Scanner will not find control channel

[W5TWX]

My 396T scanner will not find the control channel. It has worked fine for 3 months and yesterday it stopped receiving my cities (Round Rock Texas) digital system. It picks up the county digital system fine. It's all a part of the same P-25 digital system for Williamson County texas. It is listed under "Austin / Travis County / Williamson County / Middle Rio Grande". I talked to the communication manager for the system and he said everything is working fine on their end.

My scanner is now flashing: "finding ctrl chan".

Any ideas or suggestions. Please help,
THANKS

 

[ChrisP]

My 396T scanner will not find the control channel. It has worked fine for 3 months and yesterday it stopped receiving my cities (Round Rock Texas) digital system. It picks up the county digital system fine. It's all a part of the same P-25 digital system for Williamson County texas. It is listed under "Austin / Travis County / Williamson County / Middle Rio Grande". I talked to the communication manager for the system and he said everything is working fine on their end.

My scanner is now flashing: "finding ctrl chan".

Any ideas or suggestions. Please help,
THANKS

Start with the basics. Maybe it can't find the control channel because it's not programmed in the system in your scanner. Manually step through the channels you have in the radio and see if you hear the control channel. The system may have switched to an alternate control channel frequency that you may not have known about.

- Chris

 

[W5TWX]

I did that before posting

 

[pogbobo]

have you checked every single frequency listed in the database for the site/system you are trying to listen to? they could be using a frequency that has not been tagged as a cc before...

 

[W5TWX]

Yes I have. I've even gone as far as reprograming the entire system and still no luck. I've sent in a email to the communication manager for the system to ask if there was a change in the talkgroups or control channel. I can't see where that would mkake a difference though. I would still be able to pick it up on the county wise system unless they changed the controll channel.

 

[mike_s104]

have you tried to search in the range where all the other freqs in that system are for a new CC? have you tried searching that FCC database for new/more freqs licensed to that city/county/state/agency? have you tried that system on another scanner?

 

[DaveIN]

What tower are you trying to hear? It looks like there are several possibilities. Did you try a different tower?

 

[W5TWX]

Thanks guys. I got it figured out. One of my local listeners clued me in on a change. They changed one of the alternate cc on me and I was not aware of the change.
How dare them do that and not give me a phone call and tell me

 

[pogbobo]

have you checked every single frequency listed in the database for the site/system you are trying to listen to? they could be using a frequency that has not been tagged as a cc before...

thats exactly what i meant in my post, sorry if it wasn't clear

glad you got it figured out, if the database doesn't reflect what you found out then please submit the info

 

[dccole]

Dear W5TWX,
I see that you live 15 miles away and have had the same problem I currently have. Can you help me? My BCD396T states FindingCtrlChan on all ofthe Austin stations. I have Re-Programed and Downloaded the current updates, still no help. Uniden help was polite but lacking. Can you help me with this? Thanks, Dccole, Austin

 

[Forts]

Dear W5TWX,
I see that you live 15 miles away and have had the same problem I currently have. Can you help me? My BCD396T states FindingCtrlChan on all ofthe Austin stations. I have Re-Programed and Downloaded the current updates, still no help. Uniden help was polite but lacking. Can you help me with this? Thanks, Dccole, Austin

When you re-programmed, did you only enter the currently listed primary and alternate control channels (and are using Control Channel Only mode) or did you enter all the frequencies for the site? According to the OP the site he was having problems with had the control channel moved to a frequency that wasn't shown as a primary or alternate in the database... So make sure you check every frequency on the site you are trying to listen to for the control channel.