GRE PSR 500 skips over some freqs while scanning

[blueangel-eric]

.

Damn. In my 30 years as a very active ham I've NEVER had that happen to me. Check your Christmas light strings and ensure the insulation is in good shape! Maybe the porch light fixtures need to be checked.

what christmas lights? i don' t have lights up and i doubt my porch light isn't connected to my mast or ladder.
see here Hazards in the Workplace – RF Shock and Burn

this talks about what i'm talking about. not sure if the metal siding on the house is enough metal to have this effect.

 

[zzdiesel]

i already explained this. like i said the ATT does no good. if it was desense i wouldn't be picking up stations 50 miles away. desense effects the further weaker signals not the closest ones as much. if it was desense it would effect the radio reguardless if it was scanning or on one channel.

The ATT can be setup for individual channels or globally.

 

[manny49]

you can att. single channels ,its what i ment by only local channels ,strong signals will not be picked up on a base antenna. i live only a few short block away from my county sheriff and city police and have base antenna without att. i would not pick up either one .i have a pro106 . without att. i still pick up distant traffic with no problem. just not local. manny49

 

[KK4HG]

what christmas lights? i don' t have lights up and i doubt my porch light isn't connected to my mast or ladder.
see here Hazards in the Workplace – RF Shock and Burn

this talks about what i'm talking about. not sure if the metal siding on the house is enough metal to have this effect.

It was "tongue in cheak". Do you live very close to a transmitter? I don't see how you could receive an RF burn from your siding unless you were extremely close to the source of said RF.

Nice article, by the way.

 

[blueangel-eric]

It was "tongue in cheak". Do you live very close to a transmitter? I don't see how you could receive an RF burn from your siding unless you were extremely close to the source of said RF.

Nice article, by the way.

not burn but uncomfortable tingling that i learned to ignore. I get it from the mast if touching hard enough or using a wrench on the ubolt that holds the mast up makes a good connection never tried touching the siding while grounded to see if i get anything from it. the nearest FM broadcast towers are over 2 miles away and a AM station about 1-2 miles away. it's hard to imagine them doing it but i have no other ideas. i used to think it was the mast mounted preamp for another radio but i no longer have the preamp up there. i used to live much closer to the AM station years ago using the same mast and mounting with no problems. no metal siding though.

 

[socalmike]

I have seen this as well ....

Hi All,

I have seen this behavior on my PSR-500 and PSR-600. I agree with the OP , it is NOT desense .
I changed a few settings that made it better .These are :
TO MAKE SKIPPED CHANNELS better:

SQ Wait 1 - changed to 12

TO MAKE CTCSS DECODE better :
HD5 FADE - changed to 350
HD2 Holdoff - changed to 250

I have the same problems you have with BOTH GRE radios, The handheld is using the stock duck and the other is using a base antenna with a FM block filter from scannermaster . This seemed to fix the analog issue. However, I still have a problem like you mentioned but with Digital . If I set a NAC, the scanner will never stop on that channel. If I park on that channel it works fine. If I remove the NAC , it stops every time and even decodes the correct NAC but as soon as I save it stops working. I'm sure I can eventually figure out what settings work. Maybe change them one at a time . You will probably need to experiment and appreciate that at least you can try to tweak these settings .

 

[blueangel-eric]

Thanks for the info. one question. with changing the squelch wait higher then the recommended setting won't it scan even slower then the default settings? it seems the scanner scans slow enough as it is by default. according to the "Easier to Read Manual"
they say to use "Suggested value 5-7"

thanks again for your help.

Hi All,

I have seen this behavior on my PSR-500 and PSR-600. I agree with the OP , it is NOT desense .
I changed a few settings that made it better .These are :
TO MAKE SKIPPED CHANNELS better:

SQ Wait 1 - changed to 12

TO MAKE CTCSS DECODE better :
HD5 FADE - changed to 350
HD2 Holdoff - changed to 250

I have the same problems you have with BOTH GRE radios, The handheld is using the stock duck and the other is using a base antenna with a FM block filter from scannermaster . This seemed to fix the analog issue. However, I still have a problem like you mentioned but with Digital . If I set a NAC, the scanner will never stop on that channel. If I park on that channel it works fine. If I remove the NAC , it stops every time and even decodes the correct NAC but as soon as I save it stops working. I'm sure I can eventually figure out what settings work. Maybe change them one at a time . You will probably need to experiment and appreciate that at least you can try to tweak these settings .

