BCD436HP/BCD536HP Firmware Upgrade Wish List

[Ensnared]

Batteries?

There should be an option for the backlight to remain on ALWAYS -- it stinks that it doesn't even come on at power-up -- kinda difficult to see in the dark if it's on or off.

Well, I can see how this would be advantageous having a back light illuminated all of time, but digitals eat batteries when the bells & whistles are activated. I happen to own another brand of radio that has alarm tones, LED's, keypad illumination & back light illumination. It does not take long to drain batteries when used in this fashion. Of course having a back light option for when it is connected to a power source would be very nice.

 

[eaf1956]

There should be an option for the backlight to remain on ALWAYS -- it stinks that it doesn't even come on at power-up -- kinda difficult to see in the dark if it's on or off.

I don't know about the 436 but the 536 display can be left on.

 

[Steve2003]

Still crossing my fingers for P25 patch support. Uniden figured out EDACS patching in several of their models, hopefully they have this in the works for P25. (Same goes with emergency alerts on P25 trunked systems).

It would also be nice if a site hold was FN + System instead of FN + Dept. Since a site belongs to a system, doing a site hold is essentially a system hold. Perhaps this could allow department holds to be changed when a site hold is active?



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[mrkelso]

At this point my wish is to get an update.

 

[Hulca]

No wish for you. Come back 2 years.

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[szron]

I think I posted this before... but...

RSSI SITE ROAMING plz

 

[RF23]

There should be an option for the backlight to remain on ALWAYS -- it stinks that it doesn't even come on at power-up -- kinda difficult to see in the dark if it's on or off.

I do not know if this will help or not but you can choose different time periods for the backlight to remain on and one of the choices is "Infinite" which is what I use. Using this setting the display stays on all the time if I push the power button momentarily and will turn off and stay off if I push the power button momentarily again (needed for when it is on battery power only). Therefore, the display is either ON or OFF which is different than the "turn on with squelch" settings.

However, unlike the HP-1 which illuminates the display at low level at power up which is needed since most button you need are on the screen and to see them it needs to be illuminated (but eats up batteries too) the 436 radio powers up dark and in most lighting situations I am in the display is very difficult be read. Fortunately I have the power-up routine memorized and know what button to push and when, at least so far I have.

In one way this is kind of interesting as my watch uses an unlit LCD display and I really do not have trouble reading it but I sure do have trouble reading the display of my 436 without a backlight.

 

[Gilligan]

I believe that the radio display should definitely be illuminated at power-up.

 

[garys]

Some of this might have been covered in this thread, but I didn't see it, so here goes. Also, some of it might not be addressable by firmware. It also applies mainly to the 536, but it would improve the 436 as well.

The display is not bright enough, at least with the white backlight used. If firmware can be updated to make the lighting brighter or change the color to a amber, that would be helpful. When driving it's hard to see the characters in some lighting conditions, mostly during the day. I put an anti glare screen protector over the display and that makes a big difference, but it is still far from perfect.

Three line display mode is nice when it comes to character size, but I found I lost a lot of information. Using the regular display mode, it's very hard to see the smaller characters while driving. For mobile use, we should be able to take a quick glance at the screen and get the data.

What I'd like to see is the following.

On the line where Department/Trunk site information is displayed, we should be able to toggle the display so that we can toggle between Department and Trunk Site. Actually, having the option so see Department, Trunk Site, or alternate between the two would be nice. It's easy for me to say that this should be easy to do, but it really shouldn't be that hard.

On the line where Channel Name is displayed, we should have the option to toggle between the Alpha Tag and the frequency/PL or Talk Group ID. I'm pretty sure that Uniden offered something like this on an older series of scanners and it would be really nice to have it again.

I know that this information is displayed in the regular (non three line) display, but why can't it be displayed in the three line format?

 

[SCPD]

yes

The light stays on ONLY for the transmission and shuts off immediately after. I presume that people who are complaining about this want it to stay lit for the delay period as well.

ah YES! Would be great!

 

[K4SVT]

No scanner will be able to decode LTR Passport...its not frequency driven..

 

[Gilligan]

No scanner will be able to decode LTR Passport...its not frequency driven..

What does this mean?

 

[N9NRA]

Still crossing my fingers for P25 patch support. Uniden figured out EDACS patching in several of their models, hopefully they have this in the works for P25. (Same goes with emergency alerts on P25 trunked systems).

It would also be nice if a site hold was FN + System instead of FN + Dept. Since a site belongs to a system, doing a site hold is essentially a system hold. Perhaps this could allow department holds to be changed when a site hold is active?



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Hey there, i mentioned this very thing you touch on in the above referenced post in another thread i started (titled, "my BCD436HP firmware wishlist"), Won`t rehash it here, but short version is, the site hold feature should work more like the Department hold feature, also allow one to step through the sites and manually select the desired site to hold on in site hold, right now one cannot do that easily, or conveniently for that matter. N9NRA

 

[szron]

Hey there, i mentioned this very thing you touch on in the above referenced post in another thread i started (titled, "my BCD436HP firmware wishlist"), Won`t rehash it here, but short version is, the site hold feature should work more like the Department hold feature, also allow one to step through the sites and manually select the desired site to hold on in site hold, right now one cannot do that easily, or conveniently for that matter. N9NRA

Yes you can...

Func+dept holds a site.

Then push dept and rotate the knob to scroll sites.

Fun starts when you wanna hold a dept while holding a site and then scroll a dept. But I figured it out and I just hold a dept first and then hold a site.

 

[Ensnared]

Audio Enhancement

Since I don't design the software and/or hardware of various radios, I don't know if a firmware can be done to increase the volume of the 436. I know that my PSR 500 has an audio boost. If possible, I would like to see an audio enhancement update (audio quality and/or volume).

 

[DaveIN]

Here you go: Easier to Read BCD436/536HP Digital Scanner Manual vol offset

Channel Volume Offset

Press Channel to hold on the channel.
Press Func then press 0(LVL) to toggle +1, +2, +3, -3, -2, -1, or 0. Press Channel to resume.

 

[garys]

Thanks for this tip. I know how to get into site hold mode, but not how to scroll through the sites.

Yes you can...

Func+dept holds a site.

Then push dept and rotate the knob to scroll sites.

Fun starts when you wanna hold a dept while holding a site and then scroll a dept. But I figured it out and I just hold a dept first and then hold a site.

 

[DaveIN]

While in the Site Hold mode, tap the Dept./Site key, scroll to the next site of interest.

 

[SCPD]

WHAAAAAAAAAATTTT????

You can't see all 64 characters of the 64 character display?

Nope .. you can see 46 on the 2 lines. But really .. is that not enough ?

I have commercial radios with 8 .. and it works just fine. People just need to learn to not make things so freaking lengthy. The GRE having 16 characters is just fine .. but 64, really.

I do not use the RR database at all for my scanners, but I think that it is partly the cause of this information bloat we are seeing. :evil:

 

[jonwienke]

To all you people whining about the backlight, try this:

In the menu, go to Display Options, then Set Backlight, then Mode.
Under Squelch, select Open.
Under Keypress, select 5 seconds.
Under Timeout, select Infinite.

When a transmission is received, the display lights.

If you press any button or key other than the power button, the display lights until 5 seconds after the last key/button press.

If you tap the power button, the display stays lit until you tap the power button again or the scanner powers off.