What else do the BCDx86HP's do?

I'd like to see some sort of roadmap/pricing schedule for future hidden features that these scanners already have built in when we originally purchased them.

The reason I ask is that I need a little more notice so that I'll know if I should sell my iPad ($150) so I can afford to get the next 3 hidden features unlocked in my $700 scannerI bought 2 years ago.

I think I'll take my Jeep to the dealership to ask what else it can do and how much they'll charge to turn those features on.

Why not sell your scanner?

Of course if you did that, you wouldn't have anything to complain about.

Your Jeep, if it's new enough to be drive by wire, has hundreds of features that can be enabled/disabled by the software.

As my other half would say, the original post is full of "first world problems."

First of all, if you really bought the unit for $700, you got ripped off. I paid $600 the day it was released. If you did some shopping around the savings would have covered the Provoice and DMR update.

Second, the idea of paying a small fee for *optional* upgrades beats having to buy another unit... and another... and another. I'm not sure what the issue is with it. The concept is great for the consumer.

What ever you do, don't get involved with professional radios. Some of the features can easily quadruple the original price of the radio. Wowza.

I would compare such things to Apps on smart phones. Some are free and others have a cost if they are pretty elaborate.

y84media said:

I'd like to see some sort of roadmap/pricing schedule for future hidden features that these scanners already have built in when we originally purchased them.

Click to expand...

Can you give an example of these "built-in hidden features"? All the upgrades to the x36 series have been added by firmware updates.

y84media said:

I'd like to see some sort of roadmap/pricing schedule for future hidden features that these scanners already have built in when we originally purchased them.

The reason I ask is that I need a little more notice so that I'll know if I should sell my iPad ($150) so I can afford to get the next 3 hidden features unlocked in my $700 scannerI bought 2 years ago.

I think I'll take my Jeep to the dealership to ask what else it can do and how much they'll charge to turn those features on.

Click to expand...

#1 Uniden has stated they will not release new features that are being worked on for the future.
#2 Again if you bought a 536 you over paid by $100 your problem is with the seller not UNIDEN.
#3 I have no PROVOICE in my area that I live in or travel that is $50 saved I did not have to spend.
#4 I am sure if you can sell your scanner in the classified section here NEW PRICE BCD536HP $499.95

Re #4, he would then complain about the loss of value.

Not sure what the OP is complaining about. Having to pay extra for new features? They should just be free?

When I bought the scanner, I also bought the extended warranty hence the extra $100.

When I say hidden features, I'm talking about the hardware is capable, software (aka firmware) unlocks said features/tells the scanner how to use these new capabilities.

Yeah, I'm crabbing, I think that if anyone who has a scanner and is not a serious hobbyist may understand not being able to justify spending the additional $ to unlock (IMHO) what the hardware is already capable of.

If you bought a car without ABS and the dealership sends you a letter a couple years later and says for $50 we'll enable ABS that happened to already be installed & you didn't know about...how would you feel?

You buy a house and a couple years later the builder says that for an extra $50 we'll tell you where there's a secret doorway to an extra room that we built in and didn't tell you about...

That's the kinda stuff I'm talking about. Apple years ago did the same thing, they charged $1 to enable 802.11 N that was already built in, to what everyone else thought was 802.11 G.

Intel did something similar with a CPU where hyper threading was turned off but you could pay more (at Best Buy they offered a a scratch-off that had a code that was typed in to turn hyper threading on).

I don't know how else to make my point.

Any as far as "free" upgrades goes, we were promised free firmware & frequency database updates were we not?

Btw, if you re-watch the x36HP announcement video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGPEEGw5NzE
At 17:45 UPMan says "...and the planned enhancements are also free too."

It is simple you pay for what you use. If you do not use it then you do not have to pay. AOR DV1 $1200.00 no trunking and it only hears 1 version of NXDN. So what you are saying is that you had rather pay $700 to $900 for the scanner if you need the extra features or not. The rest of us would rather buy the feature we need and NOT HAVE TO BUY A NEW SCANNER.

FWIW - Tesla is doing the "unlock" for more power , for more $$$.

If you don't need it , don't by it.

example - no provoice in my QTH and no DMR either.

I can barely even grasp the sentiment of the OP

Have we really come to the point where were
groaning & moaning about this level of nothingness.

First World Problems man.....

Provoice and DMR are not hidden features that are already in the radio that you unlock if that is what you are thinking.

y84media said:

Btw, if you re-watch the x36HP announcement video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGPEEGw5NzE
At 17:45 UPMan says "...and the planned enhancements are also free too."

