Receiving half of transmission.

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howie38

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Many time on my BDC996P2 I get only the first half of a transmission than it cuts out. Not all the time but many times. Sometimes the volume will drop real low. I've upgraded the antenna to a better one but still having the problem. Squelch can't be turned down any farther without it hanging up on a certain channel. Is there something I can adjust?
 

NJEMT12982

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Are you referring to the NJICS system? If so, your not the only one. I have two 996P2's and haven't had the best luck reception wise. They are great scanners but from the research I've done, they don't do too well with NJICS. Some days/nights, I am picking up everything under the sun 5x5 then others nada... It drives me crazy because I've found that the stock antenna works best for me but I am constantly moving them around and tuning the squelch daily.
 

mdsxfire

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What site are you listening to? Also I had a uniden at first when listening to simulcast systems and had nothing but trouble, couldn’t hold the CC, missed garbled TX when it did hold the CC. I switched to another option and have never had a problem since.
 

Skypilot007

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You could be missing transmissions due to a number of things. Where are you and what talk groups and sites are you trying to monitor? Usual causes for your symptoms are poor signal strength, simulcast distortion, talk groups are changing sites every other time they transmit, etc. The 996P2 isn't the best scanner for phase II systems but under certain circumstance (mine!) they work quite well.
 

howie38

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It's the county police dispatch and I'm pretty close to the towers. A lot of times I'll hear them loud & clear say location and then cut out halfway through what the trouble is, but it does stay on the channel just don't hear the voice. I'm not using priority settings, so that's not cutting it out. I just thought maybe I had to adjust a setting somewhere's.
 

Skypilot007

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Howie, trying to help you out but you're not providing much to go on. Need to know what you are trying to monitor. What county dispatch is it? Trunked or conventional? Analog or digital. The more information you can provide makes it easier to find a solution to your trouble.
 

howie38

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Howie, trying to help you out but you're not providing much to go on. Need to know what you are trying to monitor. What county dispatch is it? Trunked or conventional? Analog or digital. The more information you can provide makes it easier to find a solution to your trouble.
Burlington Co police trunked dispatch.
 

Skypilot007

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Ok. Which channels are you trying to receive and which site are you currently using? Try setting up the scanner to only follow the site that is closest to you. Sites that are farther away will cause problems like you describe. I have similar problems monitoring the Westhampton site from my location. Certain voice channels just do not make it over here well.
 

howie38

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I'm only three miles away from their tower so I don't know what could be cutting it out sometimes. It's like the dispatcher has a loose connection in thier mike.
 

Skypilot007

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You shouldn't be having reception problems being 3 miles away from a site. However if the TG you are monitoring is not carried on that site by default you may experience what you have described. Again please, what talk group or groups are you monitoring and what site are you 3 miles away from?
 

howie38

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I'm three miles away from the Burlington county central dispatch tower in Westhampton. I monitor North, North West & North Central groups. Cars come in fine usually, it's just the county police dispatch transmissions that seem to start chopping or cut out completely after about 3 seconds and if long enough come back after a few more seconds. They just did a county wide BOLO and it happened. Happens about 50% of the time.
 

tvengr

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Try turning on the attenuator and turning off the digital AGC. Also, change the orientation and length of the antenna and move the scanner around the room. Sounds like the classic symptoms of simulcast distortion.
 
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tvengr

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I just checked and found that Burlington Co is using a Motorola Type 2 system. The new P25 system only has radio tech talkgroups on it. What programming software are you using? Do you have the required custom UHF bandplan?
 

Skypilot007

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Did you download the system from the database here or did you program it manually. Your bandplan may be messed up or you may be missing a voice channel if you programmed it not using Control Channel only option. I can tell you that one of the voice channels from that site favors the north and west heavily. I'm 10.7 miles from the West Hampton site and even with a six element yagi pointed right at it I miss transmission on the one voice channel. All other voice channels and the control channel come in full scale.
 

tvengr

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I'm three miles away from the Burlington county central dispatch tower in Westhampton. I monitor North, North West & North Central groups.
I put together a file I'd like you to try with the North Central, North, and Northwest sites and talkgroups. What programming software are you using?
 

tvengr

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Here is the file. You can toggle the 3 sites on and off by pressing 1, 2, and 3 on the keypad. Save the attached zipped file to your computer and extract. Open the extracted file with FreeSCAN and Upload programming. Quick keys as follows:

System Quick Keys
1. Burl North Cent site
2. Burl North site
3. Burl Northwest site
Group Quick Keys
1. North Cent Fire
2. North Cent Law
3. North Cent OEM
4. North Fire
5. North Law
6. North OEM
7. Northwest Fire
8. Northwest Law
9. Northwest OEM
 

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