396XT with decode errors

[opticalserenity]

I made a video of my 396XT on the Cobb County, GA P25 trunking system. One tip I got from mts2000des was to turn off WX Priority, and that seemed to help, otherwise I don't know if it's the issues here that are causing the issues.

Cobb County P25 trunking radio system on Uniden 396XT - YouTube

 

[MTS2000des]

with all these dissatisfied scanner owners, you'd think Uniden would put some real tech minds on solving the problem. CQPSK-LSM is used more than C4FM, and correct me on this if I am wrong, but does Uniden advertise the 396/996 as being compatible?

If it's not than one might have some leverage in getting a refund or suing in small claims. I hate to suggest this, but the bottom line is if a consumer pays good money (and $400-4500 is "good" money to most of us), they expect a product to do what it is advertised of being able to do.

A scanner than only gives useable audio 20-30 percent of the time is unacceptable, especially in a strong signal area.

The excuse that CQPSK-LSM requires a complex receiver is rubbish: it's part of the P25 phase I standard. Uniden buys the P25 hardware/software from DVSI like every radio vendor, and paid the same licensing fee to get it.

If they can't build a receiver front end that can properly deliver a data stream to the vocoder, than they're doing it wrong and need to go back to the drawing board.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Well, the silence is deafening! We can now safely assume the answer..

you know what they say about assuming things....

Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[W6KRU]

I made a video of my 396XT on the Cobb County, GA P25 trunking system. One tip I got from mts2000des was to turn off WX Priority, and that seemed to help, otherwise I don't know if it's the issues here that are causing the issues.

Cobb County P25 trunking radio system on Uniden 396XT - YouTube

The Wx in the lower right corner of your display indicates that Weather Alert priority is on.

 

[Tryton]

you know what they say about assuming things....

Marshall KE4ZNR

Well, considering this post was started on 12/24/11 of last year, and were 85 posts in. I can safely ASSUME that Uniden will not be commenting or even recognizing the issue. I am not blaming Paul. He has been very helpful to me on other issues. $455.00 is what I spent on a DIGITAL scanner. Why would I spend that much on a radio that only scans analog? I have stated this before in this post, I do love my Uniden Scanners. I have never bought the others. "Bearcat" + "Uniden" = Quality to me. All I want is, Hey guys, we know some of you are having issues, we are working on it..or Sorry guys, because of hardware limitations, we will not be able to correct this issue in this line. The whole Code of silence makes customers that are having this issue feel like they don't give a hoot. Please Uniden, just let us know one way or the other..

Tryton

 

[N0WEF]

All I want is, Hey guys, we know some of you are having issues, we are working on it..or Sorry guys, because of hardware limitations, we will not be able to correct this issue in this line........ Please Uniden, just let us know one way or the other..
Tryton

I said nearly the exact same thing 2 weeks ago. I guess it's too much to ask, huh?

After 24 years of buying only Uniden products, my last 4 purchases(2 in the last two weeks) were GRE.

 

[MTS2000des]

Well, considering this post was started on 12/24/11 of last year, and were 85 posts in. I can safely ASSUME that Uniden will not be commenting or even recognizing the issue. I am not blaming Paul. He has been very helpful to me on other issues. $455.00 is what I spent on a DIGITAL scanner. Why would I spend that much on a radio that only scans analog? I have stated this before in this post, I do love my Uniden Scanners. I have never bought the others. "Bearcat" + "Uniden" = Quality to me. All I want is, Hey guys, we know some of you are having issues, we are working on it..or Sorry guys, because of hardware limitations, we will not be able to correct this issue in this line. The whole Code of silence makes customers that are having this issue feel like they don't give a hoot. Please Uniden, just let us know one way or the other..

Tryton

I hate to say it but it's going to take someone going through the motions of taking Uniden to small claims court to get any resolution.

The issue is one of a lack of basic implied functionality. Selling a product that doesn't meet it's published specifications is not getting the product that is advertised. Many electronics and automotive manufacturers' have been sued and have refunded consumers' money for essentially false and deceptive advertising.

