Videos of SDS200 scanning Portland p25 etc

[sparklehorse]

I’m still experimenting with the software filters and tweaking the display colors and data, but so far the SDS200 has been performing very well on the Portland p25 system as well as the CRESA and OSRP systems. It’s about on par with older radios on 800 MHz trunked but unfortunately struggles a bit with weaker analog VHF and UHF signals. I’m hoping Uniden will be able to improve analog performance through future firmware upgrades but this remains to be seen. The display is great and I appreciate having the ability to customize the colors and which data appears in which field. Otherwise its programming is virtually identical to the 436/536 models with the exception of the software filters. Overall it’s a very good radio and the p25 improvement is quite substantial.

I’ve put a couple videos of the SDS200 in action up on YouTube if you’re interested:

OK, back to scanning!

.

 

[letarotor]

You gave me some good ideas in your color scheme. I like the way you colored the signal strength meter red. I've still got too much white text up in that area on my 100 and 200 screens and sometimes miss seeing what the signal strength is due to my being legally blind. I had changed my Record text to red and it makes it a lot easier for me to look and see if I have that feature turned on or off. And I also played with the background colors so that when it's actually recording voice it is even a little more obvious to me. I'm going to change my signal strength to red and do some more playing around with both of my radio screen color configurations.

Also, there is something that can help with signals and digital errors analysis I added to my screen. I chose to put the D-ERROR in place of the battery voltage on my screens. After all, all I have to do is press down on the top volume / squelch / other functions knob on top of the SDS100 radio and it will still show me the battery voltage at the bottom right of the screen.

It's been 6 months since I was last up there in the Clackamas County / Multnomah County areas. I had my SDS100 with me on that trip and it seem to do very well on 90% of what I was listening to. I was staying down in Wilsonville and not receiving Portland until I got further north. But whenever we would go out and do various things oh, I would usually receive Portland very well.

I also noticed the degradation in conventional frequencies in the UHF and VHF bands when compared to my BCD436HP I also had brought. I didn't bring any of my older digital scanners to compare with the 436 but the 436 did seem to do a better job monitoring agencies like Salem on their UHF frequencies. I was using both my 800 MHz and dual band rubber ducky antennas most of the time. I did bring my GPS puck and a Tram magnetic antenna I used as we drove out to Mount Hood and Multnomah Falls. And it did a great job on the SDS100. On my previous trip two years earlier, I use the GPS Puck on the 436 when we drove out to Seaside, Oregon and it did a great job as well. But I don't believe there were any simulcast radio systems on that drive in 2016.

I enjoyed watching your videos and it's just making me want to hurry up and get up to the Portland area for my final move more and more. I'll be living up there hopefully this year. But it's a pain in the butt trying to get things done when the move is 2000 miles away and you have to get help with everything including driving. But I think that will be an enjoyable drive coming from the Fort Worth area and being on the passenger side with cross country radio monitoring going on

I literally recorded almost everything the two weeks I was in Portland the last time in 2018. I wanted to be able to go back on my 100 scanner recordings and see exactly what I was hearing, especially when I wasn't able to see it, and analyze how the different radio systems sounded from where I was staying or traveling at the time.

Has Portland made a move over to the newer radio system since September of last year? I wasn't staying with an old girlfriend that had any radio knowledge so I wasn't really sure if there were changes still occurring back in September of 2018. I see that your favorites list tag for the Portland traffic says 700 MHz and I'm trying to remember if they were using that at the time I was there or not?

I'm noticing that my SDS200 is doing an even better job than my SDS100 on the Fort Worth Regional Radio System which is a simulcast system where I live now. It is definitely outperforming the 100 on the simulcast 700 / 800 MHz traffic and even on the P25 Phase 1 VHF TRS traffic. And I've even got a Stridsberg 4 port multicoupler I'm using so the radios are hooked up to the same antenna with no signal loss.

I'm trying to keep up with what changes are occurring up in the northern Oregon area just so that I know what to change in my own programming before I finally get moved up there.

Thanks for the videos and ideas. And thanks for any additional information also.

