Common answer
I have read many posts over the years since the 396 and 996 came out regarding the machine gun, motorboat, brraaappp, whatever you want to call it. Many people have tried to contact uniden regarding this issue and the common anwer to it has been "weak signal strength". I used my 996 mobile as well as my 396 and drove all over central Indiana and areas in Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois and in many cases parked within view of the towers. The problem is with digital decoding because if you can see a tower and still braaaapppp how is that "weak signal" related. I know now its "overload" or too close to the tower....NO.
The previous post is correct, it does seem to be worse on some days than others, probably related to control channels.
The volume issue is only with the 996, it just has low volume, unrelated to any systems. The 396s volume is good but there were some reports of speakers being blown on that model.
I could not effectively use the 996 mobile using just the speaker on the scanner, it did require an extrenal speaker, but thats not uncommon for most radios mobile not just scanners.
Please dont misunderstand both these scanners are good. I did replace my 996s with GRE 600s and I have NEVER heard the braaappp not once on the 500 or the 600 and the audio is LOUD, I do not need extreral speakers anymore.
The 396 is a very cool radio, the size is nice the feature set excellent and the receiver given this units size is great. The 396 is more "portable" because of its size if you like to take a scanner on your person. In all my years in the hobby I have never been one to wear a scanner around on my belt, just never have done that.
If you love the hobby and just like scanners and radios in general you know there is NO perfect one, thats why its cool to have many different ones to enjoy!
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