AA County eventually digital, Pro-96 on sale good choice?
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ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
I don't understand why folks aren't answering - there are numerous 96 owners here...but....
Matt, much has been written about the 96's recovered audio - some folks like it better than the Uniden, others say the opposite. Personally speaking I think such judgements are somewhat subjective. There's been enough written about this topic in the Radio Shack and Uniden forums that a little homework is in order.
It should be noted that there are a few AA talkgroups that are already digital - I haven't heard a peep about how well the 96 decodes them, if at all (I think they are encrypted, and nothing breaks that)
However, there are a couple of things about the 96 which, at least for some folks, are deal breakers, and you should know about them before plunking down your green...
a. No milair (225-400 mhz). Even opened up with software (I'll get to that in a moment), since the radio isn't designed for this band, it might work OK, others not at all - and the radio is not defective. There's a great deal of activity here, and you'd miss out. It does cover the 138-144 mhz band, though, where many Air National Guard aircraft can be found.
b. Some of the Unidens come with their own software (though the consensus is that there are many better choices); the PROs - all of them - don't. In addition, the Unidens, for the most part, supply their own programming cable (or use a standard DB9 or USB cable), the RS units need a seperate cable, both of which cost extra.
c. Forget about computer controlled logging and recording. The RS units simply can't do this - it's not in the firmware. Sure you can sit on a single channel and record with all the nice software - some of it free - but that's very limited. No doubt when AA pulls the plug and goes digital, logging and recording ability will be critical to understanding the new layout. There is rather unique software that would allow you to read the control channel of the new system, but it works ONLY if it's running at a certain baud rate.
The Unidens have numerous packages that do logging and recording.
The Wiki on this site has a great deal of information accum'ed from various sources on these scanners. Do your homework before making the purchase - you will be much better off for it. 73s Mike
Matt, much has been written about the 96's recovered audio - some folks like it better than the Uniden, others say the opposite. Personally speaking I think such judgements are somewhat subjective. There's been enough written about this topic in the Radio Shack and Uniden forums that a little homework is in order.
It should be noted that there are a few AA talkgroups that are already digital - I haven't heard a peep about how well the 96 decodes them, if at all (I think they are encrypted, and nothing breaks that)
However, there are a couple of things about the 96 which, at least for some folks, are deal breakers, and you should know about them before plunking down your green...
a. No milair (225-400 mhz). Even opened up with software (I'll get to that in a moment), since the radio isn't designed for this band, it might work OK, others not at all - and the radio is not defective. There's a great deal of activity here, and you'd miss out. It does cover the 138-144 mhz band, though, where many Air National Guard aircraft can be found.
b. Some of the Unidens come with their own software (though the consensus is that there are many better choices); the PROs - all of them - don't. In addition, the Unidens, for the most part, supply their own programming cable (or use a standard DB9 or USB cable), the RS units need a seperate cable, both of which cost extra.
c. Forget about computer controlled logging and recording. The RS units simply can't do this - it's not in the firmware. Sure you can sit on a single channel and record with all the nice software - some of it free - but that's very limited. No doubt when AA pulls the plug and goes digital, logging and recording ability will be critical to understanding the new layout. There is rather unique software that would allow you to read the control channel of the new system, but it works ONLY if it's running at a certain baud rate.
The Unidens have numerous packages that do logging and recording.
The Wiki on this site has a great deal of information accum'ed from various sources on these scanners. Do your homework before making the purchase - you will be much better off for it. 73s Mike
troymail
Silent Key
I'm a Uniden user and have had a 396 since they first came out. With the $100 drop and the ability to return the radio within 30 days, I decided it was time to give the PRO-96 a try.
I was primarily interested in seeing how the digital voice quality from the PRO-96 compared to the 396.
The PRO-96 will be going back to the store in the next few days.
In addition to what Mike said above:
- I've concluded that the voice digital voice quality is in fact a bit better than the 396 right out of the box without any special tweaking but I believe this has more to do with the fact that the PRO-96 may have slightly better reception. For digital the reception HAS to be good to get a good digital voice output; having both radios side by side trying to listen to Baltimore City: strange, sometimes the PRO-96 would lock onto the signal and the 396 missed it - other times it was just the opposite.