Brian (COMMSCAN)

Sent using Google Voice to Text. Please excuse any missed errors.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[4436time]

sparklehorse,

Nice. Where did you purchase from if you don't mind me asking?

 

[sparklehorse]

<snip>Has Portland made a move over to the newer radio system since September of last year? I wasn't staying with an old girlfriend that had any radio knowledge so I wasn't really sure if there were changes still occurring back in September of 2018. I see that your favorites list tag for the Portland traffic says 700 MHz and I'm trying to remember if they were using that at the time I was there or not?<snip>

Portland 911 dispatch moved over to the p25 system in late 2016 or thereabouts. They kept the legacy analog system online for quite a while until all city users had migrated, but it is now off the air. Likewise Clark County Washington has also moved completely to a p25 system. Clackamas and Washington counties are still on their legacy analog system(s) but have a p25 system in the works. When they will switch over is anyone’s guess.

Congrats on your move and welcome to the Pacific NW! We get dinged a lot for our rainy winters but people never seem to mention that from May to October we often have the best weather in the country. Not much rain, not too hot, low humidity. Many, many days of sunny and 80 degrees. Plus we’ve got mountains and an ocean and stuff like that. Pretty awesome place to live really. Not that Texas isn’t, but I know it’s nasty hot there much of the time. Hurricanes too, those can’t be fun.

.

 

[sparklehorse]

sparklehorse,

Nice. Where did you purchase from if you don't mind me asking?

Thanks. The radio was available on Amazon for a short time through a marketplace seller called Police Scanner Outlet, which supposedly is actually Bearcat Warehouse, but I can’t say that for sure. They took it off Amazon right after I put my order in and still haven’t put it back up. Don’t know why, but I’d guess out of stock. Mine took over a week to get here as they shipped it UPS Ground from Maryland and it got held up in Spokane for several days due to weather. Oh well, it got here in one piece and it doesn’t have the speaker hum that some have reported so I’m happy.

.

 

[letarotor]

Portland 911 dispatch moved over to the p25 system in late 2016 or thereabouts. They kept the legacy analog system online for quite a while until all city users had migrated, but it is now off the air. Likewise Clark County Washington has also moved completely to a p25 system. Clackamas and Washington counties are still on their legacy analog system(s) but have a p25 system in the works. When they will switch over is anyone’s guess.

Congrats on your move and welcome to the Pacific NW! We get dinged a lot for our rainy winters but people never seem to mention that from May to October we often have the best weather in the country. Not much rain, not too hot, low humidity. Many, many days of sunny and 80 degrees. Plus we’ve got mountains and an ocean and stuff like that. Pretty awesome place to live really. Not that Texas isn’t, but I know it’s nasty hot there much of the time. Hurricanes too, those can’t be fun.

.

I loveed Portland and Oregon the first time I came up there. And you just described a lot of the reasons I fell in love with the area. You have the ocean 90 miles to the west and places like Mount Hood that are about 90 miles to the east and you're surrounded by beautiful, uncluttered landscape and awesome temperatures.

It was kind of funny when I came up 6 months ago because it had been 110° here in Fort Worth right before I came up last September. And the heat wave hit Portland while I was there but the highs were like 94°. I know the people from Portland probably felt like we did down in Texas when it was 110°. Being acclimated to the cooler temperatures I'm sure 94° felt very hot. But to me it felt like a nice day. Thankfully the Portland heat wave moved off and the temperatures were in the 80s during the day. And at night, it was great with a few nights being in the upper 50s. I love cold weather and Portland seems to be the perfect area where you get the cold but it's not year roun. And during your winters you have nice, regular cold weather with a few snows usually.

