BC355N & 800MHz

[Twinstars]

I have had my BC355N for a little over a year now and have just one question: Why is "800MHz" printed to the left of the display screen? See accompanying photo.
After cutting my scanning teeth on the BC355N, I am ready to move up, but wanted to get this puzzle solved before then.

 

[KevinC]

I have had my BC355N for a little over a year now and have just one question: Why is "800MHz" printed to the left of the display screen? See accompanying photo.
After cutting my scanning teeth on the BC355N, I am ready to move up, but wanted to get this puzzle solved before then.

Because it covers the 800 MHz band?

 

[kc2asb]

Did you ever have it search through the PD/FD/Emerg band? If not, give it a try. You'll find that it searches through frequencies in the 800MHz band, as noted above.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Did you ever have it search through the PD/FD/Emerg band? If not, give it a try. You'll find that it searches through frequencies in the 800MHz band, as noted above.

The OP will likely encounter a lot of raw data noise similar to this audio sample as a lot of P25 systems live in the 800mhz band and OP's scanner doesn't decode P25

 

[Twinstars]

But why single out the the 800MHz band for so prominent position on the scanner's face? I have the impression the product designer felt a blank spot needed to be filled, esthetics?
As kc2asb notes, there is a lot of noise -- from the BC355N point of view -- on the 800 band.

 

[KevinC]

But why single out the the 800MHz band for so prominent position on the scanner's face? I have the impression the product designer felt a blank spot needed to be filled, esthetics?
As kc2asb notes, there is a lot of noise -- from the BC355N point of view -- on the 800 band.

Marketing ploy. Even back when it was introduced 13 years ago 800 had very little conventional analog.

 

[mule1075]

Marketing ploy. Even back when it was introduced 13 years ago 800 had very little conventional analog.

Bought one years ago for one reason. Needed something cheap to monitor LAFD on a trip. And they are the only major city that use 800 conventional still to this day. So big marketing ploy.

 

[kc2asb]

There were only two small cities in my county, North Bergen and Hoboken, NJ, that had their PD's on 800 conventional analog. (Only North Bergen PD remains there, Hoboken went to NJICS) Everything else that I monitored on 800 was trunked.

 

[wtp]

Band Name Frequency (MHz)
1 Lo VHF Low Band 25.0000 - 54.0000
2 Air AIR Low Band 108.0000 - 136.9916
3 Hi VHF High Band 137.0000 - 174.0000
4 UHF UHF Band 406.0000 - 512.0000
5 800 800MHz Band
806.0000 - 823.9875
849.0125 - 868.9875
894.0125 - 956.0000

from the manual

https://www.uniden.info/download/ompdf/BC355Nom.pdf

 

[GTR8000]

There are actually over 3,000 806-956 MHz conventional analog entries in the RRDB at present. Some of them would be very active, e.g. the aforementioned LAFD. Others, not so much anymore. There are also 33cm ham repeaters within the range of coverage.

Keep in mind that the fundamental guts of the BC355N date back to the BCT7 which was released 30 years ago in 1994. A decade later in 2004 they released the updated BC350C, then finally the BC355N in 2012. They all share the same 806-956 analog coverage, which is pretty unique for such low priced base/mobile scanners.

Of course there were other fairly low priced analog scanners that featured 800 MHz coverage, including those that would trunk track systems like EDACS or Moto Type II when analog voice was in use. So yeah, basically printing 800 MHz on the face of the 355N seems a little silly.

 

[IC-R20]

Bought one years ago for one reason. Needed something cheap to monitor LAFD on a trip. And they are the only major city that use 800 conventional still to this day. So big marketing ploy.

I used to listen to the same thing on this when I lived there too. Also it gave me the 900 MHz band with it too so not a bad deal. I loved finding all sorts of wireless mics and headphones on there plus ham stuff. Also there’s quite a few Taxi companies love 800 MHz analog for whatever reason. I even found a few casino hotels with whacker security “officers” that were hilarious to listen to at late hours of the night.