'New' Uniden for Australia UBCD436HP-ES

[schs448]

Coming soon:
New digital scanner selected - Country Fire Authority

 

[Jay911]

Oooh! Now the question remains, is this a true AU-market 436 or an American 436 with a "locally renamed" so to speak model number?

 

[JASII]

New' Uniden For Australia UBCD436HP-ES

That is a good question. I don't even see it on the Uniden Australia website yet.


:: Uniden Australia ::

 

[Jay911]

There seems to be conflicting or vague data out there on the web:

Vicradiozone states:

A modified Uniden BCD436HP has been selected and will be known locally as the UBCD436HP-ES.

"Will be known locally" being the part that caught my eye.

Ozscan seems to believe this is a genuine release for AU and that the 996P2 will soon follow:

The new scanner is a revised version of the American BCD436HP Handheld Scanner.

At this stage there are no plans to discontinue the UBCD396XT. This Scanner will stay in production as it is a proven performer and a reliable unit.

I can also confirm that there is a DESKTOP scanner poised for release in the near future as well. Due to the costing involved the new model will probably be a revised Australian version of the BCD996XTP2.

My two cents (even though neither your country nor mine uses pennies any more ) :

• I'm reasonably sure that regardless of what radio you use, you can make location-based scanning work so long as you populate the location data in your favorite lists and use a GPS (or manually choose a location - obviously postcode won't work until/unless Uniden adds the AU postcode table to the scanner).
• Might be worth your while to start submitting location data to the AU section of the RR database just in case they have plans to do what they did for us in US & CA
• CFA has stated twice in their press release that "the Uniden scanner was evaluated as being the superior product offered during the tender process" and "The rigorous selection process has revealed that the selected digital scanner is the best product currently available".
• They're being distributed pre-programmed with the CFA channel plan. Seems like somebody who knows a 'firie' might be able to get a fully confirmed favorite list to download.
• Hints in the CFA press release of future transition to Phase 2.

 

[JASII]

New' Uniden For Australia UBCD436HP-ES

Can somebody refresh my memory. If I recall correctly, there is a bit of 800 mHz spectrum, used in Australia for public safety, that is cell phone spectrum here in the United States?

 

[Jay911]

Can somebody refresh my memory. If I recall correctly, there is a bit of 800 mHz spectrum, used in Australia for public safety, that is cell phone spectrum here in the United States?

Yup. I believe they have all of 869 MHz in their "trunking band". When I went there 5 years ago there was at least one trunked public safety/city operations system I couldn't fully monitor because my 396XT wouldn't reach the last 2 freqs on the site.

 

[Ozscan652]

UBCD436HP-ES - Coming in November

As many may be already aware, there is a new Digital Scanner about to be released here in Australia.
It is a completely re-engineered version of the US Model BCD436HP (Handheld).
This is NOT a re-packed US Model. It includes several 'tweaks' over the US model.
One change that I can confirm is that it has a 240 Volt power supply - unlike the US Version using a USB charging system.
It will have the band plan modified to suit Australia and the Service Search feature will also be configured for Australia. The Scanner was developed for the Victorian CFA (Country Fire Authority) and will be supplied to the CFA members pre-configured with all the relevant Victorian CFA Network frequencies.
The Scanner will be able to be re-configured for other networks including the NSW and the new SA GRN digital system about to be released.
The Tasmanian EDACS system will also be replaced in the near future with a P25 System similar to the NSW GRN. The release date is set for the first week of November 2015. No confirmed price yet but it will be between $499 - $699 AUD and will be supplied as a CFA Member only exclusive at this stage. Not available at your local electronics outlet.
The actual scanner will look virtually identical to it's US cousin.
There is also good news for those looking for a replacement digital desktop scanner that has not been available in Australia for around 4 years. This will also be a modified BCD996P2. Price - $499-$699 AUD.
This particular desktop will be released to the general public.

 

[Boatanchor]

Great, so the CFA buys a couple of thousand 436HP's and then in 18 months time, they all need to be repaired because the RTC battery and LCD illumination fails

 

[VicradioZone]

There seems to be conflicting or vague data out there on the web:

Vicradiozone states:



"Will be known locally" being the part that caught my eye.

Ozscan seems to believe this is a genuine release for AU and that the 996P2 will soon follow:

Hi Jay,

Regarding my wording and use of the term 'modified'. I chose to use that term because even though the unit has been reworked for local conditions it is in essence based on the original BCD436HP chassis, all be it with modifications. Hope that clears that up for you.

