I have been using the BCD996P2 for over a year and cannot solve an issue. I am scanning the Tennessee Advanced Communication Network in Anderson County. It’s not simulcast and have the scanner hooked to an outside antenna. The issue is on the same sites I get the TN Highway Patrol TG great very few decode issues but the Sheriffs department about 30-40 percent of the time intermittent choppy garbled audio or starts to decode fine and then drops the audio, or stops on sheriff TG but no audio decode and channel is not encrypted. I have tried P25 threshold adjust really hasn’t helped the issue. It looks like from the RR database THP is phase II and Anderson County Sheriff is Phase I, not sure if that is affecting the audio decode. I am out of ideas on how to improve sheriff TG decode.
BCD325P2/BCD996P2: Bcd996p2 P25 audio decode issue
- Thread starter wprileyjr3
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tvengr
Well Known Member
The sheriff on TACN may be a patch from the analog frequencies. Try monitoring the analog frequencies and see if you hear the same thing.
In addition to tvengr's suggestion, it may help if we knew a bit more info:
1. Which sites are you monitoring? Oak Ridge & Windrock Mt. seem to be the Anderson Co. sites.
2. Have you checked each site to ensure that you're getting a good signal from each?
3. Have you checked each site options to be sure that the attenuator isn't on--it happens.
If you're monitoring many different sites, limiting the number of sites you're listening to may help.
1. Which sites are you monitoring? Oak Ridge & Windrock Mt. seem to be the Anderson Co. sites.
2. Have you checked each site to ensure that you're getting a good signal from each?
3. Have you checked each site options to be sure that the attenuator isn't on--it happens.
If you're monitoring many different sites, limiting the number of sites you're listening to may help.
I have Windrock Mt, Oak Ridge and Cross Mountain programmed in. Cross Mt is in Campbell County but near the county line so Sheriff is on all three.
Windrock and Cross Mt have the strongest signal full bars on scanner. Oak Ridge is weaker.
I checked my settings for each site to make sure attenuator was off it was but hand’t thought to check that before.
Did you try tvengr's suggestion? If you can copy the Sheriff on analog, that may be the simplest and best solution.
If you cannot copy the Sheriff via analog freqs, you might want to see if you can isolate the issue to one of the three sites that you're currently monitoring. Assuming that you don't already know which site is giving you the issue--hopefully, it's not all of them--I'd suggest temporarily avoiding two of the three sites, and just listening for the Sheriff on one site at a time. Do this for each of the three sites to see if you can isolate the issue to one site.
Also, if you have access to more than one scanner, you could also listen to each site--one site on each scanner--to see if the transmitted traffic is the same on each site. If all three sites have identical traffic, you could reduce the number of sites you're monitoring which would help if you find that one site is causing the issue. If the issue happens on all three sites, then I'd look for set-up issues on your scanner... like:
-P25 LP Filter setting--see what happens with it turned Off or On.
-Did you return the P25 Threshold back to its default setting or Auto--I leave mine on Auto most of the time.
-Site hold time shouldn't give you the symptoms you're describing, but it couldn't hurt to see what it's set on... I keep mine set to zero.
Did you program it or did someone else? Did you purchase the scanner new or did you buy it used? Sometimes there's some weird setting that a previous owner or a different programmer may have set-up. Starting from scratch isn't fun--unless you're crazy like me--but it can sometimes remedy those hard-to-pin-down issues.
Just throwing a bunch of ideas out there to give you some troubleshooting thoughts.
If you cannot copy the Sheriff via analog freqs, you might want to see if you can isolate the issue to one of the three sites that you're currently monitoring. Assuming that you don't already know which site is giving you the issue--hopefully, it's not all of them--I'd suggest temporarily avoiding two of the three sites, and just listening for the Sheriff on one site at a time. Do this for each of the three sites to see if you can isolate the issue to one site.
Also, if you have access to more than one scanner, you could also listen to each site--one site on each scanner--to see if the transmitted traffic is the same on each site. If all three sites have identical traffic, you could reduce the number of sites you're monitoring which would help if you find that one site is causing the issue. If the issue happens on all three sites, then I'd look for set-up issues on your scanner... like:
-P25 LP Filter setting--see what happens with it turned Off or On.
-Did you return the P25 Threshold back to its default setting or Auto--I leave mine on Auto most of the time.
-Site hold time shouldn't give you the symptoms you're describing, but it couldn't hurt to see what it's set on... I keep mine set to zero.
Did you program it or did someone else? Did you purchase the scanner new or did you buy it used? Sometimes there's some weird setting that a previous owner or a different programmer may have set-up. Starting from scratch isn't fun--unless you're crazy like me--but it can sometimes remedy those hard-to-pin-down issues.
Just throwing a bunch of ideas out there to give you some troubleshooting thoughts.
tvengr
Well Known Member
Do not use the P25 LP filter unless you hear a 4 khz tone. It ties up a lot of the computer time.
tvengr
Well Known Member
Almost all of the talkgroups for Anderson County use encryption. They may be using partial encryption such as dispatch is in the clear and the mobiles are encrypted.
I appreciate you throwing all the ideas out there to make sure I haven’t missed something.
The analog channels went silent the day they switched to TACN.
I have used the scanner app on my phone to compare transmissions on the system with my scanner. They come in clear on the app when I get bad decode.
I have held on one site and Sheriff dispatch talk group. It didn’t matter which site I held on still about 30 percent of the time bad decode with high error rate.
I tried auto and manually setting P25 thread hold not a big difference. P25 LP filter is off also. It is strange it is just Sheriff. THP talk group on same system and site I have no problem with. I got the scanner new and programmed myself using free scan from RR database.
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Local here we have ANALOG to TACN Patch and DMR to TACN Patch. The Analog sounds great the DMR sounds like they have a mouth full of peanut butter very hard to understand.
I'm afraid I'm out of ideas on why this isn't working for you... I took a quick look at the Windrock Mt, Oak Ridge and Cross Mountain sites to see if there was any frequency reuse between the three of them but didn't see any. We have lots of freq reuse in my area of WV which can sometimes be a pain for folks who like to monitor several sites at once--as sort of simulcast-lite issue. You don't seem to have that problem.
The only other thing I can recommend is to check in with the TN forum and ask the locals about the issue. You can even "report" this thread, and ask the admins to move there, which is what they prefer, rather than duplicate posts of the same issue in another forum.
Best of luck--I'd be very interested in knowing what the solution turns out to be.
The only other thing I can recommend is to check in with the TN forum and ask the locals about the issue. You can even "report" this thread, and ask the admins to move there, which is what they prefer, rather than duplicate posts of the same issue in another forum.
Best of luck--I'd be very interested in knowing what the solution turns out to be.
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