BCD325P2/BCD996P2: BCD996P2 P25 Threshold setting while mobile?

[Huntercw]

Hello everyone, so I've had my scanner for about a week now and love it. It is mounted in my truck and I use it while traveling to listen to trunked systems (NC VIPER) in my area. I've experimented with several different antennas and believe I have found one that has the best results for me, which is a Motorola HAF4017, which is the same antennas that they're using to transmit on. Anyway, usually the signal is clear and I have no issues, But sometimes during the middle of a transmission the sound will start getting choppy and cutting out like a bad cell phone connection. However I feel it happens to frequently to be just a dead zone or weak signal from a tower, sometimes it happens when I am pretty close to a tower. I did a lot of reading on other threads and found that adjusting the P25 threshold may solve this issue. It was set to auto by default and I read to enable the error rate display and leave it on a specific talkgroup for a while to let it self adjust the threshold and then manually set it to that. Which I did while stationary at home, it kept hopping between 9 and 10 with errors on both but stayed on 9 after transmissions were over, so I manually set it to 9 even though it still shows there are errors, I cannot find a setting that has 0 errors. But I am still experiencing choppy audio during transmissions occasionally. I have noticed that when I am hearing the choppy audio the error rate shoots up into the 100's. Does the manual threshold have adverse effects when using on a mobile setup. Since I am driving should I just leave it on auto and try adjusting something else? I appreciate everyone's input! Here is a link to a short video I took which shows the error rate.

Video

 

[tvengr]

Which sites are you using? VIPER has 3 sites in Buncombe County. You can assign a different system quick key to each site and easily select the site or sites within range. The breaking up may be due to a site with a marginal signal.

 

[Huntercw]

Well see I actually have them all enabled on one quick key since I drive by different ones all the time and have other counties on other quick keys, and I have the squelch turned up to about 8 so when it does pick up it is a pretty strong signal. Something is causing it to generate a lot of errors and I’m not sure if it’s the automatic threshold or something else.

 

[tvengr]

If you have the squelch turned up to 8, you are making it difficult for any site. Normally, squelch should be set to 2. Try assigning different quick keys to the 3 sites in Buncombe County and see which ones work and which ones don't.

 

[Huntercw]

If you have the squelch turned up to 8, you are making it difficult for any site. Normally, squelch should be set to 2. Try assigning different quick keys to the 3 sites in Buncombe County and see which ones work and which ones don't.

I hear transmissions from all of them every day, depending on where I am at the time I may be closer to one and then the other an hour later. I have the GPS module on the way, all the sites work, each site says to have a range of 15 miles and the GPS should automatically disable sites once I'm out of range, the problem with assigning each site a quick key is I am constantly between sites and counties. If it was set up as a base I would definitely just set it to the closest site and be done. I wish there was a way to just always lock onto the closest site but apparently that isn't feasible. I will try to lower the squelch but I don't think that's going to solve the errors issue.

 

[hazrat8990]

I hear transmissions from all of them every day, depending on where I am at the time I may be closer to one and then the other an hour later. I have the GPS module on the way, all the sites work, each site says to have a range of 15 miles and the GPS should automatically disable sites once I'm out of range, the problem with assigning each site a quick key is I am constantly between sites and counties. If it was set up as a base I would definitely just set it to the closest site and be done. I wish there was a way to just always lock onto the closest site but apparently that isn't feasible. I will try to lower the squelch but I don't think that's going to solve the errors issue.

I have a 536HP installed in my mobile along with GPS. The best way I've found to set up for mobile is to set the range from 0-5 to keep the number of distant sites to a minimum. This way, you can run your squelch higher in order to weed out the weak ones. I have my thresholds set to manual and 5 and don't have any issues, unless I'm in one of the dead zones that subscriber radios have issues with.

Over the last 9 years of having this setup, I've taken quite a few additional steps to fine tune the individual site settings. I've got the best results by tweaking the individual site range settings to better match their actual footprint, as well as changing the location for a few of them where the info in the database is wrong.

 

[jeff]

I have my 996P2 and 325P2 P25 thresholds set to manual 7 with excellent results. You will notice the error rate starts at 0 and jumps around especially with simulcast systems..