BCD396XT/BCD996XT: Alert led suck on

[fourthhorseman]

Now,Maybe im a bit slow..possibly a few bricks short of a pallet..

All morning ( for about 1 1/2 cups of coffee) My dial has been stuck
on stupid..Ive been checking & unchecking..trying to navigate my way
to figure out how to turn off the ALERT LED above the Volume knob..

Can some kind fellow Or...Fellow-ette ( dont want to trigger the SJW's)
toss me a line on this dilemma? I fear I could be here choochin away
all day with out some outside assistance..

 

[W8RMH]

Easier to Read BCD996P2/XT Digital Scanner Manual

 

[fourthhorseman]

MMM, Ya.
Thank you for the link, but
I was hoping for more input than
a URL..

I did a reset,( not sure if it was
a soft or hard) holding the 2 & 9
resume button, LED filickers a bit,
(during pwr up) then goes solid...

Again,erasing all programming should
have resolved this, Right?

 

[W6KRU]

I'm not sure how to turn it off due to not knowing how it was turned on. Maybe this link will help? SettingAlerts < UnidenMan4 < TWiki

 

[fxdscon]

I did a reset,( not sure if it was
a soft or hard) holding the 2 & 9
resume button, LED filickers a bit,
(during pwr up) then goes solid...

Again,erasing all programming should
have resolved this, Right?

Holding 2, 9, and "hold" buttons during power-up is a full (hard) factory reset.

Did it ask you if you wanted to restore the pre-programming?

.

 

[fourthhorseman]

Thank you,
I milled over those pages,Alas,,No success.Though thank
you,,have not seen those pages til now...
I may have to break down and phone Uniden,,
First time ever...

And to clarify & reiterate - The LED im having this issue
with is the RED LED indicator,between the SQ and VOL
dials..right under the close call indicator.

 

[fourthhorseman]

Holding 2, 9, and "hold" buttons during power-up is a full (hard) factory reset.

Did it ask you if you wanted to restore the pre-programming?

.

Yes,I believe it did,,
Trying it......reloading the factory....

and no luck..tricky lil light is still illuminated..

 

[Jay911]

The manual states that the red LED is activated during weather or proximity alerts. If you've completely reset the scanner, there's no weather or proximity programming for it to alert on. In other words, there is no programming option that says "turn the red LED on", or, turn it off.

Put another way: It's time for this radio to go in for service/repair.

 

[fourthhorseman]

Put another way: It's time for this radio to go in for service/repair

thats where Ive been leaning, although its not effecting performance.
It all functionality is fantastic. VHF/UHF/800 analog/p25/conv...

 

[Voyager]

Sounds like the driver transistor went south.

 

[kruser]

Sounds like the driver transistor went south.

Yep.

First I've heard of this happening on the XT series or even the older T series.

If everything was not surface mounted, one could drop in almost any transistor that can handle the current of the LED but it's not quite that easy these days!
I'd bet the transistor lifts the ground side of the alert LED.

I guess if one never uses the alert LED function, one could just snip it out of the circuit but who knows what else that may affect.
Heck, just getting to the front panel can be a chore these days.
The signal from the processor could also be held high or low improperly which could be a sign of soon to come processor failure.

I seem to recall the Alert LED signal was sent through the ribbon cable that used to fall out of one end of its connectors. It's possible simply reseating the ribbon cable may fix this but again, one must know how to open and close the ribbon cable connectors as they can be fragile and damaged easily.

Maybe a small piece of electrical tape over the LED would do the trick!

 

[fourthhorseman]

Maybe a small piece of electrical tape over the LED would do the trick!

Im thinking ill tell myself its a power on/led indicator!



In a way.Im at least to degree relieved that there is an answer anyway..
I think Ill open it up, the tx is my truck radio,pulled it to program it
( lost the front cable,had to the rear rs232 to update data)

so now its out maybe ill take a peek..those flush/low-profile conns can
indeed just....come unseated..seen it myself with a 2 PSR800s for the
display ribbon...once reseated...Skookum!

must be those tiny scanner fleas at work..

ill dig in..and report back

 

[Voyager]

If you're brave enough you could poke around using a non-conductive probe for a loose or cold solder joint. That's another possibility.

 

[darunimal]

you could use some black electrical tape too

 

[kruser]

The front cable was actually a serial cable but the scanner end was odd. Many called it a Hi-Rose connector but I think that is actually a company.
It was used as a USB connector in some old digital cameras and even digital binoculars.

There was a guy selling real short ones on eBay for under a buck each. One end had the scanner matching connector and the other end plugged into a computers USB jack. So you had to cut that off and figure out the wiring and wire it up to a DB9 serial port connector.
I also lost my original cable for the front port as I never used it. Probably in a junk drawer somewhere.
Then I needed to do a firmware update which can only be done via the front port so I built a cable. Worked fine but I also lost it!
I later mounted a rear port on all my 996 models that was wired to the front port. That way I could leave it hooked up and had no cable to snap off from it sticking out plus I could use both rear ports for logging and programming at the same time. Well, logging I could do at the same time but programming could only be done with one or the other port.

Be careful and I hope whatever you try fixes the LED!
Uniden started using hot glue to try and keep the ribbon cable from falling out over time. I don't recall what model that problem surfaced in but almost every one I've opened, I found the hot glue had came unglued from either the cable or the connector and was not doing anything.
They still use hot glue to this day but they changed the type as it now seems to stay glued to both surfaces. One can still pop it off with a dental pick or tiny screwdriver so you can work on the radio though.
That's better than that darn epoxy the FCC made the manufacturers cover the band switching components with so you could not tune cellular images from the old AMPS band. That epoxy can make repairs to the RF section darn near impossible.

Im thinking ill tell myself its a power on/led indicator!



In a way.Im at least to degree relieved that there is an answer anyway..
I think Ill open it up, the tx is my truck radio,pulled it to program it
( lost the front cable,had to the rear rs232 to update data)

so now its out maybe ill take a peek..those flush/low-profile conns can
indeed just....come unseated..seen it myself with a 2 PSR800s for the
display ribbon...once reseated...Skookum!

must be those tiny scanner fleas at work..

ill dig in..and report back

 

[kruser]

If you're brave enough you could poke around using a non-conductive probe for a loose or cold solder joint. That's another possibility.

Yep, found and fixed many problems using that method.
I recall the old GRE made Pro-2004 models developing cold solder joints and you could usually find the problem with a non conductive probe or even a wooden toothpick.

They also had bad thru holes which you could find with a sewing needle but you had to be careful to not short anything.
The best thing for that problem was to go ahead and solder a piece of wire wrap wire through the holes on both sides.

I'd not think a 996XT would develop a bad thru hole but a cold solder joint is a good idea to look for. Especially being near the volume and squelch knobs which could have knocked something lose after years of rotating or bumping them!

 

[fourthhorseman]

KRUSER..

I like that idea of adding the aux program port to the rear,I agree,,that front port is cumbersome & dangerous..Ive seen many of these series with cracks on the radio from bumps n such..

Was happy as sin when I searched the forums & found a post by VOYAGER mentioning using the rear for programming....after
losing my rs232 to HI-ROSE and my 996 needing a full on the spot reprogram at a hi-way reststop..

Glad for what ever reason i had that NullModem swicher..

I'll be needing to dig out my Non-Conductive probes..Ohh...and I can get out my multitester..Love a chance to actually test for more that just voltage! Joking..but not really.. I do like probing..lol..