BC396T backlight

[schriber]

Does anyone know for sure if the BC396T backlight is twin blue LED or some other sort of incandecant light source (like the old scanners)?

Taking a close look, I'm almost positive that it's a pair of LEDs but I want to know for sure before I start leaving the backlight on four hours at a time.

Thanks!

Mike

 

[Codeman]

It's just about got to be two blue LED's. It doesn't drain batteries quickly enough to be incand's. Besides, using incand's would just be bad engineering, given the low cost of LED's these days.

 

[firefgtr]

what about setting the back light to come on only when there is radio traffic, just to be safe?

 

[consys]

what about setting the back light to come on only when there is radio traffic, just to be safe?

It makes a great night light. If I set it to radio traffic only, I'd have to wait for someone else to have an emergency before I could go to the bathroom. That might not be safe...

 

[firefgtr]

It makes a great night light. If I set it to radio traffic only, I'd have to wait for someone else to have an emergency before I could go to the bathroom. That might not be safe...

indeed.....

 

[schriber]

Yeah, but if you're in a big city like me, traffic isn't a problem. Still, everytime the light comes on, I feel the need to pee!

I wish we could customize the backlight a little more. The problem with backlight on squelch is that I've have to go in the menu and change it for battery use. With the backlight always on, it's no problem mobile. I just turn it on to see what's up or press a key and then turn it back off. I think they are LEDs so I'm not really worried about burning them out.

I'd like to have the ability to set a seperate timer for keypress, backlight button and squelch break. It would be easy enough to do from a programing perspective.

Listening Uniden? I know you are!

Mike

 

[DaveNF2G]

I've noticed that my 396s get very warm when the backlight is left on. LEDs don't generate much heat, so I'm guessing it's coming from the resistors. Maybe they should have had a higher wattage rating.

 

[rhutch]

If it is incandescent probably the worst thing you could do is have it come of and on. This stress the filament more than burning in a steady state. I'm 99% sure they're led's anyways