- I have a RS 800Mhz rubber duck antenna that I use on my 396; it makes a difference on the 396 but it didn't seem to make much difference on the PRO-96 suggesting to me that the PRO-96 not only has better 800 Mhz reception but it is probably slanted towards 800 Mhz and trunking system use (which makes sense). I cannot understand why a radio wants to be *everything* to everyone - if it's desgined primary for 800 Mhz trunking, it does seem to make much sense to also try to receive VHF low (e.g. 46 Mhz) with the same radio - it's good but I can see where trying to hit both ends of the spectrum would reduce reception quality for both (sorry, this applies to all equally)
- it's really hard to determine how well the two will work against the AA County digital since there is little or no use yet (except the occasional wrong TG selection that AAPD switches to - their radios have digital TGs programmed already but they are not using them yet). The only semi-consistently used digital TG is the "Howard County/Elkridge patch" (a TG set aside for Howard PD use in that area) and I don't count that since it isn't really a AA County TG
- the PRO-96 doesn't handle the 380 Mhz band used by the federal systems such as Fort Meade. This isn't a hugely critical thing to me but it does count for something
- the PRO-96 won't handle 700Mhz band; they're aren't any in this area at the moment (that I know of) but if you travel and like to listen away from home, eventually you'll stumble into one.
- I've heard comments that the PRO-96 seems "cheap" in construction, etc. I can say that I think the overall sound quality from the 396 is better because Uniden seems to have upgraded the speaker. The PRO-96 seems to be using the same type speaker that the BC-245 and other earlier Uniden models. I wouldn't try to go to full volume for any extended period of time for fear the speaker would blow out and/or just become uninteligible.
- the PRO-96 is big and clunky compared to the 396
- they are both a pain to program by hand but if you really had to, I think programming the 396 - particularly the alpha tags - is much much easier than the PRO-96.
- the 396 has more features than the PRO-96 (but this only matters if you use them)
- I find it much easier to enable and disable locked out systems and talkgroups on the 396; I'm not a big fan of the "open" and "closed" modes used by the PRO units
- the Unidens come with a programming cable, batteries, and a AC adapter; the PRO-96 requires you to pay extra for them - probably $50 worth of extras on top of the price of the radio itself
- the PRO-96 still uses "banks" for programming - this usually translates to 1 trunking system per bank (10 systems); the 396 doesn't have this limit. The 396 does have limits but you can effectively program the radio as if it had 99 banks
If the PRO-96 was the only digital capable available, it would be a good choice - but it's not.
At this point, I believe the 396 is a better choice. I'd expect somewhere down the road RS will start selling an updated model and I'll check that thing out when the time comes. So for now, just look at my signture block below and you'll see my opinion.
I'd love to see a merger of the best features of both... but exactly what the best features of both are will vary from user to user...
I was primarily interested in seeing how the digital voice quality from the PRO-96 compared to the 396.
The PRO-96 will be going back to the store in the next few days.
In addition to what Mike said above:
- I've concluded that the voice digital voice quality is in fact a bit better than the 396 right out of the box without any special tweaking but I believe this has more to do with the fact that the PRO-96 may have slightly better reception. For digital the reception HAS to be good to get a good digital voice output; having both radios side by side trying to listen to Baltimore City: strange, sometimes the PRO-96 would lock onto the signal and the 396 missed it - other times it was just the opposite.
- I have a RS 800Mhz rubber duck antenna that I use on my 396; it makes a difference on the 396 but it didn't seem to make much difference on the PRO-96 suggesting to me that the PRO-96 not only has better 800 Mhz reception but it is probably slanted towards 800 Mhz and trunking system use (which makes sense). I cannot understand why a radio wants to be *everything* to everyone - if it's desgined primary for 800 Mhz trunking, it does seem to make much sense to also try to receive VHF low (e.g. 46 Mhz) with the same radio - it's good but I can see where trying to hit both ends of the spectrum would reduce reception quality for both (sorry, this applies to all equally)
- it's really hard to determine how well the two will work against the AA County digital since there is little or no use yet (except the occasional wrong TG selection that AAPD switches to - their radios have digital TGs programmed already but they are not using them yet). The only semi-consistently used digital TG is the "Howard County/Elkridge patch" (a TG set aside for Howard PD use in that area) and I don't count that since it isn't really a AA County TG
- the PRO-96 doesn't handle the 380 Mhz band used by the federal systems such as Fort Meade. This isn't a hugely critical thing to me but it does count for something
- the PRO-96 won't handle 700Mhz band; they're aren't any in this area at the moment (that I know of) but if you travel and like to listen away from home, eventually you'll stumble into one.
