tomorrow.

So all is good?

 

[tvengr]

If you turn off all systems with conventional channels using carrier squelch, you won't hear RF noise no matter where the squelch is set. When scanning P25 systems, I set the squelch to minimum.

 

[slingshot202]

So all is good?

Seems to be good, I loaded one Tower last night and it was working. I am going to do my full reload today and believe we should be good to go.

 

[W3AXL]

I've seen this issue as well and I believe it might be a firmware bug, or possibly something weird going on with freescan. I'm on the latest firmware as well.

I've got a BCD996P2 with a couple local P25 systems programmed up. On first boot, with squelch set to ~8 or so, the scanner will skip both systems without finding the control channels. Once I bring squelch down to around 0 (0 through 2 seems to work) it will then start to pick up both control channels with perfectly fine signal strengths. I can bring squelch back to around ~8 and it will continue to pick up the CCs and receive traffic just fine. After a reboot the problem comes back and I have to "reset" the squelch again to get it to work.

Both systems are simulcast which could be part of the problem, but once I've coerced the radio into picking up the CCs it receives traffic with no issues and a very low BER.

Was considering starting a thread but it seems like the issue in this one is the same I've been seeing.

 

[tvengr]

The squelch operation is normal. I monitor a 700 MHz system with a 996P2. The scanner will not acquire the control channel if the squelch is set to higher than 6. Once the scanner acquires the control channel, I can run the squelch all the way up to 19 and it will continue to scan. If I cycle the power off and back on, the scanner will not acquire the control channel again until the squelch is backed down to 6. The optimum squelch setting is usually 2 for that scanner. If set any higher, you will lose weaker signals. Increase the squelch level only if the scanner will not quiet on some channels and then keep the squelch as low as possible.

 

[EdAzalia]

Actually on a BCD998P2 if you are only scanning TRS's you can set the squelch to zero - fully counterclockwise.

 

[W3AXL]

The squelch operation is normal. I monitor a 700 MHz system with a 996P2. The scanner will not acquire the control channel if the squelch is set to higher than 6. Once the scanner acquires the control channel, I can run the squelch all the way up to 19 and it will continue to scan. If I cycle the power off and back on, the scanner will not acquire the control channel again until the squelch is backed down to 6. The optimum squelch setting is usually 2 for that scanner. If set any higher, you will lose weaker signals. Increase the squelch level only if the scanner will not quiet on some channels and then keep the squelch as low as possible.

I don't know if I would call it "normal" but thanks for the clarification. I typically have to keep squelch around 7-8 due to local noise sources and distant signals that don't come in too well in the mobile. Due to scanning RR & Airband channels I have a lot of CSQ channels to scan. It seems to me that that shouldn't be intended behavior - if the trunking sites scan just fine at a squelch of 10 then you shouldn't need to go down to near-zero to get them to be picked up in the first place.

Actually on a BCD998P2 if you are only scanning TRS's you can set the squelch to zero - fully counterclockwise.

Interestingly I've actually noticed that at a squelch of zero, the scanner stops on whatever trunking system it hits first and stays there, not even decoding the CC. Could be some strange issue with my Freescan programming but regardless because of the above mentioned channels I sadly can't afford the luxury of running the squelch wide open all the time.

 

[EdAzalia]

I think it was upman that said you could set the SQ at 0. Maybe just P25? I don't remember. It was a while ago. Anyway it works for me but I do scan CS sometimes so I really normally have it set at 2.

 

[phask]

I think it was upman that said you could set the SQ at 0. Maybe just P25? I don't remember. It was a while ago. Anyway it works for me but I do scan CS sometimes so I really normally have it set at 2.

Actually, he told me (in a direct emial) to NOT set to zero. Seemed to work and I don't have the reasons why to not do it.

 

[jonwienke]

Actually, he told me (in a direct emial) to NOT set to zero. Seemed to work and I don't have the reasons why to not do it.

If you have squelch set at zero and scanning trunked sites, it takes the scanner a lot longer to find the control channel if it doesn't happen to be the first entry in the site frequency list, and the scanner will dwell on out-of-range sites a lot longer than if squelch is set appropriately. It's best to keep squelch at the lowest setting that doesn't hang the scanner when scanning conventional/analog channels.

 

[W3AXL]

So I would still consider that to be a bug. I can't imagine intended functionality is to require the squelch to be set that low just to acquire a site. It's a bit of a pain to have to manually bring the squelch down to 1, wait for the site to acquire, and bring it back up every time I start my truck.

 

[jonwienke]

Normal squelch setting is between 1 and 3. Zero disables squelch. It's definitely not a bug.

 

[W3AXL]

At the risk of going completely off topic (and maybe this warrants a new thread) why is that the case when squelch can be set so much higher?

For example - in my specific situation I scan airband and railroad frequencies in addition to a few trunking systems. For whatever reason (possibly a locally high noise floor in town) when squelch is set to anything below 6 or so, distant signals open up squelch but are almost entirely noise. Because of the above mentioned problem this means that the scanner doesn't pick up the P25 control channels until I lower squelch, but once they're "detected" I can raise it back up and continue on just fine at the previous squelch level. Just me thinking out loud, but if the scanner scans the systems just fine at a squelch of 6, it shouldn't need that dropped down to 1 or 2 just to "discover" them in the first place.

 

[ka3aaa]

you must not have anything else or more to do than dwell on how the squelch is set, just set it on two and forget about, thats is where tha scanner works best. enough already.

 

[mikewpu04]

Make sure your squelch is set low enough. I had the same problem with a local system and found out my squelch was turned almost all the way up. Must have hit it by accident. After that, never had a problem again.

Was having the same exact issue. Didn't realize my squelch was on 12. Thank you.