BCD325P2/BCD996P2: lost reception

[medic2039]

I have a less than 3 month old scanner, I use it to scan one id in a p25 talkgroup in a simulcast system and for 3 to 4 weeks it was amazing. For 3 or 4 days the traffic started becoming garbled and intermintent and then all of the sudden I lost all signal on the control channel. I didn't change a thing the same yagi is up at 30 feet and the cable was not changed. I checked the obvious poor conections and frayed wire. I did a Ohm check with the cable disconnected from the scanner between the inside and the outside of the coax and it remains open. When I hook it up to the scanner it is 1k ohms. Do I have a short in the scanner? No matter what I do I can not get any reception for the control channel, I tried changing out antennas. Help, its weird that it was all the sudden. Side not I'm less than 2 miles from the antenna and the yagi, It used to work ok without the Yagi but now wont work with anything.

 

[ofd8001]

First thing to try whenever reception becomes an issue is a Weather Scan. Most everywhere has at least one weather station covering the area.

If a weather channel is NOT received, then check antenna and cabling, which you have already done. Next the question is "Has there been a transmitter too close to the scanner antenna, which might have overloaded the front end of the scanner's receiver?" A good number of folks have been affected by this, particularly emergency responders (like me) who have transmiting radios. (Yeah, I did it.)

Other sources of damage to receiver are a burst of static electricity from disconnecting/reconnecting external antenna, or perhaps even a lightnig strike nearby.

If a weather channel IS received, the scanner programming is suspect. Are other systems received properly? If so then the programming for the one system may be an issue. However, if they switch a control channel to one that isn't in your scanner, the change is drastic: was there but immediately gone. You describe a gradual loss, so control channel frequency change is less likely.

And of course you can't rule out a system issue. Your scanner is working and programmed properly, but the site your Yagi is pointed toward has had a failure.

If it isn't too much trouble, I'd be tempted to take a road trip. Bring the scanner to another site and see what happens.

 

[wtp]

water ?

could water have gotten into the coax.
ohm check won't show it.
how about connecting an antenna directly to the radio.
maybe even a small wire.

 

[JamesO]

Do you run a transceiver/transmitter a the house?