UPDATE

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GShock75

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Well you guys can hold onto your $$$ a while longer, the email I received today says that Whistler WS1095 is projecting the ship date to LATE MAY, it seems they can't get their dates right either.
 

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torontokris

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Its too bad Whistler is taking so long, Uniden has come and swept up peoples money/attention with a few different new models now.

Those who may have had the money for a 1095 have bought a Uniden now.
 

GShock75

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Its too bad Whistler is taking so long, Uniden has come and swept up peoples money/attention with a few different new models now.

Those who may have had the money for a 1095 have bought a Uniden now.


I for one can verify this, as I was holding out for a Whistler/GRE (WS1095) product, but honestly got tired of waiting, and since Uniden came out with fixes and updates, I am enjoying my new 536, I may buy a 1095 for the truck, but until then, My 536 hooked up to the Scantenna ST2 in the attic works superbly, I don't need the app feature, so that's a null point, to me anyhow.

I have my fix............ for now (Sorry Whistler, Maybe in the future though?)
 

retropcdos

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I wonder if the nearly $2M that RadioShack owes them is responsible at all for this slowdown.

https://cases.primeclerk.com/radioShack/Home-ClaimInfo

That may do it. As scanner are niche market items. They are late now, as Uniden taking up the market with the three old design with minor changes, new cheaper scanner models that came out. So anyone that was waiting, is now more likely buying, or bought a Uniden base scanner.
 

eaf1956

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Or perhaps they have design issues and don't want to release a scanner that everyone will just ***** about the problems.
 

Boatanchor

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I wonder if the nearly $2M that RadioShack owes them is responsible at all for this slowdown.

https://cases.primeclerk.com/radioShack/Home-ClaimInfo

Possibly that and the fact that RS are dumping GRE/Whistler high end digital scanners on the market for $100-$150.

Not really a good time for either Uniden or Whistler to be releasing any new high end model at the moment and with hundres of digital scanners being dumped at ridiculous prices into an already saturated market, this is going to take some time to clear through the system.

I doubt that Uniden are making any money out of the x36HP series twelve months after it's release.
Even if they are making $200 gross profit per unit and they have sold 5000 units, that is only $1mil gross profit in twelve months. Now deduct all the ongoing costs of engineers working around the clock trying to fix the wifi dongle, the noisy headphone socket recall, the dodgy RTC problem (very likely another, even larger recall) and employing software geeks to produce the siren app for IOS and eventually android. That $1million dollar profit gets eaten up very quickly.

IMHO, the x36HP is unlikely to ever turn a profit for Uniden. The whole wifi streaming feature was only ever going to appeal to a very small minority of owners, but that single feature appears to have doomed the x36HP to commercial failure.

Whilster needs to be careful it doesn't fall into the same trap.

Oh, and I forgot the costs of actually constructing and maintaing the central streaming server that Uniden will rely on for it's Siren app.

Too big to fail?? Maybe..
 
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Boatanchor

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KISS and make well built scanners that take a beating, with good RF performance (good filtering), good analogue and digital audio quality, good simulcast handling, good battery life (portables), a compact remote head option for the mobile and you will have a winning combination that even existing scanner owners will buy.

Publish the command set (open source if you like) for remote control and leave the app's to third party developers..

Concentrate on producing good hardware and let others spend time, energy and money on developing apps.

This is the only way companies will make money on scanners going forward.
 

retropcdos

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Possibly that and the fact that RS are dumping GRE/Whistler high end digital scanners on the market for $100-$150.

Not really a good time for either Uniden or Whistler to be releasing any new high end model at the moment and with hundres of digital scanners being dumped at ridiculous prices into an already saturated market, this is going to take some time to clear through the system.

I doubt that Uniden are making any money out of the x36HP series twelve months after it's release.
Even if they are making $200 gross profit per unit and they have sold 5000 units, that is only $1mil gross profit in twelve months. Now deduct all the ongoing costs of engineers working around the clock trying to fix the wifi dongle, the noisy headphone socket recall, the dodgy RTC problem (very likely another, even larger recall) and employing software geeks to produce the siren app for IOS and eventually android. That $1million dollar profit gets eaten up very quickly.

IMHO, the x36HP is unlikely to ever turn a profit for Uniden. The whole wifi streaming feature was only ever going to appeal to a very small minority of owners, but that single feature appears to have doomed the x36HP to commercial failure.

Whilster needs to be careful it doesn't fall into the same trap.

