[Scan-DC] Problem with Arlington County P25 system on Uniden 346XT

[Andrew Clegg]

Hi all,

Every few weeks or so, my Uniden 346XT can't lock onto the Arlington P25 
system. It just says "Finding CtrlChan." The radio is programmed via 
FreeSCAN connected directly to the RR database via the "Import from Web" 
option. It's exactly the same database used for my HomePatrol, which works 
absolutely fine all the time. This is a big problem for me since I am the RR 
feed provider for Arlington County. The scanner can sometimes go 2+ months 
with no problem, then it will be out for a few hours to a few days with this 
control channel problem. Then it will find the control channel again and 
everything is fine.

I have reprogrammed the radio several times, and manually checked the 
programming as well, and I can't immediately see any problems. My first 
suspicion was that one of the control channel frequencies was missing from 
the programming, but I have checked carefully, and they are all there. This 
latest episode has lasted over one week, and my feed listeners are 
understandably annoyed. I took down the feed earlier today until my radio 
comes to its senses.

I don't update my HP1 very often (maybe every 6 months to a year), so it 
can't be a sudden change in the ArlCo radio system parameters causing my 
346XT problems, otherwise my HP1 would also have problems.

Anybody have any ideas or similar experiences?

Thanks,
Andy