 

[W2PMX]

From all of your various descriptions, I'd say that the "bad" signals are overloading the IF, causing a problem with the tone decode (probably due to distortion). Attenuation on just those channels might help, if the attenuator is before the stage being overloaded. (GREs are known to have oversensitivity problems - they always have.)

 

[blueangel-eric]

From all of your various descriptions, I'd say that the "bad" signals are overloading the IF, causing a problem with the tone decode (probably due to distortion). Attenuation on just those channels might help, if the attenuator is before the stage being overloaded. (GREs are known to have oversensitivity problems - they always have.)

I just sent it in. the tweaks i did was only temp and it got worse and i lost the police entirely too now. it's gotten worse. i've had it on the antenna all summer and it's just gotten worse in the last few weeks. i did have it higher on the other mast with a mast mounted TV preamp with FM trap turned on and it was fine then except for the noisy signal caused the Digital system to not decode. so i know it can handle the antenna at my location. So i discontinued the preamp because it made the signals too noisy. And things were fine for a few weeks. given that the problem has gotten severe in the last few weeks it's obvious the decoder is failing.

 

[socalmike]

gre skipping

No problem Eric.

We are talking milliseconds here and I didn't notice any slowdown.
When you get your scanner back try increasing the sq wait 1 setting. I think it was already mentioned but this site helped a lot

Easier to Read Pro-106/197/PSR500/600 Digital Scanner Manual


Let me know if you find a better setting

Thanks, Mike

 

[blueangel-eric]

No problem Eric.

We are talking milliseconds here and I didn't notice any slowdown.
When you get your scanner back try increasing the sq wait 1 setting. I think it was already mentioned but this site helped a lot

Easier to Read Pro-106/197/PSR500/600 Digital Scanner Manual


Let me know if you find a better setting

Thanks, Mike

i tried what you posted but it didn't help at all. that's the manual i've been referring to.

 

[k7ng]

RF tingle?

1-2 miles from an AM station, if it's more than 5 KW or so you might be surprised how much RF your alum siding carries. Increasing levels of 'static' may result from corrosion or oxidation between conducting surfaces. It probably isn't anything having to do with your scanner issue but the static might indicate the oxidized contact points are IM generators, and there's always the chance that an IM product falls on one or more of the channels you're trying to catch.
Or not.

 

[blueangel-eric]

I got my scanner back. got a new volume knob since the old one was scratchy and a new keypad since the other one had a chip in it. The radio tech supervisor said he adjusted a pot on the board and the digital trunk should be working real good now as he tested it with the local trunk system. But the problem isn't' the trunk system it's 450mhz and 150mhz freqs with CTCSS tones. I still am having the same reception problem. i went portable outside and it worked fine. i am now testing it on it's batteries with the base antenna. i'm wondering if the ac dc adapter is allowing interference into the radio. my yeasu ham radio HT's has a tone problem when running from the adapter but a DC power supply it works fine. the tones shift in freq and i can run a tone search on those ham radios and it finds the PL tone on a different tone freq but on batteries then i have to redo the tones again. quite an annoying problem.

if that is the problem with the scanner that would explain why it works with a portable antenna running off batteries but when on the base antenna i have hooked up to the oem power supply. Well so far running off batteries didn't make any difference. I wonder if the wireless router or computers or something else is a factor.

 

[scannerboy01]

Scanners can do interesting things when placed beside a wireless router. I've noticed whenever I've put my PSR-500 beside the wireless router, it's like I have the squelch wide open, but the squelch knob is at the proper setting. Once I move the scanner away, everything goes back to normal. I've done that with the rubber duck antenna. If it's possible, try take your scanner outside and connect it to the base antenna to see if it's a problem with the antenna.

 

[Ed_Seedhouse]

Scanners can do interesting things when placed beside a wireless router. I've noticed whenever I've put my PSR-500 beside the wireless router, it's like I have the squelch wide open, but the squelch knob is at the proper setting. Once I move the scanner away, everything goes back to normal. I've done that with the rubber duck antenna. If it's possible, try take your scanner outside and connect it to the base antenna to see if it's a problem with the antenna.

Same thing happens to mine every time I use my local ATM. And at the checkout counter at my local grocery store as well.

 

[W8RMH]

That's what i wonder. haven't tried the new firmware update yet. don't know if that would fix it.

You always want to have the latest firmware. This could be your problem.

 

[blueangel-eric]

You always want to have the latest firmware. This could be your problem.

Before you jump to conclusions see Post #28. I already tried that. and in post #30 i reported back i was still having problems.