Pro 96 gone silent

[fred_dot_u]

I've had a Pro 96 since about 2007, as best as I can tell. I was able to download from here and send to the radio the appropriate configuration for my area, back then.

Recently, there's been a complete disappearance of activity on almost all the public safety channels. I pick up some local college security or maintenance traffic, but nothing like the regular 29p or 13a calls from law enforcement.

I've paid my dues, so to speak, and have the most recent version of win96 and the most recent database for my area, and have backed up the existing configuration, then loaded the new one, yet the results are the same. I can reload either configuration and manually step through the channels, picking up a call here and there, so it's not that the numbers are incorrect.

At one point, the full scan appeared to work, as it would pick up the "usual traffic" but then it vanished again.

I know so little that I'm not sure how to begin troubleshooting. The manual is zero help at all, but that probably doesn't surprise anyone in this forum.

Is there a possibility that I managed to press a key combination that made things go quiet and I can just press a couple buttons and get it going again?

I've had one suggestion from long ago to read the wiki on trunking, since the manual only confuses, but I would not expect that it would have anything specific to the pro 96 that would cover this peculiarity.

Thanks for the consideration.

fred

 

[N8IAA]

Well, Fred. Since we're not mind readers:lol: It would help if you let us know where you are, and what you are monitoring.
Larry

 

[DickH]

I know so little that I'm not sure how to begin troubleshooting. ...

And we know even less! How can we help if we don't even know which system you are having trouble with?

 

[fred_dot_u]

It's a pro-96 handheld scanner and I'm not sure how to answer the other questions, other than the eastern volusia county area of Florida, Daytona Beach and surrounding towns/cities.

The public safety channels to which I was listening include fire dispatch and on-site fire activities, as well as police communications centers (Regional Communications Center) and various police agencies.

Since it had been running unattended these past four years, I have had little interaction with the unit. That means on/off, volume and the occasional squelch setting, and that's it.

Could I have pushed a "bad combination" of buttons by grabbing at the radio as it began to fall off the shelf? That's the closest I can come to understanding why it would suddenly stop scanning.

The scan indicator shows that it's changing from band 0 to band 1 and back again, but never (rarely) drops out for a communication, other than the local school maintenance (I think), but when I manually step through the channels, I get one side of a communications resembling that which I've heard previously (last week).

fred

 

[puzzleriddle]

I would say most likely The system has rebanded go here http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Win96. you will need programming cable & software to enter the tables

 

[GrayJeep]

I'd look at the inadvertent button-push theory myself.

Rebanding just as the unit is fumbled is too much of a coincidence.

But diagnosing it means learning something about the scanner........ might try just pushing one button at a time and waiting to see what happens the 0, 1,2 etc keys to enable and disable banks of channels.

 

[DickH]

I would say most likely The system has rebanded go here Win96 - The RadioReference Wiki. you will need programming cable & software to enter the tables

Looking at the system in the database shows it is an EDACS system and all the freqs. are not affected by rebanding.

 

[mk262]

The SO has taken over dispatch for all emergency services in the county, including the former RCC agencies. You didn't specify which city or cities you were listening to, but, if they included: Port Orange, New Smryna Beach, Edgewater or Ponce Inlet those cities are on different talkgroups now. Port Orange was moved to LE 5 with South Daytona. VCSO district 5 was moved to the new LE 7 along with Edgewater and NSB. Ponce Inlet, Beach Patrol and DBS PD are now on LE 1.

Go here and look at the VCSO talkgroups.

 

[puzzleriddle]

Looking at the system in the database shows it is an EDACS system and all the freqs. are not affected by rebanding.

Yes rebanding includes the WHOLE 800Mhz band including EDACs & whatever else is in the 800Mhz band http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Rebanding

 

[mk262]

Yes rebanding includes the WHOLE 800Mhz band including EDACs & whatever else is in the 800Mhz band Rebanding - The RadioReference Wiki

You are confused or not paying attention. The frequencies utilized by Volusia's EDACS system are not affected by rebanding because they are not within the range of frequencies being revoked.

 

[puzzleriddle]

hmm ok thanks....

 

[DickH]

hmm ok thanks....

When freqs. in the 866 to 868 range are rebanded, they are changed to the 851 to 854 range.
There are no channel numbers assigned to freqs. in the 851 to 854 range that have a zero in the 4th decimal place (like 851.2500). So channel numbers starting at 440 were borrowed from another range of freqs. and used for those freqs. in the 851 to 854 range. When non-rebanded scanners see one of the new channel numbers in the control channel's data stream, it tells the scanner to tune to a wrong freq.
For example, when an older scanner hears 852.7250 it tunes to 863.7125. Of course, that is not a Public Safety channel so the scanner hears nothing.
I suggest you learn the correct details about rebanding.

 

[fred_dot_u]

The SO has taken over dispatch for all emergency services in the county, including the former RCC agencies. You didn't specify which city or cities you were listening to, but, if they included: Port Orange, New Smryna Beach, Edgewater or Ponce Inlet those cities are on different talkgroups now. Port Orange was moved to LE 5 with South Daytona. VCSO district 5 was moved to the new LE 7 along with Edgewater and NSB. Ponce Inlet, Beach Patrol and DBS PD are now on LE 1.

Go here and look at the VCSO talkgroups.

I tried the rebanding suggestion and I'm hoping I did it right, but I kept a backup of the unmodified download file just in case. Since the other messages suggest that the frequencies of interest are outside of the rebanding, I'll drop back to that unmodified file.