P25 is a set standard. if the radio doesn't function properly as a P25 receiver, than it's either defective or designed improperly. CQPSK-LSM is written into the TIA standard for P25 phase I.

Uniden (and anyone else)- stop making excuses. you sell a product advertised as being capable of something, either make it work, or refund your consumers' money and pull the product from the market, or advertise it WITH ALL FAULTS.

People are getting tired of spending hard earned money on stuff that doesn't do what it is advertised, then getting jacked around by the vendor.

 

[wise871]

I made a video of my 396XT on the Cobb County, GA P25 trunking system. One tip I got from mts2000des was to turn off WX Priority, and that seemed to help, otherwise I don't know if it's the issues here that are causing the issues.

Cobb County P25 trunking radio system on Uniden 396XT - YouTube

I'm up in Atlanta every 3 to 4 months and I always monitor the Cobb County P25 systems with my 396XT and 996XT and I never have a problem monitoring them as in your video. I'll monitor them mobile and stationary and always had good reception. When I’m stationary at my folks house around the Fulton Industrial area I can pick up all three sites. I'll be back up there the first two weeks in March and I'll make a video.

 

[WA0CBW]

You wouldn't be quite as hard on Uniden if you knew that even Public Safety radios sometimes have difficulty decoding transmissions. The problem isn't necessarily in the radio being able to decode P25, it is in the delivery system of the P25 transmissions. Simulcast is a good example. A poorly designed analog simulcast is tolerable but changing it to digital can make it unintelligible in the overlap areas. This is usually due to the towers not being located where you need them to reduce the overlap areas. Fixing these issues can require directional antenna and adjusting power levels to minimize the overlap areas or varying signal launch times. Digital is just a little more difficult to get correct.

BB

 

[blutarsky]

lets not get lost here in details fellas -- earlier in the thread there was a detailed post comparing the -XT to a -T model, which has ability to set manual p25 settings that the -XT is missing. side by side with both on auto, they had the same garbled junk. adjust p25 to manual on the -T and it works fine. this is the missing option not available to us with the -XT. do not lose sight of this very simple fact. don't get lost in the "decoding simulcast is hard" ... the fact is that uniden has solved the problem and knows of a fix, and employs this fix in the -T series: allowing users to manually adjust the p25 settings per site. if they duplicated that functionality into the -XT then we might just have a solution that makes everyone happy.

 

[MTS2000des]

You wouldn't be quite as hard on Uniden if you knew that even Public Safety radios sometimes have difficulty decoding transmissions. The problem isn't necessarily in the radio being able to decode P25, it is in the delivery system of the P25 transmissions. Simulcast is a good example. A poorly designed analog simulcast is tolerable but changing it to digital can make it unintelligible in the overlap areas. This is usually due to the towers not being located where you need them to reduce the overlap areas. Fixing these issues can require directional antenna and adjusting power levels to minimize the overlap areas or varying signal launch times. Digital is just a little more difficult to get correct.

BB

I'm not being hard, and yes- I am a subscriber on three different Astro 25 Smartzone Omnilink V6 and 7.9 simulcast 800MHz DTRS'- they aren't perfect- no radio system is. I have an XTS5000 with HOST/DSP V17. I also took classes on how to program and tune the radios. Very familiar.

You're correct, a poor performing radio system is a poor performing radio system, but that isn't the root of everyone's problem here.

Now that's out of the way, I've had a BC396T side by side with my issued radio. The 5K receives perfectly, both the scanner and the 396 had perfect RSSI indications. The 396 never unmuted.

That's not the network, that's the scanner not properly receiving and decoding the P25 phase I standard.

You pay for a product, you should get what you pay for.

The silence is deafening, and since the company refuses to address it's customers' issue, the only way any will get an answer is to hold them accountable for selling a faulty product.

and that's what courts are for.

 

[wise871]

I see what your saying but you can't use a XTS5000 as a comparison. I have both the 3K and 5K and they receive totally different than any scanner out.

