Backlight Question 396XT

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N2PYS

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Can somebody tell me how to get the display to light when a signal is detected on my BCD396XT ??
 

W8RMH

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Can somebody tell me how to get the display to light when a signal is detected on my BCD396XT ??

Menu>Set Backlight>Set Mode>Squelch>Scan

BCD396XT Easier-to-Read Manual

( FYI - If you have a question you should start your own thread. Asking an unrelated question on someone elses thread is considered high-jacking and is frowned upon ).
 
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K8LEA

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N2PYS:

While you're mucking about with the display light, you'll find that the 396XT allows you to set a specific COLOR to a channel. Handy for a quick "who the heck was that?" look from across the room. The light will then turn back to "white" after a few seconds before going off entirely.

I find the display a bear to read unless I'm right on top of it, and the light's on. Otherwise, few problems here.

Regards,
 

scanman1958

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It would be nice too if any new Uniden scanner would have the light stay on during the entire radio transmission. If it is a fire or EMS dispatch it could do that in case you may be in another room or something. It may take a bit to get to the scanner. Just a thought.
 

K8LEA

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scanman:

+1, but I'd like to see it stay on the same color, and not shift to generic "white"....

(Or maybe there is a way to prevent that? :D)

Uniden seems to have handed their engineers a memo to the effect of "put every feature you can think of into this thing". Makes for hilarious programming, and features you can barely explain....

The only downside is that the light may be a battery-sucker, and these things are already awful at that.

They went for a "get it anywhere" battery instead of something custom, and while recharging options are a tad thin, you should be able to find AA's anywhere. Not so for custom high-capacity batteries, but, for example, my Yaesu FT-60R will hang in there all day while scanning a hundred channels or so, it's a $50 battery and you won't find it at Rite-Aid :D.... (Using the five watt transmitter really cuts that listen time down, of course, but the only reason I'd like to see a transmitter inside the BCD396XT is for one less radio to carry :D.)

Regards,
 

One13Truck

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I go back & forth between having the backlight on all the time when it's plugged in and reset it to 30 seconds when on battery power to save battery usage or on some nights that I don't want to deal with the light all the time.

Also one of the first things I did was change the default backlight to magenta on my 396XT and green on the 996XT. It's MUCH easier on my eyes than the white is. At the time the being able to select the default backlight color and set alert colors was what made me decide to go with the 396XT as opposed to the PSR800. The backlight colors plus the alerts make it very easy to ID the channel it's on instantly although my particular system that I use on both my 396XT and 996XT would really confuse anybody else but me. LOL I do regret not owning a PSR800 now but the 396XT is still the best scanner I've ever owned.
 

K8LEA

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One13Truck:

When my Township PD went to an APCO25 trunk system, they decided to share the system with a couple other PD's, FD's, etc.

They shifted to plain language for most things, largely to avoid confusing the other folks.

Nobody told them that the system normally would keep 'em segregated, and only when "mutual aid" was involved would it matter.

The result is a mix of plain language and codes. Makes me a little nuts, but they're handling it.

(I'm a semi-retired rent-a-cop, among other things. I'm so old that I hardly know anybody on the PD anymore, or the City PD adjacent. Everybody's retired, dead, or brain damaged :D....)

Many years ago, the wife got involved with a Neighborhood Watch group that ran a "calling tree" to pass "bulletins" around the Township when something of interest occurred. The wife was working outside the house, and I wasn't, so guess who got the calls.... One afternoon the PD's "contact" guy (another retiree - schoolteacher or some such) called me, and started to rattle off the bulletin, using "Code" for about everything. About 2/3 of the way through, he caught himself, and asked if I needed a translation. "Bert, I'm a few years younger than you, but I bet I learned those codes a decade before you ever saw one." Oops....

One thing for the gang here - even if you know the codes & such, if you're calling in a 911 or some such, unless the call taker knows you, or knows you're with (or associated with) some PD or FD, don't use the codes. Confuses the heck out of them.... Been there.... :D

I had to report a "cafe coronary" once. I knew I shouldn't have said that as soon as I said it. The Dispatcher said "huh?". I had to repeat: "An 92 year old woman choked on a piece of steak.".... Mom was conscious and breathing by then, but my brain shifted into Police Mode :D.... Wouldn't have mattered too much, but the gal on the other end had no idea what a "cafe coronary" was. Seems like when Heimlich published his method, everybody forgot the term - it just stopped happening as staff learned how to do it. In this case, my wife and another patron at the restaurant, while I was calling it in. My wife works at a nursing home - you bet she knows how to do it.

Way back when, people would go out to dinner and die. It'd often appear to be a heart attack, but it wasn't, and wasn't necessarily "caught". The name went away....

The lights, btw only bother me a tad when I've got the radio in the car in the evenings. I have to buy something "permanent" for the car. Both cars have hi-band radios with scanning capabilities, but nothing that helps with 800mhz trunking.... Hauling the portable around is a PITA....

Regards,
 

One13Truck

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I still have my 15X in my truck permanently. That one just has the yellow backlight although on occasion I will take the 396XT and hook that one up. It usually doesn't bother me too much but I guess that's because I'm used to having the strobe dash light now and formerly a few strobe roof lights on the vehicle. Our old first due Ambulance had a wicked white center strobe as well. It drove most people crazy and they used to shut that section of lighting off but if I was in there I'd make sure to flip the switch to "on". So I guess all the flashing and all is just second nature to me. LOL

The confusing the dispatchers? Well I did that once on vacation w/o thinking of it. We saw a rear end crash right in front of our hotel and I called it in. Fortunately they matched up an she didn't even blink. Our own in county dispatchers are another story. They're easily confused about just about everything. It's actually pretty scary how much of a downgrade we have now that we have 911 as opposed to when we used to have our local/regional centers. I think most of them would still be confused if we phonetically spelled the words for them and pointed them to the correct page of questions to ask. Now we're just happy when they manage to dispatch the right units to the right town or address because those errors happen quite frequently. ;)
When we went 911 we had memo after memo tacked up in all of the stations saying no more codes, plain language only. We played nice and went along but the PD side and the County never stopped so the fire/ems side said the heck with it and went back to them as well. Not as much now but it's still done.


And back on topic now in reference to the change to the display color from the default.

Settings > Set Backlight > Set Color

As I said I set my 396XT to Magenta and the 996XT to green. Much easier on my eyes than the white was.
 
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