BCD 250D with card, Phase 1,

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dwayne0564

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Hello,

I did some research and it said that the 250d, could receive phase, one, has anyone dealt with that before, I've played around with it, but no luck yet.
 

RBMTS

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Sorry but it won't. It will track older 3600 baud digital trunking systems. It will decode P25 conventional frequencies. But it won't track the newer 9600 baud P25 systems. The scanner is just too old for that.
 

RandyKuff

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From RR Wiki

Please note that this scanner will not track a P25 trunking system. While it can decode P25 digital voice (with the optional BCi25 card installed) it cannot follow a P25 (9600 bps) control channel
 

letarotor

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Hello,

I did some research and it said that the 250d, could receive phase, one, has anyone dealt with that before, I've played around with it, but no luck yet.

The scanner cannot be rebanded from when they did the 700 / 800 MHz rebanding years ago. So in other words, it cannot usually receive all of the frequencies on a trunk system and it's dependent on which trunk system you're trying to receive. Keep in mind, the scanners 296D/796D) were from 2003 and things were a lot different back then. I've been playing with my 296D just this last week and it's been sitting on the coffee table in front of me. But part of that I'd had it in the box for the last 10 or 12 years. I've been using the service search function monitoring the marine frequencies for stations using them out here in the area where I live during the 4th of July. But as far as trunk tracking goes, it's worthless to me out here where I live. I'm in the Fort Worth/Dallas area and I can listen to DPD but almost everybody else is on various trunk radio systems and most of it is Phase II now. But if I'm remembering correctly, when the rebanding, occurred after the BCD396XT radios were out, I was unable to use my BC296D or BC796D, the base model, to monitor the various TRS's because the radios could not be upgraded through a firmware update for rebanding. And this is long before Phase 2 came out. I've got to phase one city or county actually just one county to the west and I cannot monitor it. I was thinking that it would but it won't. Rebanding changed a lot including step sizes and of course it opened up the 700 MHz band for public safety use. I can listen to conventional P25 stations and I can listen to conventional analog traffic, but there's not a digital TRS anywhere that I know of that it will function on. There may be some across the country that have an upgraded and it might still be used in those cities or areas? But I hate to say it's probably very rare to find a city where rebanding has not occurred already.

I just tried to go back and see if you mentioned where you even live and I noticed you are talking about the 250D. I never did have that model but I think it's the one that came out before the 296D. So if it did, everything I mentioned still is true. But if it is one of the more recent releases then I don't know. But I don't think it is a recent release if it will only do Phase 1. I would try to look up the model number and Google whether or not it can be rebanded. But I'm pretty sure the answer is going to still be no unfortunately.

Brian (COMMSCAN)
 

ka3jjz

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Just one correction - the 700 Mhz band wasn't around (officially) in 03, and it was never involved in rebanding. Only 800 Mhz systems that were in specific frequency ranges....Mike
 

letarotor

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Hmm, That's interesting. Do you have the link to where it shows the 296D being a rebandable radio? I'm legally blind and searching for this stuff as a nightmare sometimes. Paul Opitz Head told me that the 296D and the 796D were not going to be rebandable radios unfortunately. But maybe something changed and I just didn't know about it? I'd be interested in doing the firmware update if they are rebandable even though I probably wouldn't be using them too much for trunk tracking nowadays. But it's still be nice to have that capability if I wanted to reband the radio and open it up a little more.

Brian (COMMSCAN)
 

letarotor

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Thanks again for the help because this was exactly what I was trying to remember. Paul had sent me the 296D and 796D from where update links years ago and I didn't do them at the time. I can't remember how many operating systems ago that was but I know the email definitely had been lost through the years :) I may do the firmware upgrade this evening. I've got my cable in the box for the 296D I know and I'll have to find that converter that I had that would go between the 9 pin or whatever it is PC hook up cable and the back of a modern-day computer. I know that I have all this stuff around the house somewhere but locating some of it may take a little while? Much obliged...! BTW, I wouldn't mind finding some more 796D radios at a good price. Actually they probably don't even need to be the D model. That has been a great receiver for the military aviation band even though united in had not quite set up the defaults right for that range of frequencies and you had to manually go in and change any channel that had a 25kHz step size needed or you'd have to do it through the software. But as far as receiving an audio goes, I still use my 796D today to listen to the local fighter squadrons going up and fighting each other in one of the local MOAs. It seems to be a really sensitive receiver that does great at blocking unwanted signals at the same time. I've been meaning to see if the 296D will work is good and I've been thinking about programming mine up as a 1000 channel military aviation band receiver If it does work as well. I never did like that boat wheel or paddle boat wheel that was on the scanner, but other than that, it actually did a great job and I enjoyed using it. The only problem is I barely used it before the dynamic memory radios came out so I put it back in the box to preserve it for a long time. I bought a NIMH battery for it last year and I believe it was a 2,400 mAh battery that wasn't available back in the day of those battery packs. And I just finally started using it here in the last week. Since it has the digital card in it I might program in a few other things in the area of interest and put it to use now. I'll definitely wait it long enough haha.

