436/536 once the dust settles..

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woody_46

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It looks like it might take a couple of weeks before some of us get the hang of these new scanners. So you'll be seeing a lot of problems, most of them are user mistakes. In my case the 436 is a new learning experience, I'm old school and used to manually setting up scan lists on analog scanners. The toughest one to date was my Optocom scanner that I was still using for some trunked systems. I've already had the "nothing to scan" issue and the squelch tail issue on the 436. The nothing to scan was a configuration error and I scrolled through the menu to find the solution and also enabled the service types I wanted to hear. Updating the firmware from the factory one took care of the squelch tail issue I had and I've not seen the sensitivity issue either. The backlight going out while trying to set it up had me pulling my hair out until I went into display settings and changed the backlight to infinite.

I'm very happy with my purchase so far and know hands on is the only way to improve the experience.

So, are we having fun yet?:)
 

NJParamedic

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The BCD436HP has been an experience so far. I'm new to the scanner world and bought a BC125AT a little over a month ago. I thought that was easy and that this one would be too. Boy, was I wrong. Don't get me wrong it's not impossible to figure out if you're somewhat new, but if it wasn't for member W2SJW I swear I would NEVER figure out how to add individual trunked channels on my scanner.

This is a pretty good community here though. A lot of knowledgeable people that for the most part are helpful and friendly.
 

woody_46

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Yep, lots of help here. There is a learning curve with these radios for sure, lots of trial and error. Creating favorite lists and assigning QK's is the best way to speed up scan times I've found. I'm slowly getting there. We have lots of new users going through a bit of grief right now. Once we get comfortable with it we'll see more good reports.
 

mciupa

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I'm very happy with my purchase so far and know hands on is the only way to improve the experience.

So, are we having fun yet?:)

Lots of fun with my 536. :)

I also prefer to turn dials and push buttons however, it's great customizing Sentinel to save time and have the radio scan in the order you want.

I like that I could export hpe files from the HomePatrol Sentinel into the x36 Sentinel. I now feel that it is performing beyond how my former 996XT did and have the bonus of replay and decoding of P25 Phase II.

Also,I feel lucky to have not noticed any of the performance issues other users are complaining about.
 

woody_46

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Yep, agreed with customizing using Sentinel.

Oops may have found a bug, or user error again. I just went from USB power to batteries and Service Type settings were not saved...*sigh*.
 
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