Battery Life (UBC125XLT)

[thomson737]

Hello all,

I purchased a UBC125XLT some time ago now, probably last year. It was a replacement for another that I had misplaced. I try to use the scanner for ATC when I am at the airport or generally at home if I want to hear general chat. The issue is the battery life. Barely lasts 5 minutes. Are there any batteries recommended?

Also, I'm not sure if this scanner is old now, but I couldn't see it on the prefix list.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

 

[jonwienke]

Something is wrong with the batteries or charger.

Eneloops are good...

 

[Scan125]

Suggest you remove the rechargeable batteries and flip the switch in the battery compartment to normal/non rechargeable batteries. The put some good quality standard batteries in and see how you get on. If these last well then it is not an excessive scanner current drain issue.

One thing you should check is that the scanner battery charge time is set correctly. The scanners charging circuits are TIME based, not charge status based. Settable times are from 1 Hour to 14 Hours.

If time is set correctly then either the rechargeable batteries are duff or the scanner charging circuit has failed.

To identify which put the batteries in a standalone charger and see if that resolves the issue.

Check user manual or use Scan125 Control Program to set/check all these settings.

 

[Valeriy]

Hello all,

I purchased a UBC125XLT some time ago now, probably last year. It was a replacement for another that I had misplaced. I try to use the scanner for ATC when I am at the airport or generally at home if I want to hear general chat. The issue is the battery life. Barely lasts 5 minutes. Are there any batteries recommended?

Also, I'm not sure if this scanner is old now, but I couldn't see it on the prefix list.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Push down the volume/squelch knob and look at the voltage: with freshly charged batteries, you should read
up to 2.87 V.
Otherwise, either your unit is defective or the batteries are no longer rechargeable, because are defective or have
reached/exceeded their maximum number of charge/discharge cycles (for example, up to 1,000 for Energizer and Ansmann).
A smart charger will evidence it, as well as a common digital multimeter.
With common (but good) 2000 mAh Energizer batteries I usually get up to 9...10 hours monitoring and capturing.
In any case, it's better not to recharge the akkus inside the unit, because the internal recharge circuit is not as efficent
as a smart charger and will decrease the life cycle of the batteries.

 

[Valeriy]

Something is wrong with the batteries or charger.

Eneloops are good...

I had Eneloops which declared up to 500 charge/discharge cycles, and lost efficency relatively soon.
Now I use Energizer and Ansmann batteries which declare up to 1,000 cycles.
They have a higher self-discharge rate than the Eneloops, but I use them daily, thus the Eneloops aren't really better, IMHO.