Brian (COMMSCAN)

PS, I usually do proofread messages but I've got to run now so hopefully this one did a lot better than the last message with Google Voice to Text.
 

ka3jjz

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Actually to bring this back a little more OT, the 250 was considered in its day to be an excellent milair scanner....and keep in mind ProScan supports it. Mike
 

letarotor

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Was the 250D the first digital scanner Uniden made? And what was the difference between the 250D and 296D? Just looking at some of the specs, they seem to be identical. But I'm sure there must have been some differences. I just don't remember what they might have been and I sure don't see them reading the specifications on the 250D? I don't remember if the 296D had the P25 card as an optional feature or not like the 250D did?
 

ka3jjz

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I think that is true - the 785 and 250 came out roughly at the same time; the 245 was Uniden's prior analog handheld scanner (along with the much revered BC780).

I *think* the difference between the 250 and 296 had to do with the card - if memory serves me, the card in the 296 could handle a 9600 baud system (i.e. Project 25) where the 250s can't. There were probably some other circuit differences in the 296 that made the 9600 baud decode possible with the card. I'm pretty sure you couldn't take a card from a 296 and put it in the 250, so it's a reasonable assumption. Mike
 

minasha

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I think that is true - the 785 and 250 came out roughly at the same time; the 245 was Uniden's prior analog handheld scanner (along with the much revered BC780).

I *think* the difference between the 250 and 296 had to do with the card - if memory serves me, the card in the 296 could handle a 9600 baud system (i.e. Project 25) where the 250s can't. There were probably some other circuit differences in the 296 that made the 9600 baud decode possible with the card. I'm pretty sure you couldn't take a card from a 296 and put it in the 250, so it's a reasonable assumption. Mike
I have not found any difference in the digital cards and I have interchanged them and they work in either the 250 or the 296. However a card from a 296 placed into a 250 will not follow p25 trunking. The 296 has hardware that the 250 does not.
 

trentbob

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Very interesting discussion. I owned both radios, the bc250d was first in 2003 and was the first digital scanner made by Uniden. It could do p16 type II smartzone systems but it couldn't do p25 but could do p25 conventional as has been mentioned. The 296 was 9600 baud and could do p25 tracking.

The 296 followed a little less than six months later. The card was included with the 296 as standard. It was an option with the bc250d. If you didn't need to go digital, it could serve as an analog scanner.

296 displayed more information. Obvious p25 data information, you could see your tag associated with the TG when you were in ID search mode. 296 had 6.25 steps, it also downloaded faster.

Just trying to remember any other big factors and I remember there was the 800 megahertz rebanding issue. A 250d was incapable of rebanding and the 296 was. That was a major issue at the time.

That was a long time ago but it seems like yesterday. Wish I could remember more. Everything I can remember has been covered well here.

GRE/RS had introduced the pro 96 at the same time. There was a very distinct difference in modulation between the pro 96 and the Unidens. The Unidens always had a muffled muddy modulation and the GRE had crisp clear audio. That was always a contentious debate here on RR.

I'll leave that one alone. :)
 
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letarotor

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Very interesting discussion. I owned both radios, the bc250d was first in 2003 and was the first digital scanner made by Uniden. It could do p16 type II smartzone systems but it couldn't do p25 but could do p25 conventional as has been mentioned. The 296 was 9600 baud and could do p25 tracking.

The 296 followed a little less than six months later. The card was included with the 296 as standard. It was an option with the bc250d. If you didn't need to go digital, it could serve as an analog scanner.

296 displayed more information. Obvious p25 data information, you could see your tag associated with the TG when you were in ID search mode. 296 had 6.25 steps, it also downloaded faster.

Just trying to remember any other big factors and I remember there was the 800 megahertz rebanding issue. A 250d was incapable of rebanding and the 296 was. That was a major issue at the time.

That was a long time ago but it seems like yesterday. Wish I could remember more. Everything I can remember has been covered well here.

GRE/RS had introduced the pro 96 at the same time. There was a very distinct difference in modulation between the pro 96 and the Unidens. The Unidens always had a muffled muddy modulation and the GRE had crisp clear audio. That was always a contentious debate here on RR.

I'll leave that one alone. :)

Thanks to both of you, rentbob and TV and tvengr. Yeah the time it has been as kind of taken away my usage of the radio but some of what I remember about it as well. A lot of what I see mentioned does ring some bells too and it reminds me of both radios. Even though I never did get the 250D at the time, I remember the 296D came out very shortly afterwards and I thought at the time that was unusual. I also remembered after reading both of your comments that when it came to rebanding it would work on certain TRS's that did not end in a certain numeric format but not on ones that ended in another numeric format. And for the life of me I can't remember which was which at the time. It does seem like it was just yesterday but it's hard to believe it was almost 20 years ago! Thanks again guys, and to everyone, who's helped answer some questions add long forgotten about. We've definitely jumped by leaps and bounds to what we have today looking back at what we had then!

Brian (COMMSCAN)
 
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