Plus 1 and truly a shame, but suspect reason they released three older designed scanners and revamped them. To many bells and whistles, that really wasn't needed. They sure have not try to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes simple is better.
 
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SCPD

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What they need to do ... release a firmware tool for the scanner to allow the user to modify the existing firmware and improve the scanner interface as desired. This of course .. will be for such things as the user interface. I know I would have kept my Uniden 436HP if I could have fixed the issues myself.

Instead I sold it .. as unlike Whistler I had no confidence that Uniden would ever fix the problems.

We need a shake up ... and the only way to do that, allow the community to take the lead and improve the scanners cause the manufacturers are unable to keep up to the advances in the marketplace.

I have a digital audio player .. where the manufacturer did just this and has a very very solid following of loyal users.
 

Triangulum

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If this was anything other than the craft of scanning, then I would say marketshare is a very important variable as well. This scene doesn't play by the same general rules as others because its more of a niche with informed consumers. But, on some reduced level it still has importance.

Companies would rather have people buying their products over a competitor, even if profits are not high. The thinking is that a consumer will be more likely to stay within the ecosphere when purchasing complimentary products. In this case, it may be someone buys a handheld one day and then later buys a base/mobile.

Here in the scanning scene, this kind of element may not be as important as other consumer domains. The average consumer in this niche tends to be more informed at the time of purchase. But all that being said, humans can be creatures of habit. And if a company can take advantage of a consumer's sense of familiarity and attachment then its a positive for them.
 

Boatanchor

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Here in the scanning scene, this kind of element may not be as important as other consumer domains. The average consumer in this niche tends to be more informed at the time of purchase. But all that being said, humans can be creatures of habit. And if a company can take advantage of a consumer's sense of familiarity and attachment then its a positive for them.

I think this statement is generally true.

The big three amateur radio manufacturers seem to have realized a few years ago that specifications do actually matter and that they are at least as important as 'innovative' user interface features. Rather than simply promoting the bells and whistles aspects of a particular radio, Icom, Yeasu and Kenwood promote the performance characteristics as well. The popularity and generally excellent reviews of the relatively dull looking Kenwood TS-590S, with it's excellent RF performance is an example of a low-mid tier product that sells well on it's RF performance merits, instead of having to rely on bells, whistles and bling for sales. Another classic product is the Yeasu FT-60r dualband handheld. Still selling well after over a decade because, for the most part, it was designed right the first time, is reliable and built like a brick out-house.

The fact is that nowadays, many if not most, consumers look to the internet for product reviews or at least attempt to obtain independent advice from other users before spending $400+ on anything. -- I won't go into the misleading if not fraudulant Amazon reviews issue here --

Excellent RF perfomance must be the cornerstone of any radio/scanner sold nowadays as the bands become increasingly congested, signals become stronger and Intermodulation and other problems become more prevelant. Uniden and Whistler both need to recognise this and build scanners that are fit for purpose. Stop relying on bling to sell scanners - Most of us can see through it and you just leave yourself open to ridicule and consumer backlash when it all fails miserably..

Spend more R&D on the RF and physical/form factor aspects of scanners and less time on the bling and apps!
 

BeerNutz

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If I was buying a scanner today...

Handheld... Whistler WS1080
Base/Mobile... Uniden 996 Phase II

But, I'm not buying today. Waiting for the WS1095
 

marksmith

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Can't say I'm not buying while I am waiting. Bought the equivalent of both of those in the last week....996P2 and cheap RS668. But will still be one of the first to order the WS1095 when it comes out.

Like everyone has said... this is a niche market that performs different than others.

That means some are waiting for particular models even though there are new offerings by Uniden and dumped high end RS models out there cheap.

It also means that even though these other offerings are in the market (and being purchased) that some are still very ready to add the WS1095 when available.

Niche markets are like that.

Mark
536HP/HP1e/HP2e/996P2/996XT
996T/396XT(2)/PSR800/PRO668
 

ScannerFreaque

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It's very likely that the 1095 isn't going to be any better or worse performance-wise than the WS1080, or the Radio Shack PRO-668 for that matter. With that said, since I've had a 996XT for a while, and just recently added a dirt-cheap 668, I can't see any reason anymore why I'd get a 1095. I guess if there weren't so many 668's that flooded the market I would have held out, but now I see no reason to get the 1095. I seem to have all bases covered now with what I have unless the 1095 is absolutely gangbusters and beats everything out there, and I have no reason to believe that will happen since the 1095 is supposedly just a mobile version of the PSR-800 - which is like the WS1080 - which is like the PRO-668...
 
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