reception boost?

[tyler1653]

My father and I just purchased twin Pro 164 scanners. They seem pretty great except for one problem. His gets about 2 or 3 times the reception mine gets. Mine will barely pick up the control channel here in Davis county while his picks it up clearly. He also has perfect reception of the salt lake control channels, though mine doesn't even register those. Anyone have any advice? I have checked and it is in motorola mode. The squelch is down. Battery power is full. Trading antennas didn't make a difference. Should I just send it back? Any tidbit of advice would be much appreciated. Thanks ya'll!

 

[KC0QNB]

Do you live in the same location? Are you in a hole, is your dad on a hill?
Is your radio programmed exactly the same as dad's?
These are some basic questions that might be helpful to resolve your issue.

Maybe you could plug your radio into the same computer as dad did (if he did that), try to make the two 164s identical programming wise. After doing that operate in the same location and yours still doesn't perform as well take it back and get another.

 

[gldavis]

If none of the above solves your problem, anouther thing I would look at, is the Attenuation. Is it on or off? That being said, Radio Shack Handhelds do have a history of the Antenna connection becoming disconnected from the RF board. This normally occures if you are changing antennas on the unit. Resoldering the wire and some Lock-Tight on the Antenna Connector threads should fix that.
Without further info, this is the best we can do to help.
Good-luck.

 

[tyler1653]

Thanks for the tips. No, we are in the exact same location. I even had one scanner in the left hand and the other in the right hand and they still had a dramatic difference. Mine has not het been programmed with all of the talkgroups he has, but the control frequencies were identical. I suspect a problem with the antenna base too, but I will probably send it back before cracking it open and trying to fix it myself. Thanks!

 

[SouthSoundScanner]

You can Clone your Fathers scanner to your scanner. Try that and see if it makes a difference in your reception. If that doesn't work, I would go back to Radio Shack and exchange your scanner for a new one.