Announcing the BCD396XT and BC346XT Scanners

[hfxChris]

Feel free to start a thread on your concerns - but this thread is NOT about the continued support/development of existing products. This thread is about the XT line.

In a way it is. This thread is about a new product under development, so discussing the manufacturer's past experience in developing quality products is relevant.

Oh. So you are saying that claiming Uniden's last 4 scanners to be "failures" is not being short-sighted? Not just thinking about their own use? Hmmm...

If they failed to resolve the problem, then yes, they were failures in that regard.

My point is - if you want to whine about existing products, that's your right. If you want to call them a failure, go ahead.

BUT DON'T DO IT IN THE XT THREAD, WHERE YOUR COMMENTS HAVE NO CONNECTION TO REALITY! Who's to say that the XT doesn't completely eliminate motorboating?

The 396XT is the immediate successor to the 396T, so discussing problems with the 396T which one hopes would be resolved in the 396XT definitely belongs here.

 

[Have_Teeth]

On the topic of the 396T and the 3600bps performance issues...I found an old thread from April 2006, where several technical bits of information are discussed, pertaining to why the 396T performs so inferior on 3600bps systems.

http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33993&page=2

The 2006 thread isn't locked, so perhaps we can continue our conversation there.

 

[K8TEK]

BUT DON'T DO IT IN THE XT THREAD, WHERE YOUR COMMENTS HAVE NO CONNECTION TO REALITY! Who's to say that the XT doesn't completely eliminate motorboating?

The BC785D had issues, the BC796D had the same issues, as did the BC250D and the BC785D. The BCD396T was their 5th attempt to get it right and they failed. Notice how the other scanners, even though they looked identical had a completely different model number. Here they added a letter. Makes one think they didn't put a whole lot of time into engineering a new and unimproved radio.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Makes one think they didn't put a whole lot of time into engineering a new and unimproved radio.

You see that is the problem with assuming....more times than not you are proven wrong...I hope most here are more open minded and willing to give the 346/396xt a chance to prove themselves...I have the feeling most will be happy with the latest offering.
Then again we will always have the fanboys on either side who will bash
the other because of the company logo on the radio.
Happy New Year & Happy Monitoring!
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[K8TEK]

You see that is the problem with assuming....more times than not you are proven wrong...I hope most here are more open minded and willing to give the 346/396xt a chance to prove themselves...I have the feeling most will be happy with the latest offering.
Then again we will always have the fanboys on either side who will bash
the other because of the company logo on the radio.
Happy New Year & Happy Monitoring!
Marshall KE4ZNR

I've been burned by Uniden twice before, they aren't getting another penny of my money.

 

[KE4ZNR]

I've been burned by Uniden twice before, they aren't getting another penny of my money.

That's fine....that just means more 346/396xt's for everyone else
Whatever works for ya man...I just know that neither of the 2 radio companies is perfect (neither GRE nor Uniden) but I am glad they are continuing to try to innovate and bring us new products and better products. Better than the alternative.
Here's to a successful year for both GRE & Uniden in 2009!
And getting back to the topic of this thread here's to a year full of 346/396xt fun!
Happy New Year and Happy Monitoring!
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[exkalibur]

I'm not calling the 396XT a failure, but I liken it to Microsoft releasing a Service Pack for XP. It is the SAME core radio with the SAME problems. The only thing that has changed is increased memory and a fancy backlight. Everything else is firmware.

rdale: The reason some of us are bringing up other models is to demonstrate Uniden's unwillingness to incorporate features into their scanners. Features that *should* have been there from day one, and there is NO excuse for them not to be.

Patch support, for one. Displaying what groups are patched on the screen is a start, but come on...give your head a shake. If I manually hold on TG 123, I won't hear a THING unless that group is the supergroup. What gives Uniden???

 

[KE4ZNR]

I'm not calling the 396XT a failure, but I liken it to Microsoft releasing a Service Pack for XP. It is the SAME core radio with the SAME problems. The only thing that has changed is increased memory and a fancy backlight. Everything else is firmware.

Well How about withholding judgment until the radio actually comes out on the market? I mean you have not even touched a 396xt yet you claim that it has the same problems as previous models? Seems a little premature to try to apply criticism to a device you have never used before. I understand you have your issues with previous Uniden products.
All I am asking of everyone in this forum is that we not pass judgment on a radio that is not even on the shelves yet.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[rdale]

If I manually hold on TG 123, I won't hear a THING unless that group is the supergroup. What gives Uniden???

I've never had that be the case on an EDACS or P25 system with any Uniden scanner.

 

[KE4ZNR]

I've never had that be the case on an EDACS or P25 system with any Uniden scanner.

