Skipping or bad reception

[Torii]

Hello,
I just bought a rs Pro-96. I bought the rs 800 mhz antenna to go with it. Well I get good reception in my upstairs office but anywhere else in the house I get this skipping of words type of reception. I play around with the att button and everything but nothing seems to work. Is there a better antenna I should be using to recieve better reception? It seems like they start talking and I get the first few words but then they start skipping words. Thank you for your help.

 

[LarrySC]

Too many unknown factors to get an good reply. Are you talking about analog or digital. VHF/UHF/800?? Where are the towers located and how far. Do you live on leval ground or down in a hole?? My 96 works so good I use a 3" 1/4wave 800MHz antenna for all freqs. Post more info. Larry

 

[Torii]

I am talking about 800 mghz, digital. I live on pretty level ground. The towers are about 15 miles away. Another note, I live with a police officer that has a work radio at home. We can hear everything fine on that radio but have problems in parts of the house hearing this one.

 

[HabboX]

Do you have the latest firmware installed in your radio? This would be especially important if the system you are monitoring is using CQPSK-LSM modulation.

Download the update at
http://support.radioshack.com/soft.htm

I use the 800 MHz antenna with pretty good results. Keep in mind that a $500 scanner designed for VHF-Lo, VHF-Hi, UHF and 800 MHz reception will not perform as well as a $2000 dedicated 800 MHz radio from the system's manufacturer.

 

[SAR923]

Since you get better reception in an upstairs location, that would indicate that the digital signal must be pretty weak at your location. If you have it sit on a control channel, what percentage is the control channel showing? You also didn't give any clue as to the system you're trying to listen to. There may be another tower that's closer to you that will give you better reception. Your police officer friend's radio may be working off a different tower than you have programmed in your Pro-96.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

As the others have said, my $3500 /\/\otorola XTS3000 from work will do 10x better at picking up the trunked radio system than my 796D will! It's hard to make a comparison between a radio dedicated to the radio system and a scanner which is trying to simply monitor it.

 

[Torii]

I have the newest firmware. Now I am a bit confused about towers though. I have the control channels programmed in that server the city I live in. Woudn't that be the closest tower for me? Where do I see the % that the control channel is showing? I did mention the system I am trying to listen to, it is the Motorola APCO-25 9600 baud, or at least I thought I did. :wink:
I live in Brooklyn Park, MN. But what is a bit odd is that I hear the Minneapolis pd probably clearer than the BP police. Very odd.

 

[SAR923]

I assume you're listening the ARMER 9600 baud digital state stystem that seems to also serve Brooklyn Park. There are 21 different towers on this system according to http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=TRSDB&sid=3508 . I don't know which tower is the closest to Brooklyn Park but the fact you can receive MSP indicates you may not have the correct tower system in your radio. You should also try posting this question in the Minnesota forum since you're likley to get more people there that know this system.

You can see the signal strength of a control channel by manually going to a control frequency listed in the RR database for the tower you have in the bank in question and watching the bottom line. If you don't see a strength above 90%, you're not going to receive the system very well.

 

[Torii]

Well as far as I know Brooklyn Park is on the Hennepin West, when I click on that it has a couple of big blue stars on the map. Are those the towers? From my understanding I would just have to put the control channel in and go from there on listening. I put in all of the Henn. West freq in case they changed the control channel. I do get their calls. Am I understaning this correct? I couldn't use another tower like Henn. East because they wouldn't be running the Brooklyn Park police calls?

 

[SAR923]

I'm just guessing from looking at the map and the tower locations but the Hennepin East site looks like the one you'd want monitor since it has several towers in or around Brooklyn Park whereas the West site doesn't appear to have any towers near Brooklyn Park. Since both towers are simulcast, I'd put the East control channel in a separate bank and see how that works compared to the setup you have now. It's also possoble that a control channel has been added or changed so you might put all the frequencies from the East tower in that bank and make sure there's not a new or additonal control channel you should be monitoring. Again, reposting this question in the Minnesota forum may bring you better answers.

 

[Torii]

Thank you