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I have been getting pretty scratchy reception for over a week now. I have dropped my scanner about a foot from my computer onto the carpet a number of times wondering if this might be the cause. They weren't very hard landings. Or could is this the weather that is doing this ?


Edit : WX Scan on ch1 has perfect reception. However the snohomish county trunked system remains very scratchy.

My test of 'can this radio hear or not' are the Canadian Wx. 162.4, 162.475 and 161.65. or some of the new wx's on the newer freq's

I have about five radio's parked on the system that you are talking about, they are up and running just fine, so if you have a problem its on your end. I am in the very noth end of the county.

Is it a handheld scanner ? Sometimes the connection between the antenna jack and the circuit board can go bad and needs to be resoldered. I've also seen situations where the center pin in the bottom of the antenna has broken or has a poor connection.

Yes, its a hand held scanner. I'm going to take it up north and see if the reception is any better.

Gah, I'm pissed. I found the problem (sort of) It's strong interference from something near my house. I went up north to tulalip and when i got 5+ miles away from my house the interference was gone. I am using the west simulcast, I am just a few blocks from one of the towers. However I have never had any interference before.

Did by chance the interference start when you put the Christmas lights?

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Pretty much. Wasn't getting this interference pre christmas lights. Right around the time the lights went up this started happening. How could it be the christmas lights ?

Try your scanner with all the xmas lights unplugged. Not just turned off, but disconnect everything that went up/on for xmas.
The interference would come from the 'dirty' electronics that triggers the flasher thing for the lights.
Alternatively (&/or both), your neighbors xmas display may be the cause for this.

-Jay

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I'm in Snohomish Cnty also, (Monroe area) and have noticed that one of my Mot. systems (Snoh.) has had much poorer signal strength lately. (BCT 15X) No xmas lights up. I don't claim to know much about the trunking systems, so was thinking some thing has changed or I messed up a setting? Maybe a different frequency?

All other systems are fine, so it's not the antenna.

I see the system I'm still getting scratchy reception is the West simulcast Sno Cnty. I noticed there was a scratchy wavy signal at the R-Shack in Snohomish and has been like that N. of Monroe for the past couple weeks. I previously received this full scale and full quieting. East simulcast is rock solid and full scale.

Does anyone know where the transmit site is or if they've switched freqs., changed something? It's not my antenna as I have 2 different base ants up and it's the same on both. Same scratchy wavy signal on my hand held too. I'm hearing all the motorboat noise on 867.1750. Is this the right control chnl?

Edit: I did a FCC lookup and see 6 sites listed from Marysville-Bothell. Is there a way to know what site is being used or does it jump around according to how close the user is to the site?

Was working Shift XMAS Eve and at Night SNOPAC on East County Fire was coming in real faint and poor.

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