There are a few things that may be contributing to your issues with receiving the Washington County System. Digital is more tricky than analog to get a clean signal. It is often prone to interference from electronic devices.
1. Interference – Electronic devices in your house and can will mess with your reception. Every electronic device emits RF energy. Some are much worse than others. Try the scanner at different places within your house and determine where it works the best and where it works the worst. Take note of electronics that are near the areas were it does not work well. Also be suspect of your cable and telephone lines within your house. Leaky cable systems can cause a mess with scanners. Look outside your home as well. Cell towers near to you can some interference.
2. Distance from the tower. – This can be a problem if you are too close or too far from the tower. The Blair tower for the Washington County simulcast system is located about 1/2 mile south of hwy 75 on County Road P37. This puts it about 4 miles from the center of Blair. If you are within the city limits, you will be from 3-5 miles from the tower. Combine this distance with attenuation from the walls of your home and a possible interference issue in your home, and you can have trouble. If you are in Blair, a directional antenna pointing at the tower would work very well. If you are very close to the tower, you may be pulling in too much signal, but that is not a common occurrence.
3. The scanner – Keep in mind that your $500 scanner does not have the same reception quality as the Washington County Sheriff’s $2,500 Motorola XTS5000. The quality of signal that you are receiving with your scanner will not be as good as a professional radio. You can bet that the public service radios are not experiencing reception issues of that same magnitude that your scanner is experiencing. Additionally there have been numerous complaints regarding the reception quality of the Pro-96 compared to the Uniden scanners. You can ask Marty from the Omaha Scanner Club about his experience with trying 5 different Pro-96s that did not match up to the signal quality of his BCD396T. I am not familiar with the Pro-96, but there is a way to view the digital signal quality on the screen. Marty had a problem of the signal quality dropping out every few seconds. The phenomenon occurred on each Pro-96 that he tried.
Sorry for the long post, but hopefully this will help you enjoy your scanner more. Happy scanning.
--Joe