With respect to the link provided, is the information within also the information available from the web-enabled download here on RR? I pulled the most recent file and loaded it into the scanner with the same mostly-silent results. It is possible that the loss of listening fell into the same region of time as the change for the radio services in this area. I'm not so good at manual editing and entry on the scanner, and I'm hopeful that the site's data is current, but then again, it's what is in the silent-scanner now.

We were listening to all the agencies you've listed and so far, not so good.

fred

 

[mk262]

I tried the rebanding suggestion and I'm hoping I did it right, but I kept a backup of the unmodified download file just in case. Since the other messages suggest that the frequencies of interest are outside of the rebanding, I'll drop back to that unmodified file.

With respect to the link provided, is the information within also the information available from the web-enabled download here on RR? I pulled the most recent file and loaded it into the scanner with the same mostly-silent results. It is possible that the loss of listening fell into the same region of time as the change for the radio services in this area. I'm not so good at manual editing and entry on the scanner, and I'm hopeful that the site's data is current, but then again, it's what is in the silent-scanner now.

We were listening to all the agencies you've listed and so far, not so good.

fred

If you do a new import from RR yes it will work because the talkgroups are updated (which you can see if you look at that link). You only need System B for those agencies, fyi.

 

[fred_dot_u]

If you do a new import from RR yes it will work because the talkgroups are updated (which you can see if you look at that link). You only need System B for those agencies, fyi.

A strange development in RR download. It accepts my sign-in via Win96, returns USA for country, FL for state and after a long spinning-wheel (hourglass) delay, I'm told there is no county information available. I'm going to close and re-start the program and see where that takes me.

I'm not sure what to do with the "only need System B" information though. Is there something I should check or un-check in Win96? If it means having more channels to listen to, I'm okay with that. I will eventually figure out the individual channel lock-out from the front panel, I think.

I've never felt so brain-dead as I do when it comes to the complexity of this scanner!

 

[puzzleriddle]

did you do this?

In Win96 check Multi Table bullet under 3600 CC, open Extended Tables bar, check 800 MHz Rebanded bullet.
__________________

 

[fred_dot_u]

In Win96 check Multi Table bullet under 3600 CC, open Extended Tables bar, check 800 MHz Rebanded bullet.
__________________

I did it but then after reading more of the posts, I "undid" it and continued on with the other suggestions. Moments ago, RR web import functioned as required and I dumped System B to the scanner. I'm hearing the same voices on dispatch as I have recalled in the past. It would appear that the recent local change of communications also tossed off the scanners of those not-so-much-in-the-know.

mk262, by tagging only system b, and not checking anything else in the web import, I'm not downloading quite a few other channels. I selected Volusia County Public Safety in the system list, as the others did not look all that interesting, but there are 339 talkgroups with public safety related descriptors. If I check all of those I get a warning message.

Is it as simple a matter to break the 339 talkgroups up and assign them their respective blocks (0 to 9) to get them all in the scanner (minus the uninteresting ones)?

I might get the hang of this yet. I'm getting the 29p and 13a calls already.


thanks for the assistance.

 

[fred_dot_u]

gone awry once more

This scanner has me wondering if it's time to "upgrade" but it's an expensive device to toss out, when it's probably operator error and operator ignorance.

The battery went dead last week, and that didn't cause a problem, once recharged. A few days ago, the power went out and came back on, and now the scanner doesn't pick up the channels as noted above.

I can hit the manual button, step through and get occasional, disjointed communications, but pressing scan gives me silence. I connected up the Win96 program, performed another upload from the last successful profile/template, but the results are still no signal catch, so to speak. The squelch is at a minimum during this process.

I'm not sure what to look at, since the last attempt was good, this more recent one should be as well. I don't think the power flicker had anything to do with the glitch, but the timing is there.

What to try or what to report next?

thanks

fred

 

[Headrat]

The Real Reason you aren't hearing anything anymore...

Amazingly useless discourse here.

Volusia County Public Safety changed 2 control channel frequencies. With that change, all scanners listening to the Volusia County Public Safety Trunked radio system went silent.

I don't know anything about the specific model of Radio Shack scanner Fred is using. In the software being used to configure the scanner, two frequencies are going to have to be edited manually until Radio Reference updates its database and makes it available for general use (which, to my knowledge, has not yet happened.)

There are 3 "systems" in the Volusia County Trunked Radio System:

County West (or System A), County East (or System B) and Daytona Beach.

In System A, Logical Channel #4 was changed from 858.2625 to 855.9875.

In System B, Logical Channel #14 was changed from 855.7375 to 854.3625.

Because of these frequency changes, every scanner listening to this system was rendered silent. Do a search in the Radio Reference Forum using the word "Volusia" and you can read the general discussion about this change.

REBANDING has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this matter. Nothing.

I don't know why the frequencies were changed. There is speculation that Volusia County is making changes to accommodate a transition to a new radio system but that is pure rumor and speculation at this point. Such a major change is usually made for a good reason so I expect that something big is indeed coming.

Many, many people are convinced their scanners have failed. This frequency change will test the ethics of retailers who may or may not be aware of the change. Of course, when the new scanners are programmed and still don't work, that will make for interesting discussion at the customer service desk!

In any case, good luck locating the place in your programming software where you will need to manually edit these frequencies. Hopefully Radio Reference will have the updated database available soon.

73!!

 

[fred_dot_u]

two freqs to the rescue

As I'm using win96 for programming the scanner, it was a simple matter to find the aforementioned frequencies and edit them to be correct. I tried bank b first as a test and it worked fine, and as expected, bank a also dropped into place.

What confuses me is that I managed to get the scanner rolling previously, but wasn't sure why it dropped out/back again and why repeating the same steps didn't resolve it.

This manual method is great and one would think that it's as simple a matter to update the database for the Web Import.

Thanks again, Headrat