Click to expand...

In the Nov 2013 video linked above, the "planned enhancements" were referenced as something about which there would be a future announcement in "March of next year", which would be March of 2014. Even though the quick forum-search I did seemed not to find a major announcement for that time-period, the video seems to reference something other (and earlier) than Uniden's DMR announcement of May 2016.

Only UPMan could clarify for sure what "planned enhancements" references.

Though, it could be argued that ProVoice, DMR, and any other feature-adding upgrades, would have been considered, if not planned, during initial design and development of the hardware before putting the units on the streets.

Hope this helps,

Hi,
I think it would have been much more beneficial if Uniden charged $50 for an "LSM upgrade" so we could
actually hear transmissions clearly instead of the horribly garbled reception on most sytems.
That would be worth paying for instead of a barely used dying platform called "pro-voice"
Or a digital system loaded with such interesting channels like car services, appliance repair services etc
which is what DMR is about.

LSM can not bet fixed with software it takes hardware to fix the problem. Buy an APX8000 for several thousand dollars it has the HARDWARE for the fix and it is not 100% but a radio that cost over $5000 works better than a $500 scanner. What you are asking is for a Ferrari for the price of a UGO.

I finally connected my 536 to my directional HDTV antenna in the attic & pointed it towards downtown Orlando, it's not as quiet as it used to be as far as Fire & EMT frequencies go. Police here are mostly encrypted...sadly.

I agree, it (x36hp's) sounds like doodoo, but RTL-SDR sounds worse.
Listening to D-Star would be nice, might actually make me get off by rear and get my license.

y84media said:

I finally connected my 536 to my directional HDTV antenna in the attic & pointed it towards downtown Orlando, it's not as quiet as it used to be as far as Fire & EMT frequencies go. Police here are mostly encrypted...sadly.

I agree, it (x36hp's) sounds like doodoo, but RTL-SDR sounds worse.
Listening to D-Star would be nice, might actually make me get off by rear and get my license.

Click to expand...

A couple of questions.

Is this HDTV antenna dedicated to your 536 only?
What antenna is it? Model #?
How did the cable attached to the antenna and then the sma on the 536?
What type of cable did you use and how many feet is it from the 536 to the antenna?

QDP2012 said:

In the Nov 2013 video linked above, the "planned enhancements" were referenced as something about which there would be a future announcement in "March of next year", which would be March of 2014. Even though the quick forum-search I did seemed not to find a major announcement for that time-period, the video seems to reference something other (and earlier) than Uniden's DMR announcement of May 2016.

Click to expand...

In March of 2014 Uniden was in the middle of trying to get working firmware from the WiFi dongle manufacturer. I have no doubt many things got delayed. Then there were other delays. That's the problem with timetables - they are subject to unforeseen happenings.

y84media said:

When I say hidden features, I'm talking about the hardware is capable, software (aka firmware) unlocks said features/tells the scanner how to use these new capabilities."

Click to expand...

I would hate to see your complaints about a PC since the PC is capable of so much using optional $oftware which I guess should all be free.

Fact is Uniden has to PAY a license fee for each of those upgrades, so I guess they should just charge another $200 for the scanner and give the upgrades to everyone whether they want them or not, right?

Personally, I prefer buying the base model then having the OPTION to add on upgrades. If I don't want them, I don't buy them.

Mastiff2013 said:

A couple of questions.
Is this HDTV antenna dedicated to your 536 only?
What antenna is it? Model #?
How did the cable attached to the antenna and then the sma on the 536?
What type of cable did you use and how many feet is it from the 536 to the antenna?

Click to expand...

The antenna is: https://www.antennasdirect.com/store/DB8_ultra-long-range-dtv-Antenna.html
The cable is 20' long, runs straight from the antenna into RG8 quad shield down to my entertainment center. It was meant fort the whole house but I'm using it on one TV only for testing.

I disconnected it from the TV and using a coax female to BNC male I connected it to my BCD536HP which is now located in my entertainment center with the display backlight off and the volume all the way down. I use Siren to listen to and control the scanner, and I have a MacMini running OS X Server with VPN Server running. I can go anywhere and turn on VPN on my iPhone and get to the scanner.
The great thing about this antenna is that it's two in one, and you can aim them in two different directions. One is pointed to downtown Orlando and the other is aimed a little south to pick up Universal/Disney traffic.