Problem with P25

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voxiso

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Just got this scanner this morning and having problems with it picking up P25 Conv... It is hit or miss if I hear anything.. Sometimes I just hear a "10-4" out of no where but do not hear none of the transmission and other times i hear maybe 30% of the transmission or nothing at all... Anyone have any idea what I can do?

Thanks
 

JamesO

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If you are running the orignal antenna, suggest you replace it with the Radio Shack 800 MHz duck antenna, its like $25 at Radio Shack, but it is one of the best working antennas for its size.
 

teufler

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First do you have cables that hook to your computer? Then do you have Freescan loaded? Can you manually go to the frequecy and hold on it. just sit on the frequency to see if its the radio or you are having troubles getting a good signal. Do you have another scanner, doesn't matter if digital , just seeing that you are getting a signal. It will be noise but with the 396xt on manual , both scanners should break squelch at the same time.
 

voxiso

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No I do not have the usb cable.. My city/county is still analog and they work just fine on here but it is just the P25 system that the state police use that is having this issue..
 

ofd8001

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What county are you in? From what I understand, eastern Kentucky can be a little challenging.

Here in Louisville (with an outside antenna) I'm hearing Post 4, Post 5 and Post 12. That would be the Louisville, Shepherdsville and LaGrange towers. I can hear the Ekron tower, but since it's the same traffic as Louisville, I've locked it out.
 

voxiso

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What county are you in? From what I understand, eastern Kentucky can be a little challenging.

Here in Louisville (with an outside antenna) I'm hearing Post 4, Post 5 and Post 12. That would be the Louisville, Shepherdsville and LaGrange towers. I can hear the Ekron tower, but since it's the same traffic as Louisville, I've locked it out.

I am in Madisonville.. Trying to monitor Post 2 (Madisonville) and Post 16 (Henderson).. When I had a Pro-106 a year or so ago I had no problem at all with listening to them it was clear with stock antenna.. but this scanner is not doing so good.. what does come in is clear but it just cuts off
 

ofd8001

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voxiso

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Have you entered all of the frequencies shown as "FB2" in the class column for Loc # 1 in the link below especially 453.4875 (Post 2B) and 460.0625 (Post 2A)?:

KJJ516 (KENTUCKY, COMMONWEALTH OF) FCC Callsign Details

You may or may not be close enough to hear the Sacramento/McLean County tower:

WPTC982 (Commonwealth of Kentucky) FCC Callsign Details

That tower has the Post 2 (Madisonville) and Post 16 (Henderson) channels on it (both A and B).

I am less than 1 mile from the KSP post 2 tower that is in my area. I can look out my back door and see their tower.. I am thinking it may be a antenna issue.but I do not know.. My county is still analog but they are switching to trunk P25 (hopkins county).. I have no issue with analog it is just KSP P25.. I noticed like the first second or so is missing from each transmission.. I read about P25 wait time. but I can not the find the option to change it.. You have any idea how I can change that? like I said before my Pro-106 had no issues.. I wanted to try the Uniden and talk about being pissed lol.. I want to add the feed to my site. scanhopkins.com but I can not do it till I get it working right.
 
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teufler

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file for post 2 and post 16

here is the file you need . now without the cable, maybe there is someone you can visit to use theirs. Western Ky is a real mess with all the different systems. NXDN seems to have invaded 3 counties. The state police, no problem, all uhf and nac's noted. I changed the default on the uhf 450-469 fron nbfm to fm as there has been alot of talk about better reception with digital from nbfm to fm. Works for me so I changed it for you. The uhf state police, not sure what frequencies are used. I thought the listing was input and output but the spread, usually 5mhz was different. You have some at 453 and the rest at 460.
 

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teufler

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changed to wait time from 400 to 100.
P25 Waiting Time this setting basically gives the scanner time to determine if channels on conventional systems have digital or analog transmissions. During this time, the scanner will evaluate the received signal and, if it detects P25 data, will open squelch immediately. If P25 is not detected before the delay expires, the scanner will open squelch at the end of this delay. This is to prevent "false decode" problems (digital noise at the beginning of transmissions). The default setting is 400 ms. This setting only affects conventional channels with an Audio Type set to 'All'.
Scroll to 'P25 Wait Time' and press E/yes.
Set the Wait Time from 0 to 1000 ms and press E/yes.

Note: Any analog transmissions will lose the first part of the transmission, up to the wait time you set here.
the delay time will not show much change as you are set for digital ONLY.
 

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ofd8001

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Presuming the site is up and running (they've been known to go down from time to time), I'm doubting it is a scanner antenna issue.

As I understand it, KSP uses a system of linking several sites so that a wide overlay of coverage is provided. It's remotely possible that there could be a temporary hiccup in the linking. For example a Tood County trooper affiliating with the Allegre/Tood tower and the Allegre/Todd to St.Charles/Hopkins link acting up.

But I'm kind of shooting in the wind, thinking of all possibilities for this acting strangely.

The P25 waiting time is worth trying.

Also it would be interesting to know if you are able to receive any of the other Post 2 towers that are in the file Teufler created (which is very complete). However that might be a little challenging for a portable scanner (but you could always connect an outside antenna, which I've done with my 396XT).
 

voxiso

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Thanks teufler but that did not make anything better.. The reason I think i may need a different antenna is cause post 16 and post 2 i only get 2 bars at times and it just drops in the middle of the transmissons or skips around during a transmissionor or i get nothing at all. I have stock antenna now but have no issues at all with my counties analog system. just the p25
 

teufler

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Well Crap, we tried. I think you said post 2, was only 1 mile away so you could probably take the antenna off and still hear them. Like you said, with the 106 scanner , you could hear and I have programmed and compared a 396 and 106, and really not much difference. If you have an external anettna, all you need is a sma to so-239 adapter. This is a low cost scanner antenna that I have used .
Amazon.com: Scanner Ant-Base 30-1300Mhz 50'Rg6 15Elm: Electronics
another very simple but effective antenna that you fcan make at home is a beam you make out of pvc pile and old tape meaure that you use for elements. 9,5 dbd gain on vhf which is better than you get from any inside antenna. I use one here when I am working on new frequencies that are not listed in the database. http://theleggios.net/wb2hol/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm. You can use this in the house to see if th eKy repeater towers are in range.
 
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