SDS100 Initial Review DETROIT

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rivermersey

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Well, it receives better than the 436HP, however, reception is still sporadic. Michigan State Police reception is sporadic as well. Some police dispatch districts are not coming in at all. I'm using a Diamond 800mhz rubber antenna. I'm in Royal Oak, 2 miles north of Detroit City limits. I intend to drive into the city to find out if reception improves. Detroit Fire, EMS, sporadic. The audio volume seems very good. Detroit reception on the 436HP was barely usable !! So there is an improvement.
 

srpawski

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Well, it receives better than the 436HP, however, reception is still sporadic. Michigan State Police reception is sporadic as well. Some police dispatch districts are not coming in at all. I'm using a Diamond 800mhz rubber antenna. I'm in Royal Oak, 2 miles north of Detroit City limits. I intend to drive into the city to find out if reception improves. Detroit Fire, EMS, sporadic. The audio volume seems very good. Detroit reception on the 436HP was barely usable !! So there is an improvement.

I’m in Muskegon. We have towers at Twin Lake and Camp Hardy for the State P25 system. Our county is not yet simulcast; however, I notice with both the 436 and the SDS100 sporadic receive of the State P25 system which makes me wonder if it’s a potential issue with the State system. I mean I can listen for hours and not receive anything from the State system and then there are times there is so much traffic from it I can hardly get anything local.
 

werinshades

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Well, it receives better than the 436HP, however, reception is still sporadic. Michigan State Police reception is sporadic as well. Some police dispatch districts are not coming in at all. I'm using a Diamond 800mhz rubber antenna. I'm in Royal Oak, 2 miles north of Detroit City limits. I intend to drive into the city to find out if reception improves. Detroit Fire, EMS, sporadic. The audio volume seems very good. Detroit reception on the 436HP was barely usable !! So there is an improvement.


If you haven't done so, try using the stock antenna. I had an off market antenna and quickly discovered reception was terrible on my simulcast system. Switched to the stock antenna and have been very pleased. Their is a video on You Tube of someone successfully using the SDS100 on the MPSCS system around Allegan County so I'd rule out system issue.
 

JamesO

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I am finding the stock SDS100 antenna is questionable on 800 MHz systems in my location.

The interesting problems is the stock SDS100 antenna preforms very poorly on the SDS100 and my 396XT, but seems to perform OK on my 436HP.

I found that the Radio Shack 800 MHz seems to work best so far on my SDS100 and I also have a cheap Chinese 8" clone SMA Diamond dual band antenna that also worked pretty well on the SDS100, much better than than the stock antenna on 800 MHz.
 

srpawski

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I’m using both versions of the Diamond 770 on each scanner and they seem to perform equally as well.
 

werinshades

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I am finding the stock SDS100 antenna is questionable on 800 MHz systems in my location.

The interesting problems is the stock SDS100 antenna preforms very poorly on the SDS100 and my 396XT, but seems to perform OK on my 436HP.

I found that the Radio Shack 800 MHz seems to work best so far on my SDS100 and I also have a cheap Chinese 8" clone SMA Diamond dual band antenna that also worked pretty well on the SDS100, much better than than the stock antenna on 800 MHz.

My results were the opposite, but that's why I mentioned it. UPMan mentioned something about how the antenna connects differently at the base is why I thought of it.
 

jonwienke

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I never even tried my stock antenna. The first thing I did was to install the BNC adapter and attach a RH77CA--the same antenna I run on my 436. That way I know what sort of antenna performance I'm getting, and can easily swap antennas if there are any performance concerns or questions.
 

srpawski

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I am using the sma to bnc adaptor and the bnc version on the 100 and the sma version on the 436. I had an old version of that antenna on a Radio Shack Pro 83 that I put on the SDS100 after seeing about the potential for an sma based antenna to not fit properly.
 

werinshades

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I never even tried my stock antenna. The first thing I did was to install the BNC adapter and attach a RH77CA--the same antenna I run on my 436. That way I know what sort of antenna performance I'm getting, and can easily swap antennas if there are any performance concerns or questions.

Yes...I know neither one of us is having issues but for those that are, maybe give it a try.
 

iMONITOR

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Not really. The SRH77CA is a wide-band antenna, which claims to receive 120, 150, 300, 450, 800 and 900 MHz but it's not optimized for the 800 MHz band. It's designed for amateur (HAM) radio 144/440 MHz.

A steel coat hanger will also receive those bands as well, just not great. If your priority band is 700-900 MHz, consider the Remtronix, available with either BNC or SMA:
https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/scanants/6119.html
 

srpawski

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Thanks for that link. I'm gonna save it. When more of my area goes 800, as the only thing right now that is is the State stuff the rest is VHF but is changing in the next couple of years.

Yes it's intended for amateur radio. In addition to the scanners, I use the SRH77CA on my 2 meter HT radios and the SRH320A on my tri-band.
 

iMONITOR

Silent Key
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Thanks for that link. I'm gonna save it. When more of my area goes 800, as the only thing right now that is is the State stuff the rest is VHF but is changing in the next couple of years.

Yes it's intended for amateur radio. In addition to the scanners, I use the SRH77CA on my 2 meter HT radios and the SRH320A on my tri-band.


Yes it's great for VHF, pretty good in the 450 UHF. Also makes a great air-band antenna.
 
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