BCD996XT Not Picking Up Anything

[joyceal]

Hello, My name is Alex and this is my first post on this website. I am relatively new to digital scanning, but have spent hours upon hours of research, tinkering, and trying to find someone with the same problem all over the forums, but to no avail.

I currently reside in El Paso, Texas and purchased a BCD996XT scanner for my truck off of Amazon. I am not receiving ANYTHING while it ID searches.

I have read the Easier to Read manual.

I used FreeScan and got the El Paso Project 25 Regional Communications System load for the radio.

I gave them quick keys for everything and loaded it into the radio using the USB-1 cable and it loaded successfully.

It will search, but nothing ever comes over the scanner.

My squelch is set at 3.

I tried two antennas and I even opened up the unit to look and make the sure connection was good inside the radio itself where the antenna connects and it is well soldered and connected.
(used the stock antenna and a windshield suction cup antenna.)

I even tried conventional with sheriff frequencies, but nothing comes through.

I am at a total loss and have looked EVERYWHERE for a solution, but cannot find one...

I am hoping someone could help me out with this issue. Please be patient with me!

Thank you!

 

[ofd8001]

The first thing to try is Weather Scan. This should tell you if your scanner receives anything. If you can't receive weather, the possibility exists that you have a defective scanner (not likely, but possible).

If you receive a weather transmission, that's good news - your scanner works. From there it's just a case of tinkering with it - often one little setting can make a huge difference. If you get that weather transmission, try programming that trunked system as a conventional system (inputting all of the frequencies assigned to that system). That will tell you whether you are close enough to receive the system. If you can receive it, the scanner will stop on the control channel which makes a funny noise - just lock that out and continue scanning to see if you receive voice transmissions on the rest of the frequencies.

Most of all, keep that faith - most everyone experiences frustrations in the beginning. As time goes along, we figure things out and all is well from there.

 

[joyceal]

Thank you for the reply!

I tried the weather scan. I am not picking anything up. Tried different squelches and even tried the frequency for el paso off of NOAA, but its just static. When it scanned it didn't pick anything up.

 

[wtp]

things to check

the broadcast screen should be set to all off
one of the settings is noaa broadcast if that is on you won't hear them

 

[joyceal]

@wtp

I set them all to off and went back to scanning, but I am still not getting anything. Maybe it is an internal antenna connection issue?

 

[ofd8001]

Bummer - not receiving weather is a bad sign. The problem could be a lot of things.

If you purchased the scanner recently, you may wish to contact the seller for a replacement. If that doesn't work you might need to send it to Uniden for repairs.

 

[joyceal]

Hmm. I am almost positive I am doing it right. I feel like I am not because I'm just not getting anything.

I appreciate all the feedback and help! If there is anything else anyone can think of I will try it. I am going to try to find some place locally that might be able to repair it so I don't have to wait a month before I get it back from being repaired.

 

[SDavis90]

If you turn it on and whatever its doing, press hold to stop it. Key in your strongest FM broadcast radio station and press hold. No signal...antenna. Good signal, no sound...blown speaker. Although NOAA is a good way to confirm, I have seen the site go down before albeit briefly.
Hate your misfortune, if that's the case but want to help you.

 

[joyceal]

I tried some more tinkering and when I turn the squelch off then I get 3 bars of signal. When I move the antenna it will come down to 2 and back to 3. When I take the antenna off it just stops completely and loses all signal.

I don't know if that brings me any close to some sort of resolution. :/

 

[SDavis90]

Sounds like antenna issue. Are you getting audio during the signal reception w/ the squelch out?

 

[joyceal]

Every which way I have tried I have not gotten one single minuscule of anything that sounds like a human voice coming out of the speaker. I have gotten static but that is all.

 

[Ronaldski]

I have seen this happen once before on a 996XT. Fellow bought it brand new, day later he had me program it, worked fine for two days. Called me up, said about the occasional static on the speaker once in awhile as you.
I tried my power wall adapter, hooked it up to the outside antenna, wouldn't stop on nuttin'.
Same programming on mine as it was picking up stuff, his was deaf, even on the the three NOAA weather stations that we can get here.
- The suggestion about doing the FM broadcast in the "Search for..." in the "Service Search" is a good one.

I tried, just to try it, was to re-flash the firmware, had no confidence it would work and it didnt.
Since under warranty, I had him call Uniden and they overnighted him a replacement 996XT. Then he had to send the broken one back.
His circuit board someway - somehow was shot.

Only thing I could offer to him as he said he has it plugged into a power strip without an electric spike suppression filter, besides just getting a bad one, maybe a voltage spike took it out?

 

[ofd8001]

Getting the signal bars tells you that your radio is receiving, so I'd be inclined to think it is something in the audio end. Have you tried using headphones - if they work, that suggests a speaker issue.

I'd discourage sending it to be repaired any place but Uniden. These are pretty sprecialized devices and not everyone can get parts or even schematics to work on them. Plus if something is messed up, I doubt Uniden would honor any warrenty. So as disappointing as it is, if you can't return it to the seller for replacement, then your most reliable option is to send it to Uniden. But taking a month for repairs ain't great either.

 

[joyceal]

Nothing is picking up... no frequencies are being displayed. With the El Paso load, none of the IDs pop up either... I think something is definitely wrong with it... :/

 

[wtp]

F.M. ?

how about if you do a service search in the fm radio band?

 

[joyceal]

With service search on FM it stays on the first channel... the signal will fluctuate as i move it around, and even if I turn squelch all the way up it will stay on that freq, but i only get static. Even when I scrub through channels with the knob it stays on the channel with only static. I tried headphones as well but only static.

 

[ofd8001]

You may wish to visit the site shown below. If I read your original post correctly, it sounds like you recently purchased your scanner. There is a one year warranty on it.

Product Repair

 

[wtp]

hoping

one thing i would hope for is that the pin in the bnc is broken and not letting in a signal.
one thing to try is to try the fm band again with a paperclip in the connection but just a little bit.

 

[joyceal]

Here is what it looks like on the inside to the antenna... dunno if anyone can spot something weird or not since i dont really know what it should look like

 

[n3lee]

Have you tried plugging in an external speaker or headphones? Signal meter moving up indicates somethings happening.... some phono jacks have a switch in them to disable the speaker and get tooled up when the cord gets "pulled" off-axis.