 

[MTS2000des]

I see what your saying but you can't use a XTS5000 as a comparison. I have both the 3K and 5K and they receive totally different than any scanner out.

Why not?
Both are P25 phase I receivers. Both are capable of 9600 baud trunking (ASSUming you can find a 3K with HOST V6 9600 F/W).

Conventionally, the 396 is a great scanner, on a service monitor it takes about .4 to .5uV for a useable 12 db SINAD carrier. About .25 to .28 for an XTS. Again, same neighborhood and acceptable performance.

But when the carrier is CQPSK-LSM, the 396 goes to crap?

Sorry, not buying it. You can choose to make excuses. I'm not gonna spend $500 for something and not get what I pay for. If it's advertised as supporting P25 phase I decoding, than it either needs to do it right or not do it at all.

Digital RF is not rocket science today. Your $10 prepaid cellphone has a multi-band, multi-mode radio chipset, broadband amp, in some models an antenna duplexer, and more ROM/RAM and UI than any scanner of today (sans Home Patrol, which has about as much under the hood as a basic Android phone).

So for $500 I expect better performance than what the many who take the time to post on sites like RR are having.

Uniden's silence on this issue is perplexing. I see their product manager has no problem posting about his venture to CES2012, it's too bad he doesn't appear to be interested in responding to his many unhappy 396XT customers.

 

[N0WEF]

Heck, I'd just be happy with hearing, "Ok, it was a dumb idea to remove the manual p25 settings the t had."

But we all know that ain't going to happen.

 

[MTS2000des]

I have a feeling they're gonna handle it the "Motorola" way.
"Oh, it sucks? Yeah, well it's old. We're gonna EOL it next year anyway, that's why you should shell out another $600 for the BC-496XT, then if you want CQPSK-LSM, add another $99 for the EXTREME P25 decode option...phase II? Add another $99 for the EXTREME PLUS upgrade"

I guess we're gonna get boned the way public safety radio customers do!
At least we'll still pay less...

 

[N0WEF]

I have a feeling they're gonna handle it the "Motorola" way.
"Oh, it sucks? Yeah, well it's old. We're gonna EOL it next year anyway, that's why you should shell out another $600 for the BC-496XT, then if you want CQPSK-LSM, add another $99 for the EXTREME P25 decode option...phase II? Add another $99 for the EXTREME PLUS upgrade"

I guess we're gonna get boned the way public safety radio customers do!
At least we'll still pay less...

LMAO!! That's what I've Assumed

PS Going back to KE4ZNR's comment. Is it just me, or is the ability to assume one of the things that has moved humans from primitive mammal to dominating the earth? If we see someone fail, we can safely assume the outcome of doing the same thing(Unlike other creatures)

 

[wise871]

Why not?

My Bad. I just realized what topic I posted in.
I was thrown there for a minute when I saw opticalserenity's comment about Cobb County.

 

[MTS2000des]

My Bad. I just realized what topic I posted in.
I was thrown there for a minute when I saw opticalserenity's comment about Cobb County.

I think his 396XT is working better than it was with the WX RX on. I had a 396T here (I live on the south end of the county) and it was horrible, only unmuted about 30 percent of the time. Tried setting adjustments, antenna swapouts- side by side with my XTS5000, it was a joke. The Pro-106 fared quite better, it would be about 85 percent- but driving around there were areas where even it went to crap where it shouldn't have.

I guess I should not complain, my XTS5000 is on these systems, but it's limited to what I am authorized to have. I tried the scanner route as there is much more out there to hear, but not much point if the scanners won't unmute reliably.

 

[240871]

I know this is an old thread - BUT i have found the best settings for monitoring LSM P25 with a 396XT.
Enter the hidden menu (press hold together with power on - the display blinks with 2 colors)
Audio AGC: off
Change mode from NFM to FM (func + 9)
in settings:
P25 LP filter: on
P25 adj mode: 8
P25 Adj. level: 200 (that way it starts on mode 8 wich is best for most systems)