2096 VS. 996t

[N4DXX]

Well i have gotten a bit of static over the posts i have placed about the 996 i suppose it's a good scanner and packed with features but in my personal opinion the 2096 is much better at decoding the digital,and you have to adjust the settings on the 996 and you don't the 2096 it's basically plug and play.The 996 i just can't adapt well to it very well...Very sophisticated scanner maybe to much so for a lot of ppl you may need a college degree to operate this beast..But the only thing i can say for sure is that on the p25 system's i monitor the 2096 is the winner

 

[wabc770]

I decided to try an expriment with the 996t i programmed 500 conv freq's in the scanner and to scan thru them with a stop watch it took 30 1/2 seconds can anyone tell me how this is anywhere near 100ch a second?more like 20 ch per second and thats giving it some ground

I found the 996 to be pretty slow too - I didn't realize how slow it was until I
compared it side-by-side with my 2096. I timed it too -- and the same group
of channels that took in the low teens on the 2096 took between 35 and 40 on
the 996 - tho I also had trunked systems. I was hearing 2-3 times as much on the 2096.

Drove me crazy.

 

[UPMan]

Well, you guys had me worried, so I loaded 500 channels into a system and included the local weather channel as one of the channels (all other channels inactive). Timed with a stopwatch from the time I pressed SCAN to leave the WX broadcast to the resumption of WX broadcast (i.e. one full scan cycle) took 6.5 seconds. These channels were on 12.5 kHz steps, not 6.25, so the best possible scan speed wasn't achieved...but it was much better than the 35-40 seconds you have reported.

 

[wabc770]

Well, you guys had me worried, so I loaded 500 channels into a system and included the local weather channel as one of the channels (all other channels inactive). Timed with a stopwatch from the time I pressed SCAN to leave the WX broadcast to the resumption of WX broadcast (i.e. one full scan cycle) took 6.5 seconds. These channels were on 12.5 kHz steps, not 6.25, so the best possible scan speed wasn't achieved...but it was much better than the 35-40 seconds you have reported.

Sure yer right. Go ahead and load it up with 8 or 10 trunked systems and then tell me you're getting 6.5 seconds. The 996 picks its nose forever on control channels.

 

[N4DXX]

The 996t would be a great scanner if i lived close to the transmitters for p25 in my area it would probably perform just as good as the 2096,but if your in a situation such as i am where the towers are 25-40 miles away this is where i think the 996 starts running into trouble with signals not so strong this unit struggles to decode p25 and the only thing i can compare it with is the 2096 on the same antenna the 2096 almost alway's decodes all the system signals even very weak ones.The 996t will miss 60% of the same transmissions i just think the 2096 has a better reciever therefore it is much better at decoding the weak signals,in an urban inviorement you probably woulden't even notice.But i am so far out in the sticks i can see a big diff in the two scanners,and for 500 plus you would or at least i expect the 996 to blow the competition away or at least be equally as well.I was somewhat dissapointed with the 996.For most i suppose it's a great scanner and i am not in any way trying to down anyone's scanner's they chose to buy,But i think there is some issues/improvement's that need to be made for the 996 to be top notch and the 2096 has issues as well but for me the 2096 just work's better at decoding those weak distant signals and so i must use the 2096 to monitor what i listen to in my area..

 

[baddlord777]

Power-off

I have the systems I want to listen to when at work assigned to a different startup configuration. So, when I plug in at the disk, I power up w/2 held down and all the GPS systems are locked out and my "work" systems are unlocked.

I was wondering....how much wear & tear is on a base unit powered on 24-7 ? Can i just leave it powered on all the time...or should i shut-it-down ? Whats the pro's & con's ?

 

[JStemann]

Timjude

I was initially pretty disappointed with my 996 also. I agree, it really seems slow compared to my pro-96. It was suggested in another post to set the audio type to digital for know digital freqs or talkgroups. I have tried this on the KSP system and on Indiana's trunked system with very good results. The digital quality ,now, is very close if not equal to the pro-96. I also have the latest firmware installed, although I didn't really notice much difference between what I had and what I have.

As for the gps part, I didn't see it as a big deal(at first). But now I love it. Very time consuming to progam and set the distances for the first time. With the pro-96 I just about had to carry a cheat sheet with me to remember where everything was. On a long trip it can get to be a real pain. with the 996 i've got everything in the radio I don't have to remember where I stuck a particular system.

Don't get me wrong, now. I love the 96 and it does seem slighty more sensative than the 996. I really wish the 996 would scan as fast as the 96. I'm all for getting uniden and gre together. combine the gps and memory system of the uniden with the speed and sensativity of gre.

jeff-kc9ftp

 

[trunker0205]

How can GRE not put the 225-400Mhz Mil Air band in their top of the line scanner is beyond me..Ill take the 996T

 

[mike6454]

2096 vs 996

I agree about performance being much better on the Pro-2096
i bought 2 BC996t's
and side by side the 2096 blows the 996's away in my case p-25 systems
however the 2 above cannot outperform my older BC796D with respect to p-25 systems
in my area
It was my understanding that the 996 was replacing the 796 if the BC796D was still in production and i had it to do all over again i would have bought 1 pro-2096 and 1 more BC796D
As far as GPS and having a pretty screen color from green to red,Uniden's BC996T in my opinion looks better on advertising websites than in real life!
peace.