There is just so much going on in the whole Portland area and transportation is everywhere and actually used by everyday people. With my disability, they will send somebody to my residence to pick me up and take me to the bus station or the rail station to get back and forth where I need to go. And they do it for free for a disabled person. I can't hardly find a ride here in hot Texas and using Uber can cost a lot when you have to find rides or just normal things like grocery shopping also. I don't know how to explain it other than I just felt at home up in Oregon. And the people I met we're just so friendly and happy seeming as well

I saw the question asking about where the SDS200 was purchased. I forgot to go back and look to see if that was directed to me or the original person posting the videos. But I got mine SDS200 through The Ham Station. I actually got mine before they even got theirs I think. Since the shipping company was based in Arlington Texas, they shipped out directly from Arlington and I lives 20 miles away from there. Instead of having the radio shipped up to Evansville, Indiana and then back down to me I got mine the day they were released or maybe it was the day after. I know that there were about three people that got them really fast due to the way the shipment was done this time. And I've been listening to it ever since Friday, February 1st. It worked out great for me and I'm glad I went ahead and got it when I did. I was thinking of holding us but decided to go ahead and do it and I'm happy was what I got!

Thanks for the update on the radio systems up in the northern Oregon area. It sounds like things are still the way I had programme them in last year. So I don't need to do any updating just yet anyways.

I'm curious to see how my Unication G5 will work once I get up there. Especially if the mix of different analog and digital TRS set ups is the same. I'm still working on programming my G5 her down here where I'm at currently. I'm guessing that there are Oregon G5 owners that might be able to assist if I have any questions when I get up to Oregon permanently? I got the VHF / 700 / 800 model of the G5 specifically with the Portland area in mind and what I had noticed being used when I was up there last. I know there is some UHF Public Safety users but it seemed there were a lot more VHF users when it came to agencies not on one of the Motorola TRS setups.

Brian (COMMSCAN)

Sent using Google Voice to Text. Please excuse any missed errors.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[sparklehorse]

<snip>I'm curious to see how my Unication G5 will work once I get up there. Especially if the mix of different analog and digital TRS set ups is the same. I'm still working on programming my G5 her down here where I'm at currently. I'm guessing that there are Oregon G5 owners that might be able to assist if I have any questions when I get up to Oregon permanently? I got the VHF / 700 / 800 model of the G5 specifically with the Portland area in mind and what I had noticed being used when I was up there last. I know there is some UHF Public Safety users but it seemed there were a lot more VHF users when it came to agencies not on one of the Motorola TRS setups<snip>.

I like my G5 for commuting or otherwise driving around town because it never misses a beat. BUT it doesn’t exactly sound great. It has a tinny, harsh quality to it that isn’t pleasant to listen to for long periods. That’s why the SDS200 is nice because it actually has a pleasant sound on p25 so I can once again listen to my local public safety at home. Unfortunately the G5 doesn’t have a good option for an earphone, so for you it may not be that useful up here as you seem to use public transportation primarily. But it’s still a great little radio and does work very well on our p25 systems here. VHF was a good choice for your G5 as it’s true we don’t have all that much UHF in this area.

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[4436time]

Thank you.

 

[OregonScanner]

Sounds great! Way better than my initial production SDS100 that I returned. I've been thinking of picking up an SDS100 now that they've been out for awhile and have new firmware and filter options. Maybe I just got a bad one.

 

[devicelab]

You gave me some good ideas in your color scheme.

No offense but looking at his color scheme I thought he might be colorblind. Those are painful to look at for more than a few seconds, IMHO.

 

[W8RMH]

Actually i think these are the best color combos I have seen yet. I like they way the softkeys match the appropriate items on the screen. Sounds good too, no problems with flickering or buzzing as in other posts.

 

[devicelab]

These are my detailed trunking and search display color configurations.

 

[N5XTC]

I’m still experimenting with the software filters and tweaking the display colors and data, but so far the SDS200 has been performing very well on the Portland p25 system as well as the CRESA and OSRP systems. It’s about on par with older radios on 800 MHz trunked but unfortunately struggles a bit with weaker analog VHF and UHF signals. I’m hoping Uniden will be able to improve analog performance through future firmware upgrades but this remains to be seen. The display is great and I appreciate having the ability to customize the colors and which data appears in which field. Otherwise its programming is virtually identical to the 436/536 models with the exception of the software filters. Overall it’s a very good radio and the p25 improvement is quite substantial.

I’ve put a couple videos of the SDS200 in action up on YouTube if you’re interested:

OK, back to scanning!

.

