yaesumofo
Member
Ok Guys It has been about a year give or take a bit since the 396 fell into our hands.
How is yours working for you?
How full is it?
Does it meet your needs?
What is missing?
Are you experiencing any problems?
How would you improve it?
For me the radio is working great. I an convinced that this is the best radio out there at the moment.
I use mind daily in Los Angeles. The situation here is pretty fluid. frequencies change often and the 396 with a decent software package is easy to adopt to these changes.
My radio is 65% full. The dynamic memory system is great. I have several cities that I travel to programmed in as well.
The 396 does meet my scanning needs. So did my pro 43 for a while. (On a side note I am sure bill cheek would have loved the 396, it really does contain many of the features he worked so hard to implement via various hacks into the pro 2006 radio and a whole bunch more.) MY RADIO PERFORMES well. I think the audio circuits could be better. this is very noticeable when ear phones are used. generally the radio has plenty of sensitivity and works great. I never hear intermod and the close call feature has really changes the way I monitor when I am close in to an event or action.
What would I change it? For the most part i am thrilled with the 396. In a next gen radio I would add a second receiver. I would make the audio circuit better. I would add a scope feature which shows channel activity or activity within an upper and lower frequency. I would add a mini or micro sd memory chip slot. GPS? Don't need it unless it is completely integrated into the radio. There are trunking improvements which i know some people want.
I suspect that we may see more "software defined radio" type features in the next generations of scanners. I am all for that since many RF filters can be applied and audio may be improved.
All In all I have been very happy with the 396. It is very rugged. It has held up to the rigors of the abuse I have given it about as well as any of my amateur radio Ht's. Much to my surprise.
I give the BCD396T good marks after one year. We have had a couple of software revisions which were major improvements. I suspect that will stop now. I doubt that Uniden will be willing to pay for continued development of the 396 platform.
Development into the next hand held must be moving along at a good pace by now. I hope they read this thread and others like which mention the features we need in a next generation TrunkTracker V.
Good luck and happy scanning.
Yaesumofo
How is yours working for you?
How full is it?
Does it meet your needs?
What is missing?
Are you experiencing any problems?
How would you improve it?
For me the radio is working great. I an convinced that this is the best radio out there at the moment.
I use mind daily in Los Angeles. The situation here is pretty fluid. frequencies change often and the 396 with a decent software package is easy to adopt to these changes.
My radio is 65% full. The dynamic memory system is great. I have several cities that I travel to programmed in as well.
The 396 does meet my scanning needs. So did my pro 43 for a while. (On a side note I am sure bill cheek would have loved the 396, it really does contain many of the features he worked so hard to implement via various hacks into the pro 2006 radio and a whole bunch more.) MY RADIO PERFORMES well. I think the audio circuits could be better. this is very noticeable when ear phones are used. generally the radio has plenty of sensitivity and works great. I never hear intermod and the close call feature has really changes the way I monitor when I am close in to an event or action.
What would I change it? For the most part i am thrilled with the 396. In a next gen radio I would add a second receiver. I would make the audio circuit better. I would add a scope feature which shows channel activity or activity within an upper and lower frequency. I would add a mini or micro sd memory chip slot. GPS? Don't need it unless it is completely integrated into the radio. There are trunking improvements which i know some people want.
I suspect that we may see more "software defined radio" type features in the next generations of scanners. I am all for that since many RF filters can be applied and audio may be improved.
All In all I have been very happy with the 396. It is very rugged. It has held up to the rigors of the abuse I have given it about as well as any of my amateur radio Ht's. Much to my surprise.
I give the BCD396T good marks after one year. We have had a couple of software revisions which were major improvements. I suspect that will stop now. I doubt that Uniden will be willing to pay for continued development of the 396 platform.
Development into the next hand held must be moving along at a good pace by now. I hope they read this thread and others like which mention the features we need in a next generation TrunkTracker V.
Good luck and happy scanning.
Yaesumofo