Railfan Technology > Scanner issue with Vertex VX-150

I've had the titled scanner for over ten years and it has served me well until yesterday but just one channel that I'm suddenly not getting. Back then I had the scanner programed for all the AAR channels by a gentlemen who knew how to do that. I don't. Of course that hasn't been an issue until now. I live near the Louisville & Indiana in southern Indiana and will often turn the scanner on to listen to channel 51 the dispatcher for the LIRC. Since the railroad is at my back door it's easy to listen to and catch something moving from the LIRC or CSX catching the EC1. Last night it would scan 48,49,50 then go to 52. I would try to manually tune in 51 but not even an option. Did I touch something to eliminate 51? I've skipped channels before when I was in an area that didn't need some but I never did this now. Why would a channel just suddenly disappear. Is it going to be needed to reprogramed? For the time being I brought out my old forty year old Radio Shack and just set it for 51 only. It still works but I would rather have my VX-150 doing all the work. 

You likely inadvertently deleted a channel.  The VX-150 is not at all difficult to program from the keypad if one doesn't have to program umpteen channels.  You can download the VX-150 manual here: 
 https://www.yaesu.com/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=638&FileCatID=151&FileName=vx_150.pdf&FileContentType=application%2Fpdf

The other possibility is that your VX-150 is dying.  My old VX-150 started behaving badly--deleting channels, etc., and a short time later just died completely.  Mine was about 15 years old when it died.  As a note, I have a VX-170 (in later years sold as the FT-270) that, while different in appearance, operates almost identically to the VX-150.  Sadly, the VX-170 never has performed as well as the VX-150, especially at receiving weak signals.  I still have the VX-170, but it lives in my radio drawer unused now--I have much better performing radios to use.

I assume you didn't lock it out?  You should be able to step thru each channel if I remember VX150 and see if it is still there. Haven't had a VX-150 for a while, mine died.

As noted by second post I never programmed all channels, I learned to program channels one at a time and only have 1 bank of 20 to scan.

Bob

I don't know what it would take to inadvertantly delete a frequency on a VX-150. But on many scanners, it's quite easy to inadvertantly lock out a frequency (with a single keypress). This can be resolved by turning the scanner off, then back on, which clears the lockout.
/Ted

With Vertex / Yeasu radios the layered key pad functions often cause an ineffective channel due to an inadvertent feature being enabled, then bad data being added to that feature. done it many times.

A meticuous comparison of the channel features would have to be done, such as comparing to the manual or the feature menu trees. Or perhaps a nearby channel could be salvaged by writing over the frequency with the desired frequency. 

Many folks use a software product to save all the frequencies in their radio. Had this been the case a re-write from the software would likely have corrected the subject channel.

Hope this helps.