In article 33aa57dd-fbb5-4306-8dfe-d7ee9b3c0815
@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com, says...
On Apr 28, 4:56 am, "Rob Cullen" wrote:
I suspect you've hit the nail on the head Sarah. Operator error springs to
mind.

"Sarah Czepiel" wrote in message

...

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:55:00 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

:Hi - I've gone through five scanners and was wondering if someone can
:recommendone before I run out of money. On all of these scanners, I
:try and set thesquelchso that it skips unused frequencies. However,
:when a used frequency is found, thesquelchchops out most of the
:audio. If I turn thesquelchall the way down, I can hear all of the
:audio. I try and use the least amount ofsquelchpossible, but it
:still chops the audio so you can't understand anything. Needles to
:say, I'm ticked off that devices could be designed so poorly.
:
:Thanks in advance.

Can you tell us what scanners you've used? I use the Pro 96, Pro97, and
PSR 500. Also have used several different Bearcat, Uniden, and Radio
Shack
models and haven't found thesquelchtoo difficult to regulate.

I assume you've turned thesquelchall the way up and then backed it
slowly
down until it just allows the radio to scan thru the frequencies? That's
how I fine tune mine. If I have an additional freq. or two that overloads
and stops on that setting I back off thesquelchjust slightly to get
those
freqs/channels to scan. So far I don't feel I'm missing anything and
everything seems to come in loud and clear.

Am I missing anything? Is this what you've done so far without success?

You assume correctly. As I mentioned... I try to use as little
squelch as possible.
I did have one scanner that worked not too bad (a Pro 92) that died.
I'm looking for another one with no success.
I've since bought several on Ebay that are total crap. A pro 2051, a
pro 2055, and a few others that I don't recall.
I suppose that it could be just bad luck that I got duds.

I've designed a lot of digital and microprocessor electronics in my
day, and what kills me is that it would be so simple and inexpensive
to digitally process the audio signal to see if there is a signal
present. The computer could then just cut-out the squelch at that
point. Rather it seems that they just use some old crappy analogue
squelch circuit that chops out the audio (especially on weak
signals). I'm seriously considering making my own scanner unless
somebody knows of a good one that doesn't use WWII technology.



The only thing that makes sense is either you are getting a lot of bad
scanners, or you don't understand that squelch isn't perfect and very
weak signals will pop in and out, especially if it's not set correctly.

The latter is my guess. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but with
nearly 45 years of listening on tunable receivers and scanners, the
squelch circuit was/is basically a non issue with all but the two I
mentioned before, and one of those was bad out of the box. A replacement
worked fine. The other I could have fixed, but I just sold it instead.

The scheme you mention for designing a squelch circuit has already been
done, in many scanners. It works, but not much better than the "WWII"
technology in others radios.

I have talked to a lot of people about scanners over the years, and can
count squelch issues on the fingers of both hands.

BDK