Scanner Reception

Status
Not open for further replies.

spraynumbers

Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2009
Messages
5
I was wondering if anyone knew how to stop the "chopping" of the scanner reception. When I listen to the speech it is a good quality but portions of the speech disappear so I don't hear the entire sentence. Most of the time the reception is excellent. I have a scanner antenna mounted on the roof. Is there a device that goes out and grabs the transmissions? Thanks.
 

ka3jjz

Wiki Admin Emeritus
Joined
Jul 22, 2002
Messages
25,361
Location
Bowie, Md.
Before you put a preamp up, which can cause more issues than it solves (particularly in an urban environment), improve your antenna setup. What antenna are you using? What coax? Can you get it higher? 73 Mike
 

kb2vxa

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Banned
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Messages
6,100
Location
Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.
Before any definitive answers may be given you need to further analyze the problem and give us some useful information to work with, all I see so far are guesses based on an assumption. Here are a few questions not for you to answer here but rather aid you in tracking down the source of the problem.

Watching the bars on the signal strength indicator are you suffering from loss of signal?
If so, is it rising and falling, weak and fluttering to begin with or is the loss and re-acquisition sudden and drastic which may indicate a bad antenna connection?

Do you hear it only with mobiles or is the base station affected as well?

Do you lose audio while a strong, steady signal is present?

How about the squelch setting? It should be just high enough to quiet the hiss of an open channel with no signal present, if you have it up too high it will squelch the audio even with a signal present should the strength go down just a bit.

Do you have the problem with trunking, digital, analog or some combination?

These are only intended to give you some ideas where to look, you may have problems with your settings or any number of things. Once you have narrowed it down a bit you can give us something to go on, as it stands "chopping" tells us nothing at all. Then you may get lucky and fix it yourself once you have found the problem. A simple analogy is this; it's hard enough for a doctor to diagnose an illness over the phone and impossible when all he hears is coughing on the other end of the line.
 

gmclam

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Sep 15, 2006
Messages
6,335
Location
Fair Oaks, CA
One more thing that can cause this which has not already been mentioned is the use of CT/DC tones on weak signals. If you have a CT or DC value programmed on channels that do this, unprogram them and see if the problem goes away.
 

CompuDoc

Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
64
Location
Middletown NJ
All these answers and not one person asked what brand and model scanner it is. I was having a similar issue with a Uniden BC246T and searched the forums here. One solution I found was that the Close Call feature was turned on. Turning it off stopped the broken up audio. So if the scanner this person has is a Uniden with Close Call they could be having the same problem.
 

mciupa

Database Admin
Moderator
Joined
Nov 5, 2002
Messages
8,301
All these answers and not one person asked what brand and model scanner it is. I was having a similar issue with a Uniden BC246T and searched the forums here. One solution I found was that the Close Call feature was turned on. Turning it off stopped the broken up audio. So if the scanner this person has is a Uniden with Close Call they could be having the same problem.

He has his antenna mounted on the roof.
Do you have your BC246T rigged up this way as well?

He wanted to know of a device that grabs transmissions.
 

kb2vxa

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Banned
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Messages
6,100
Location
Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.
"All these answers and not one person asked what brand and model scanner it is."
Answers? What answers? All I see are more rhetorical, generic questions like mine intended to give "spray" a place to look. There will be no answers until the questions are asked and they will not be asked until he narrows it down. Why not hold your water and give the poor guy a chance to dig up something for us to work with?

Being too helpful is no help at all but to confusion.

"He wanted to know of a device that grabs transmissions."
It's called a scanner. (;->)
 

CompuDoc

Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
64
Location
Middletown NJ
I was wondering if anyone knew how to stop the "chopping" of the scanner reception. When I listen to the speech it is a good quality but portions of the speech disappear so I don't hear the entire sentence. Most of the time the reception is excellent. I have a scanner antenna mounted on the roof. Is there a device that goes out and grabs the transmissions? Thanks.

Seems he is talking about a scanner but does not say what brand or model. The way I read this post is he is complaining about choppy audio. Are you reading it differently?

He has his antenna mounted on the roof.
Do you have your BC246T rigged up this way as well?

He wanted to know of a device that grabs transmissions.

No I do not but if I did have it setup that way and even if I had a beam antenna hooked up to it the 246T would still have broken up (choppy audio) if the close call feature was turned on.

As for devices that grab transmissions perhaps he should call a transmission repair shop and ask them. :D
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top