weird reception issue with pro-163

[masterknowitall]

I have an unusual issue with my pro 163 which seems to have started around the time that the east side of Hillsborough County florida took a lightning strike some where. I have my scanner programmed with arc300. I can get the west side without any issues but for the east, what I have discovered is when I get no reception, if I press manual and continue pressing through the control channels, and go back to scan, I will get good trunking reception for a while and then it reverts to no reception. I have reprogrammed it with a new file and even tried past files that have always worked but with no change in results. I have also initialized the scanner and still no change. Anybody up for a challange. Thanks

 

[DickH]

I have an unusual issue with my pro 163 which seems to have started around the time that the east side of Hillsborough County florida took a lightning strike some where. I have my scanner programmed with arc300. I can get the west side without any issues but for the east, what I have discovered is when I get no reception, if I press manual and continue pressing through the control channels, and go back to scan, I will get good trunking reception for a while and then it reverts to no reception. I have reprogrammed it with a new file and even tried past files that have always worked but with no change in results. I have also initialized the scanner and still no change. Anybody up for a challange. Thanks

That reminds me of an old song:

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away

Go away, go away
Don't come back anymore
Go away, go away
And please don't slam the door

 

[masterknowitall]

Gee, Dick, what did I do to you? It took some effort to respond and obviously helping with my question wasn't your goal. Thanks for replying anyway.

 

[Bob_61]

That reminds me of an old song:

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away

Go away, go away
Don't come back anymore
Go away, go away
And please don't slam the door

Clown Troll...

 

[KC5EIB]

Is it a trunked system or are they on indv frequencies?

 

[masterknowitall]

It is an edacs trunked system. The west side has 20 seperate freqs. with 2 control channels and the east side has 15 freqs., also with 2 control channels. What I find "weird" is that the west side comes through ok but the east side is the problem. As I said above, everything was programmed with a new and a previously"good" program and I get the same results. Another thing that I find curious is that the "t" for trunking seems to blink faster on the 2 banks I have a problem with than on the 2 that seem to work ok. I also gave the wrong model #, it is a pro 164 hand held, not 163 base.Thanks for your time and interest.

 

[KC5EIB]

If you drive to the other side of the county, does the signal get better?

In the manual mode stopping on the control channel, what's the decode percent?

Have you tried moving the east side to other banks?

They could have had the antenna damaged but since the commercial radios are more sensitive and switch to the strongest control channel, the user does not know it.

 

[masterknowitall]

I think you might be on to something. First, when I am mobile, reception and function seems to improve but not like it was before. I tried moving these frequencies and sub banks to another bank with the same results. I checked the percentages as you suggested and I observed the following. On the east side where my problem is and where there are 15 freqencies that has 2 control frequencies. In manual, when I select those channels, they display 0 percent and then immediatly go to high 90% range. What I also discovered is that on the west side where there are 20 frequencies, I find only 1 control channel. When I go to that channel, it also starts at 0% but varies all over in percentages. ie. 58%-90%- 45% and so on. These are repeater systems and I am further away from the west side so I would expect reception to be inferior. I also wouldn't doubt antenna damage. Thank you so much for taking your time to help with this. Does any of this make any sense?

 

[masterknowitall]

I have come to the conclusion that it is either an broadcast antenna issue or internal radio problem. Either way I'm going to contact rs to see what they might know. Thanks for looking at my post and your thoughts. If I have any luck, I will update.

 

[masterknowitall]

My problem has been resolved. It was actually a transmission problem after they took a lightning strike. apparently they fixed their antenna issue and everything is good. Thanks to all who looked and tried to help, except you dickH.

 

[DickH]

My problem has been resolved. It was actually a transmission problem after they took a lightning strike. apparently they fixed their antenna issue and everything is good. Thanks to all who looked and tried to help, except you dickH.

Lighten up. You need to see the humorous side of things once in a while.