- I've heard comments that the PRO-96 seems "cheap" in construction, etc. I can say that I think the overall sound quality from the 396 is better because Uniden seems to have upgraded the speaker. The PRO-96 seems to be using the same type speaker that the BC-245 and other earlier Uniden models. I wouldn't try to go to full volume for any extended period of time for fear the speaker would blow out and/or just become uninteligible.
- the PRO-96 is big and clunky compared to the 396
- they are both a pain to program by hand but if you really had to, I think programming the 396 - particularly the alpha tags - is much much easier than the PRO-96.
- the 396 has more features than the PRO-96 (but this only matters if you use them)
- I find it much easier to enable and disable locked out systems and talkgroups on the 396; I'm not a big fan of the "open" and "closed" modes used by the PRO units
- the Unidens come with a programming cable, batteries, and a AC adapter; the PRO-96 requires you to pay extra for them - probably $50 worth of extras on top of the price of the radio itself
- the PRO-96 still uses "banks" for programming - this usually translates to 1 trunking system per bank (10 systems); the 396 doesn't have this limit. The 396 does have limits but you can effectively program the radio as if it had 99 banks
If the PRO-96 was the only digital capable available, it would be a good choice - but it's not.
At this point, I believe the 396 is a better choice. I'd expect somewhere down the road RS will start selling an updated model and I'll check that thing out when the time comes. So for now, just look at my signture block below and you'll see my opinion.
I'd love to see a merger of the best features of both... but exactly what the best features of both are will vary from user to user...
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Does anybody know if RS will upgrade its firmware to accept the Mil Air, 700mhz, etc in the future?
ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
It's unlikely a firmware upgrade would add frequency coverage it doesn't already have. Unless the RF sections of the scanner are also DSP controlled (possible but unlikely), the scanner's simply not designed to cover these ranges (if it were a true DSP receiver, that would change the rules dramatically). I haven't seen a block diagram, but I'm willing to bet the audio and RF sections are conventional in design - so it rules out adding ranges it doesn't have.
73s Mike
73s Mike
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Mike and Troy, thanks for your detailed messages! They really help.
I have decided to hold off and get the 396T when AA finally goes digital (or rebanding makes it a necessity). Hopefully, when this happens maybe the 396T will be cheaper and, possibly, RS will have a newer model available to consider.
So, it is my faithful BC-245XLT for now! I wonder when AA will be completely digital?
Thanks again!
Matt
I have decided to hold off and get the 396T when AA finally goes digital (or rebanding makes it a necessity). Hopefully, when this happens maybe the 396T will be cheaper and, possibly, RS will have a newer model available to consider.
So, it is my faithful BC-245XLT for now! I wonder when AA will be completely digital?
Thanks again!
Matt
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troymail
Silent Key
I think AA County is still working on getting at least two more towers in place before switching to digital. Can't be too far off though given that AAPD were issued new digital ready radios several m onths ago (TGs area already programmed and are sometimes used accidently).
The sheriff's department has been using digital for I-Calls for some time now. I'm wondering if this was done on purpose just to provide some test cases for digital in the county.
AAPD Narcotics has been digital for a long time but because it is encrypted, can't really gauge anything from that.
The sheriff's department has been using digital for I-Calls for some time now. I'm wondering if this was done on purpose just to provide some test cases for digital in the county.
AAPD Narcotics has been digital for a long time but because it is encrypted, can't really gauge anything from that.
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troymail
Silent Key
While listening to my 396, I happened to catch the Elkridge patch active on the AA County system tonight.... I turned on the PRO-96 to check out the digital voice quality... Maybe this isn't a good test of digital on the AA County system but if it is, at best, the PRO-96 is about the same as what I'm getting from my 396....
troymail
Silent Key
Interestingly, I decided to start listening to Howard County on my older 296... sounds quite good... better than both the PRO-96 AND my 396....
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