LTR System Audio Drops Suddenly on 330 and 396

[jkm]

Hello to all,

Has anyone noticed when scanning an LTR system on a 330 or 396 that the carrier audio will, in mid transmission, suddenly drop out? I've been running my Pro-97 side by side with my 330 and 396 and see that, on longer transmissions (around 10-15 seconds or more) on the 330/396 the carrier audio will drop (usually in mid-sentence) for the talkgroup I'm listening to while the Pro-97 is still on that talkgroup and I'm listening to the remainder of the transmission. Even while operating in the Hold mode, the carrier will still drop out while I'm still listening to the same conversation with the talkgroup paused on the 97. Sometimes the audio will return right at the end of the transmission if the remainder of it is long enough, but this requires another 5 seconds or so to happen. The problem occurs frequently enough to make listening to transmissions of any substantial length difficult.

Has anyone else observed this behavior on their 330/396s?

Thanks for your feedback in advance!

Justin/W1IX

 

[DaveH]

I don't own either of those radios but I think I know what it is.
"Talk-off" occurs when the voice audio intereferes with the sub-audible
LTR data decoding. The radio starts scanning again (if that's what it
was doing). I don't know of any particular cure, it seems to be
a weakness of the radio design, and some users seem cause the
effect worse than others (with "loud" audio, possibly set too
high). My old PRO-92 does this and it can be mighty annoying.

Dave

 

[jkm]

Hi Dave,

Now that you mention it, I think I do notice that it is on the rather loud individuals that the audio drops out. I'll have to pay more attention to it and see if that's it. I wonder why it only happens on the Uniden scanners and not the Radio Shack one? Maybe it is a radio design issue?

Thanks for your help!

Justin/W1IX

 

[pro92b]

If the Unidens are set to AUTO or NFM mode, try changing it to FM. That might reduce audio distortion enough to avoid talk-off.

 

[jkm]

That seems to have done the trick! It also seems to help with catching the transmissions sooner on keyup as well, so now I'm not missing the beginning of the conversations now either! Thanks so much!

Justin/W1IX