Furthermore to the above, the UBCD436HP-ES designation will in actual fact be known as the UBCD436-PT on end user production units apparently.

It would seem the 'ES' was the initial 'test units' for the CFA. As a guess the PT may in fact be to denote Pacific Telecommunications who are responsible for the CFA supplied units. Guess only though.

 

[Jay911]

Thanks for the clarification. The question, at least for me, is mainly - is this just an American 436 with a CFA favorites list loaded into it, or has somebody modified it to meet the Australian bandplans, etc?

Interesting about the ES vs PT as well. I wonder if ES stood for Example Specimen or something like that.

 

[VicradioZone]

Hello again Jay,

If you have a read of OzScan's post he mentions the band plan will be modified for local conditions.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

 

[Jay911]

Thanks again! That makes it pretty cut-and-dry.

 

[ausscan]

• They're being distributed pre-programmed with the CFA channel plan. Seems like somebody who knows a 'firie' might be able to get a fully confirmed favorite list to download.

I fall within the category and will be purchasing one for myself the second they go on sale.I'll have a full rundown on them as soon as I can.

 

[Minus1]

Will it have Australian post codes (zip codes)?

I undoubtedly expect too much…

 

[rustynswrail]

Will it have Australian post codes (zip codes)?
I undoubtedly expect too much…

No it will not. That system would not work here for a number of reasons. Mainly because we do not have city or county based services. Each state has only one police force (despite the fact they are encrypted) not several like in the US, each state has only one ambulance service and each state has one urban and one rural fire brigade. It would be too complicated to set it up because emergency service repeaters overlap numerous towns, cities, municipalities and locales.

Another problem is support. It would require way too much to set up a website and have someone available to keep things up to date. And lets face it, RR is near on useless for anything outside north America.

R

 

[VK3RX]

And lets face it, RR is near on useless for anything outside north America.

Well, as Jay911 said above:

Might be worth your while to start submitting location data to the AU section of the RR database just in case they have plans to do what they did for us in US & CA

 

[melbournefan]

Well I am planning on adding Melbourne's tram system onto the database as well as some other users on trbo and DMR.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[rustynswrail]

Well, as Jay911 said above:

Wasting your time submitting as it is not going to support the postcode option.

But if you want to submit data and then buy the information back that is your choice. I won't being doing it that is certain.

R

 

[Jay911]

No it will not. That system would not work here for a number of reasons. Mainly because we do not have city or county based services. Each state has only one police force (despite the fact they are encrypted) not several like in the US, each state has only one ambulance service and each state has one urban and one rural fire brigade. It would be too complicated to set it up because emergency service repeaters overlap numerous towns, cities, municipalities and locales.

Another problem is support. It would require way too much to set up a website and have someone available to keep things up to date. And lets face it, RR is near on useless for anything outside north America.

R

There's no reason it couldn't work. However, I doubt it will be there - at least for the first version - for one specific reason - backend work. Before the first location-based scanner came out from Uniden (was it the 396T/996T line? I forget), there was a huge project to populate all of North America with location data in the RRDB. People were asked to submit proper position information for every frequency and system in the database. This took months to accomplish and even to this day there are still some places needing work (I found a few a couple of weeks ago).

The postcode/zip code info is in a file called something like CityTable.dat (I don't have either of my x36 radios hooked up to my computer right now, or I'd be able to check). There are positions for every zip code/postcode as well as every major city in both USA and Canada. The file is of a proprietary format so I can't add to/modify it, but it stands to reason that it is almost infinitely expandable, simply by adding the country "Australia", loading the centroids for all the postcodes (IIRC, that data is available from your postal service, for a mild fee - I checked a few months ago when I was contemplating modifying the file myself), and doing centers for every city (a pretty daunting task but the data is out there somewhere).

In my opinion, the fact that your emergency services are statewide has little impact on whether or not location-based scanning would work in AU. There are many states and provinces in North America that have statewide trunked radio systems, for example, and use location-based scanning just fine. Each tower site has its own position and range data in the RRDB, and the talkgroup groups the same (a "circle" representing the area they are supposed to cover). For the truly "statewide" talkgroup groups, it's not uncommon to see the group have a position marked in the center of the state with a range that covers the entire state (or even multiple states in some cases).

In my opinion it would be tremendously useful to update the AU part of the RRDB with position and range information for everything that's in it. If you build it (the data with which location-based scanning would become possible), it just might come.

 

[melbournefan]

The problem with the RRDB is that everything was upto date in 2005 but not now.


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