FrankT
Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2004
- Messages
- 11
Hi All,
I purchased my BC246T from Lentinicomm.com on 11/22/04 and rec'd it the following day, great company and service. I have been radio scanning as a hobby since 1995. Besides the B246T, I own a RS Pro-2004, AOR 1000XLT and RS Pro-95 purchased about 3 months ago. I've been playing around with the BC246T for appx the last 2 weeks. Programmed by hand 7 systems, 34 groups, 475 channels, 56 frequencies and 501 Alpha-Tags and using exactly 30% memory utilization, unbelieveable.
In using both the BC246T and RS Pro-95 there is no contest, the BC246T is vastly superior to the Pro-95 at any price point. When I first started using the Pro-95 to monitor my local county EDACS system (300+ Talk Groups), I noticed when using two scanners one to monitor the system frequencies in conventional mode and the Pro-95 to trunk, the Pro-95 would be deaf to what was being heard on a conventional scan.
It turns out the local EDACS and Motorola systems make very heavy use of I-Calls which the Pro-95 doesn't recieve. I realized this after using the BC246T with the I-Call feature turned on and scanning the same systems, side by side with the Pro-95. Also noticed the BC246T will transition from conventional to Trunk scanning seamlessly with no problems, the Pro-95 does not fair well here, on occasion when scanning conventional systems in one bank and scanning into a trunked bank (specifically EDACS) the Pro-95 will halt on the control channel frequency and all you hear is the control tones, at which point you have to hit the manual and scan buttons to get it scanning again, it will also happen if you set a conventional channel in another bank as a priority channnel.
The BC246T will pick up transmissions, that the Pro-95 doesn't even hear on the same systems in both conventional and trunked mode. The BC246T sensitivity, image rejection and noise suppression are vastly superior to that of the Pro-95. When using the Pro-95 in my car the Pro-95 would recieve transmissions that would crackle or fade in-out, not to mention the noise picked up from my vehicles electrical system, the BC246T seems immune to these issues, reception is crystal clear with no fade or crackling.
I have been using Eveready AA rechargeable 2300 Mha Nimh batteries to power the unit, I get about 14 continuous hours with the backlight on. I also have the optional 800 Mhz portable antenna that was purchased for the Pro-95, it helped reception of 800 Mhz trunked systems on the Pro-95, but I found no subjective difference in reception between the Uniden stock or 800 Mhz special antenna when used on the BC246T, seems that Uniden ultra fine tuned the unit for the OEM antenna.
I read a post where someone was mentioning the 200 TGID limit, and that it was a problem. Well to tell you the truth unless every talk group you want to receive is unique, this really should not be a problem. In my case the local trunked systems I listen to (both EDACS and Motorola), the talk groups were set up in a logical fashion for both AFS and Dec.
For example the EDACS Public Works talk groups all are in groups 03-001 thru 03-63, to make efficient use of these groups I just assigned wild cards (03-00-, 03-001-, etc) and alpha tagged each one as DPW TG-01, DPW TG-02 etc., this way I'm using six channel slots instead of 63, and in search or scan mode when there's a hit I can see what comes up on the display. Basically I'm just interested in Public Safety transmissions so using wild cards for Local Government talk groups is no big deal, and the fact that a coventional trunking scanner only allows you to define about 100-150 tgids the wildcard scenario is a great feature and expands on the number of tgids you can have defined.
The sound quality for such a small unit is very decent, I thought because of the size, it would sound tinny, but it doesn't as a matter of fact the background noise levels (static, hiss) are greatly reduced or non-exsistant compared to the other scanners I own. It's pretty amazing to see a piece of equipment the size of a cell phone that is loaded with so many features. Great work Uniden, and hopefully this is a glimpse of what's ahead in the future.
I purchased my BC246T from Lentinicomm.com on 11/22/04 and rec'd it the following day, great company and service. I have been radio scanning as a hobby since 1995. Besides the B246T, I own a RS Pro-2004, AOR 1000XLT and RS Pro-95 purchased about 3 months ago. I've been playing around with the BC246T for appx the last 2 weeks. Programmed by hand 7 systems, 34 groups, 475 channels, 56 frequencies and 501 Alpha-Tags and using exactly 30% memory utilization, unbelieveable.
In using both the BC246T and RS Pro-95 there is no contest, the BC246T is vastly superior to the Pro-95 at any price point. When I first started using the Pro-95 to monitor my local county EDACS system (300+ Talk Groups), I noticed when using two scanners one to monitor the system frequencies in conventional mode and the Pro-95 to trunk, the Pro-95 would be deaf to what was being heard on a conventional scan.
It turns out the local EDACS and Motorola systems make very heavy use of I-Calls which the Pro-95 doesn't recieve. I realized this after using the BC246T with the I-Call feature turned on and scanning the same systems, side by side with the Pro-95. Also noticed the BC246T will transition from conventional to Trunk scanning seamlessly with no problems, the Pro-95 does not fair well here, on occasion when scanning conventional systems in one bank and scanning into a trunked bank (specifically EDACS) the Pro-95 will halt on the control channel frequency and all you hear is the control tones, at which point you have to hit the manual and scan buttons to get it scanning again, it will also happen if you set a conventional channel in another bank as a priority channnel.
The BC246T will pick up transmissions, that the Pro-95 doesn't even hear on the same systems in both conventional and trunked mode. The BC246T sensitivity, image rejection and noise suppression are vastly superior to that of the Pro-95. When using the Pro-95 in my car the Pro-95 would recieve transmissions that would crackle or fade in-out, not to mention the noise picked up from my vehicles electrical system, the BC246T seems immune to these issues, reception is crystal clear with no fade or crackling.
I have been using Eveready AA rechargeable 2300 Mha Nimh batteries to power the unit, I get about 14 continuous hours with the backlight on. I also have the optional 800 Mhz portable antenna that was purchased for the Pro-95, it helped reception of 800 Mhz trunked systems on the Pro-95, but I found no subjective difference in reception between the Uniden stock or 800 Mhz special antenna when used on the BC246T, seems that Uniden ultra fine tuned the unit for the OEM antenna.
I read a post where someone was mentioning the 200 TGID limit, and that it was a problem. Well to tell you the truth unless every talk group you want to receive is unique, this really should not be a problem. In my case the local trunked systems I listen to (both EDACS and Motorola), the talk groups were set up in a logical fashion for both AFS and Dec.
For example the EDACS Public Works talk groups all are in groups 03-001 thru 03-63, to make efficient use of these groups I just assigned wild cards (03-00-, 03-001-, etc) and alpha tagged each one as DPW TG-01, DPW TG-02 etc., this way I'm using six channel slots instead of 63, and in search or scan mode when there's a hit I can see what comes up on the display. Basically I'm just interested in Public Safety transmissions so using wild cards for Local Government talk groups is no big deal, and the fact that a coventional trunking scanner only allows you to define about 100-150 tgids the wildcard scenario is a great feature and expands on the number of tgids you can have defined.
The sound quality for such a small unit is very decent, I thought because of the size, it would sound tinny, but it doesn't as a matter of fact the background noise levels (static, hiss) are greatly reduced or non-exsistant compared to the other scanners I own. It's pretty amazing to see a piece of equipment the size of a cell phone that is loaded with so many features. Great work Uniden, and hopefully this is a glimpse of what's ahead in the future.
