BCD996XT woes and repairs?

russianspd

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I have a base BCD996XT setup in my car. The scanner has a cable running out to the trunk of the car with a mag mounted antenna that sits on the lip of the trunk. The other day I decided to get my car washed. Before going through the wash I unscrewed the antenna and removed the mag mount and placed them into the trunk. After the wash I reattached the mount and antenna. All of a sudden I noticed I wasn't receiving anything on all channels, even though I had not touched anything on the radio or removed the screw attachment connected from the base to the antenna cable. Seeing if the antenna had been affected or gone bad, I unscrewed the connector from the base onto the antenna mount for my handheld, everything worked fine. So since it's not the antenna/cable it has to be the pin within the connector of the radio for the antenna connection. I don't have the withal or technical confidence to try to fix it on my own.

Anyone know anything I could possibly try to get it working again? Radio turns on just fine and everything else works, just not receiving. It's well out of warranty as I have had it for over 5 years. If not, anyone locally willing to meet up and take a look at it, will be more than happy to pay for time rendered. PM's are open.

Thanks everyone!
 

ka3aaa

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is the whip as tight after you put it back on the base as it was when you took it off, im thinking the whip isnt making good contact to the magnetic base like it should be. you may have broken the antenna cable near the base. you tried the mag mount antenna on a different radio to see what happens. was the scanner turned on when you reconnected the antenna?
 

Ronaldski

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996XT's seen enough of them first hand that have a faulty IC21 - believed to be the squelch chip. Never seen nor heard of it happening in the 996P2. I can assume repair dept. talked to Uniden and mentioned of high repair rates for 996XT's on the same issue to not be in 996P2's and was fixed.

See Scanner UNIDEN BCD996XT has stopped receiving

 

Oakland_Tower

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I'm not sure if you did this, but have you attached a telescopic or other known "good" antenna to see if it then works? I have the same radio in my mobile and often attach/reattach the mag mount onto the trunk. I have had failures, always a cable issue, but the radio never failed.
 

tvengr

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I have had failures, always a cable issue, but the radio never failed.
I agree! Check your antenna cable. If using a mag mount antenna, the cable gets pinched and bent every time you close the trunk. Since the problem occurred when remounting the antenna, it most likely is a cable problem. You need to check for continuity and shorts on the shield and center conductor.
 

russianspd

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I'm not sure if you did this, but have you attached a telescopic or other known "good" antenna to see if it then works? I have the same radio in my mobile and often attach/reattach the mag mount onto the trunk. I have had failures, always a cable issue, but the radio never failed.
I have it slotted into a sleeve into a center console in my car. It's fitted quite snug so I haven't been able to get it out of it yet. I did try attaching an 800mhz rubber duck antenna and still didn't get anything coming through. The antenna and the cable connector to the trunk antenna work fine on the handheld.
 

russianspd

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I agree! Check your antenna cable. If using a mag mount antenna, the cable gets pinched and bent every time you close the trunk. Since the problem occurred when remounting the antenna, it most likely is a cable problem. You need to check for continuity and shorts on the shield and center conductor.
I suppose I can detach the mag from the trunk and try and straighten out the cable and see how that works, but if the antennas are receiving on the handheld and not the base, it makes me think it's something internal or the pin into the radio has become misaligned.
 

cg

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Are you saying you removed the antenna, mount and coax back to the radio to wash the vehicle or simply took the whip off the antenna mount? I don't see how anything short of disconnecting the BNC connector would result in radio damage. It is more likely that the pinch point of the antenna coax is damaged.
 

russianspd

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Are you saying you removed the antenna, mount and coax back to the radio to wash the vehicle or simply took the whip off the antenna mount? I don't see how anything short of disconnecting the BNC connector would result in radio damage. It is more likely that the pinch point of the antenna coax is damaged.
So when I went to wash my car, I unscrewed the antenna and I took off the magnetic mount and put them in the trunk. After, I put the mag back on and the antenna. After there was no audio. The part of the cable that goes directly into the radio was never removed. I took that off and tried it on my handheld and the audio came in fine. So it doesn't seem like it's the antenna/cable. I did read from a thread that the starting of the car can cause a potential power surge that can 'damage' components. This radio is well over 5/6 years so maybe it's just ageing out. Unfortunate because the radio 'works' just can't receive anything. Very frustrating.
 

tvengr

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When you say that the radio works, do you see it scanning and stopping on frequencies and talkgroups? If you just lost audio, it could be dirty contacts on the headphones or external speaker jack. That can mute the internal speaker. Plug headphones or an earpiece into the headphones jack and see if you hear anything. If using an external speaker, it could be a bad connection at the external speaker jack or a bad speaker. If using an amplified external speaker, you may have lost power to the speaker. Check the fuse and power connection. Also, check your squelch setting.
 
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russianspd

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It works as much as being on and scanning. But since nothing is coming through the antenna and cable and into the scanner, nothing is getting picked up or stopped on. I'm convinced it's a pin issue with the BNC connector from the end cable into the radio.
 

cg

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So removing the trunk end of the antenna from the trunk somehow caused the pin to fail, what, 6-8 feet away? Unless you removed it by pulling hard, it would not have damaged the radio end of the cable. That said, there is no real repair for the magnetic end so you would likely need a new mag mount no matter which end was damaged.
 
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russianspd

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So removing the trunk end of the antenna from the trunk somehow caused the pin to fail, what, 6-8 feet away? Unless you removed it by pulling hard, it would not have damaged the radio end of the cable. That said, there is no real repair for the magnetic end so you would likely need a new mag mount no matter which end was damaged.
I think you might have this massively confused. I have the radio mounted in a center console in the front of my car between the driver and passenger seat. I then have a cable running from the radio into the backseat and into the trunk. From the trunk the cable is fed up into the base of the mag mount with the unscrewable antenna. To prevent the antenna/mount from being displaced during the wash I unscrewed the antenna and moved the mag mount into the trunk. This is no way affects the part of the cable that feeds into the radio. After the wash I put the mag mount back on the lid of the trunk and screwed the antenna back on. The cable and radio were virtually untouched/undisturbed. I turned the car off and took car of the antenna. After when I started the car again was when nothing was being received anymore.

The mag works fine. I took the connector part of the cable from the backend of the radio and plugged it into my base radio and everything received fine. It's not the mag/antenna. It's the pin in the radio.
 

tvengr

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It works as much as being on and scanning. But since nothing is coming through the antenna and cable and into the scanner, nothing is getting picked up or stopped on. I'm convinced it's a pin issue with the BNC connector from the end cable into the radio.
Try resetting and reprogramming the scanner.
 
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