BC-RH96....seriously?

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Mainsail

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My BC-RH96 arrived today. OK, seriously? I like the large display and even though the buttons are pretty much the same size as the ones on the handheld, they are at least spaced a little farther apart. But why is it so thick and heavy? C’mon, really? The remote head for my Yaesu 8800 is very thin and light. This thing is big enough to just BE the scanner. What the heck is in there?
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Astro25

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All of the interconnect and the head electronics, probably.

It's a quality scanner and the weight/size that has a quality feel (for a scanner) to it was a plus for me.
 

Mainsail

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I guess I was expecting something a little more professional. As mentioned, the handheld could fit inside the remote head; so why didn’t they just make a scanner the size of the remote head? Another issue I have is that the head does not turn the HH on and off; that would have been a really useful feature, especially since the HH uses batteries. I would also have liked to find a speaker jack on the head unit and the speaker inside the radio to shut off when it’s attached to the head.

Admittedly, I didn’t do a lot of homework before I bought it; I saw it on sale and placed my order. It was definitely a let-down because I was expecting only a slightly lower level of workmanship that I see in a Yaesu or Icom.

I will keep it but I don’t think I’ll be using it in the car as I originally intended, I have it hooked up in the house right now and I like the big display.
 

af5rn

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I guess I was expecting something a little more professional.
Technically, the 996 is the height of "professional". But aesthetically and ergonomically I would agree, it leaves a lot to be desired. I think they went way off in the ditch by trying to make the thing DIN mount compatible. Few people have that option. The great majority of people need a radio that is no bigger than that control head, so they can swivel mount it on a tiny centre console, dashboard, or overhead. And more people would buy more radios if they had more room to mount them. Some people buy fewer simply because there is no room left in their compact car to mount them.

Worse than the size is the faceplate layout. I hate that big ugly knob, but I especially hate those curved buttons around the knob. It's VERY difficult to operate those buttons because of their proximity to the knob. It's much worse when you're trying to do it while driving. And it just so happens that those two inconvenient buttons are the most commonly used buttons on the whole radio.

The silver faceplate sucks too. Seems like they tried too hard to make this thing blend in with AM/FM car stereos, which was an inspired idea, but misguided.
 

af5rn

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LOL! The television station I used to work for put scanners in the cars, which I thought was going to be great. Turned out they bought those monstrously gigantic 1000 channel Rat Shack base scanners, which were even bigger when mounted in a Chrysler K-Car, lol. Even an 895 would be an improvement over that. But yeah, I guess we don't have that much room to complain about the RH-96 size.
 

garys

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Admittedly, I didn’t do a lot of homework before I bought it; I saw it on sale and placed my order. It was definitely a let-down because I was expecting only a slightly lower level of workmanship that I see in a Yaesu or Icom.

Had you, you would have known all of this as Uniden disclosed all that before the RH-96 was released. Then it was beaten to death afterwards. I use the RH96 at work every day with either a BR330 or a 396T. I find it much easier to control the scanner with the head as opposed to trying to manipulate the keys on either scanner to do so.

The size is dictated by the fact that Uniden used some common parts from the mobile scanners to save money so they could hit a price point that consumers, at least some of them, would find acceptable.

I too would like to see a head more like the FT8800R, but the RH96 was added after all of the scanners it supports were released. I think future Uniden scanners will be designed from the beginning to use a remote head. Which is something that is needed given the interiors of many of the cars and trucks on the road these days.
 
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