I was under the impression that the status bit ignore function on every recent scanner handles most issues of this...
Meaning I agree with you RDale on your statement above
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[K8TEK]

I was under the impression that the status bit ignore function on every recent scanner handles most issues of this...
Meaning I agree with you RDale on your statement above
Marshall KE4ZNR

Well, your impression is wrong and it just shows your lack of understanding on how the scanner works and how it should work. Maybe if you had an understanding on how trunking worked, you would be upset about this too. I have an idea... Go out and buy yourself a real radio and see how it handles patched talkgroups. The way Uniden implemented it was completely incorrect.

 

[Have_Teeth]

I was under the impression that the status bit ignore function on every recent scanner handles most issues of this...
Meaning I agree with you RDale on your statement above
Marshall KE4ZNR

Sir, respectfully, you don't know what a patched talkgroup is or how a real (meaning subscriber) radio handles this.

If a dispatch patches together east and west district talkgroups, you should be able to sit on either of those talkgroups with the scanner and have it unmute on traffic.

Currently, on 3600bps systems, it does not function like this. You must be on the group from which the patch is initiated. Same goes for multiselects.

You guys don't have enough experience monitoring 3600bps APCO-16 systems. Not everyone lives in 9600bps land. In fact, the majority of us don't.

I wish I could meet up with you guys and let you see how a real radio works, so you'd understand what the problem is. Not trying to be negative or a smartass, just want to help you see the light. Motorola radios handle OSW data much differently than these Uniden scanners...

 

[rdale]

But it works. You've made it clear you aren't buying the new scanners, and you have a "real" radio, so start your own thread for people who want to complain about stuff that has nothing to do with anything of value and continue it there...

 

[K8TEK]

But it works. You've made it clear you aren't buying the new scanners, and you have a "real" radio, so start your own thread for people who want to complain about stuff that has nothing to do with anything of value and continue it there...

No, it doesn't work. If talkgroup A and B are patched together, you will not hear traffic from talkgroup A on talkgroup B because of the way Uniden implemented it. Criticism has a lot of value, it's just people around here don't know how to take it. Don't you have a cold front to track?

 

[Have_Teeth]

But it works. You've made it clear you aren't buying the new scanners, and you have a "real" radio, so start your own thread for people who want to complain about stuff that has nothing to do with anything of value and continue it there...

If you can't handle some conversation (albeit somewhat controversial) regarding a scanner-radio, you shouldn't be spending so much time on here.

The reason myself and others are so worked-up over the 396T's problems, is because we want to ensure there will be QUALITY products produced by Uniden in the future. We also expect Uniden to treat their loyal customers with some respect, and resolve the outstanding matters before releasing the same scanner with a fruity display...with an "X" in the model number.

We all purchased Uniden in the past because we were impressed with their contributions to our hobby. But over the last 5 years, their quality control has been sub-par. It's unacceptable.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Getting the thread back on topic:
Seeing how Fire Departments/EMS Departments use the new Tone Out Decode feature in the xt's will be very interesting. There are already several departments in central NC that have expressed interest in this feature.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[WayneH]

There's nothing wrong with criticizing a product but I need to remind people that you need to do it civilly. No instigating arguments, and no feeding in to an OT debate. Calm down!

ETA: No more patch debating. Since no current scanners properly track Motorola 3600 patches (properly) it's a wasted effort to argue it now. Please go create another thread if it needs to be rehashed again.

 

[Yaris07]

I thought this thread was about XT. I have been reading this for some time now. I'm going to buy the new scanner so it would be really cool if all the people that do not want to say positive things about the new scanner go somewhere else to grip.

 

[UPMan]

I would like to thank Shaun (Have_Teeth) for moving the discussion about digital decode noise over to another thread. Please continue it at http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33993

 

[UPMan]

There was an OT question in the "Digital Noise" thread about AGC. Since it really belongs here, I'm going to sneak in a slight rule break and cross post my answer to his question ("Is AGC improved?"), here:

AGC isn't changed much in the new platform. However, there are two main things causing audio to be so mismatched that AGC can't compensate, and we did address ways for you to improve things:

1) (and by far the most common) Conventional channels are incorrectly programmed as NFM (AUTO) when they should be programmed as FM. Programming them as NFM results in severe overmodulation (that you'll hear as audio up to 2X louder than it should be). This can be fixed by correctly programming the FM channels as FM. In the BCD396XT, we've added the ability for you to set the modulation default for each band, so if in your area most VHF/UHF is still FM, you can set it so that FM becomes the "AUTO" value. We've also added the ability to mix EDACS Wide control channels with EDACS Narrow voice channels (and vice versa).

2) Major variations in how personnel use their radios. For example, one city I listen to, most of the PD units use shoulder mics. Those officers tend to "talk past" their mics rather than into them, so their audio is quite low. FD personnel tend to speak directly into their radios, so their audio is where it should be. Short of chasing down every officer and reschooling them on proper radio protocol, which I would not recommend , there isn't much you can do to fix their signal. However, if some channels are consistently lower (or higher) than others you can set a volume offset for that channel so it will always be set up to 3 dB either higher or lower than the main volume setting.