Interference

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camay123

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Im debating between a gre psr-600 and a uniden bcd996xt, to use with an external antenna at home.

Im pretty much set on the gre psr-600, however, one critic bothers me.

It has been said to be prone to interference problem.

But, what exactly is interference ? I live in a suburb and family neighborhood. Can the antenna be too close to electric lines and cause interferences ?

Thanks
 

fineshot1

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Sep 17, 2004
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NJ USA (Republic of NJ)
Im debating between a gre psr-600 and a uniden bcd996xt, to use with an external antenna at home.

Im pretty much set on the gre psr-600, however, one critic bothers me.

It has been said to be prone to interference problem.

But, what exactly is interference ? I live in a suburb and family neighborhood. Can the antenna be too close to electric lines and cause interferences ?

Thanks

This is "interference" is a reference to "strong signal overload" and the symptom is manifested
in a deaf receiver. In a lot of cases when this happens the user is unaware of this condition and
believe there is a problem with the scanners receiver when in fact its a signal over load scenario.
This strong signal over load condition usually can effect an entire band and can be from a variety
of sources such as paging transmitters, cell sites, fm radio or tv broadcast sites, etc. If someone's
reception is hindered in this way it can be a challenge to try and find the offending source of strong
signal overload.
 

SkipSanders

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Dec 19, 2002
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The first thing you should probably always do with any scanner and external antenna in an urban area, is put an FM Broadcast Band trap in the feedline. That will eliminate one common source of front end overload.

To determine if you have a problem, you can try putting in the local NOAA weather channel, and seeing what the signal strength does when you turn on the scanner's attenuator. If the signal gets BETTER when the attenuator is on, you have an overloaded front end.
 

kcoleman

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Jan 17, 2004
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Location
Tallassee, AL
I'm in agreement with SkipSanders on the FM notch filter. I listen to mostly VHF/UHF aircraft comms. The filter coupled with the PSR400s that I have has been a better improvement than I expected.

Good Luck & Good Listening,
Keith
 

ModelTrainGeek

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Jan 20, 2010
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Where can FM traps be bought from (or instructions to make one)? Is there anything that helps bleeds from pagers?
 
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