LOVE your color scheme. could you post it in the
Uniden SDS100 & SDS200 Color Schemes Forum

https://forums.radioreference.com/t...s200-color-schemes.383516/page-3#post-3076358

 

[sparklehorse]

LOVE your color scheme. could you post it in the
Uniden SDS100 & SDS200 Color Schemes Forum

https://forums.radioreference.com/t...s200-color-schemes.383516/page-3#post-3076358

Thanks. Well, I've changed things up a bit since I made those videos. Here's what I've pretty much settled on (for now anyway!):

Detailed Trunk:




Detailed Conventional:



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[ScanRite]

Very cool!

Does your radio have the Hum issue? I find it appalling that you spend $700 on a radio then have to perform a hardware fix yourself. I haven't bought one yet and definitely think I'll wait now.

 

[ScottPDX]

Hello Sparklehorse,
I have encountered your early reviews of the SDS200 and your youtube videos of your West Simulcast reception and I now think it is time for me to re-enter the hobby again from here on the East base of Mt. Tabor. I sold all my WS1080’s a year or so ago (too much P25 multicast LSM distortion), and for a month played with a G4 and loved it’s P25 reception, but hated it’s other non-P25 use limitations, and just spent the last year listening to jeb2942’s excellent Hillsboro OR directional antenna Uniden BCDx36 feed of Portland P25 Broadcastify since. I followed the other reviews of the SDS100 as it rolled out and progressed from experiences of the early adopters, but just didn’t quite feel the reviews were good enough to make me want to spend the dollars, and spend the time trying it out. Fast forward to now and I like what I’m hearing and seeing from the likes of you and other early adopters of the SDS200. I see the reports about the SDS200 early production runs audio hum and display issues, but it sounds as if some of the early production models are out there, and the later production units may have fixes already applied for those issues. Do you concur with that assessment? I’m not really comfortable as an early adopter of any technology, and can wait. But with your comparisons with your G5 I am encouraged that this True I/Q SDS200 will allow me to properly hear the P25 inside the ring of West simulcast that I wasn’t able to adequately hear with the WS1080’s. I know about Whistlers upcoming similar offerings too, but I think it’s time for me to enter the Uniden world with this introduction of the SDS200.

Thanks for being an early tester and reviewer of the SDS200 here in PDX, and sharing your detailed and knowledgeable reviews and experiences.

ScottPDX

 

[sparklehorse]

Thanks Duane & Scott.
I guess I got lucky as my SDS200 does not have the hum issue that some others have experienced. That's not to say there is NO hum at all - there is a tiny bit present if you stick your ear right up to the radio when the room is dead silent. I can't hear the hum at all though from a foot away. I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised to find my other radios emit a similar small amount of noise. But I agree, it is appalling that any units have gotten into the hands of consumers with a defect as bad as some have reported. Uniden has now acknowledged the issue and have released a fix for it that consumers can implement at home, so I personally would not let the hum thing keep me from buying an SDS200. My keypad backlight is on the dim side as many have reported, but since I only use the radio as a base this doesn't bother me. The radio is not as sensitive on 700/800 p25 as my G5, but it's sensitive enough. I get pretty good decode with the SDS on the OSRP Mt. Hood site from my home in SW Portland, and my 800 MHz Yagi isn't even pointed in that direction. However it doesn't get enough signal from the SW 7 County system to lock onto the Scott Mtn site 75 miles away, which is a feat the G5 can pull off quite reliably on the same antenna. Still, it's more than adequate for the p25 stuff here locally. Using just an RS800 duck antenna I get pretty good decode on CRESA's p25 and on Portland's East Simulcast, both of which were a serious struggle for my BCD536HP or 436. The West Simulcast site is pretty much perfect decode on just an RS800 duck. And the audio quality seems much better than the BCD536HP - more natural sounding with less bass.
My only disappointments with the SDS200 are the performance of analog VHF/UHF not being quite as good as some of my older radios, and reception of analog simulcast 800 MHz Motorola systems, which have been problematic for me here for 20 years now, is not improved at all over previous models. All in all though I'm quite happy with the SDS200 and will probably get an SDS100 one of these days soon (after I pay my dern taxes!)
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