BCD436HP/BCD536HP Firmware Upgrade Wish List

[jonwienke]

Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.

And referring to a set of sites on different frequencies that may or may not carry identical traffic as "simulcast" doesn't make it so.

Either way, my original point still stands. If the sites truly are simulcast, it is physically impossible to receive one and not another, unless you use a highly directional antenna. And that is not something that can be accomplished with firmware.

If the sites are not simulcast, there's a good chance they don't all carry identical traffic, and limiting the scanner to strongest site only pretty much guarantees you're going to miss otherwise readable transmissions. In the case of the Lancaster system, it has a plethora of regional/one-city department and municipal talkgroups that are pretty much guaranteed not to be broadcast from all sites. Some examples:

3060 bf4 E NW Private Northwest Police Private Law Talk
3061 bf5 E NE Private Northeast Police Private Law Talk
3062 bf6 E Central Priv Central Police Private Law Talk
3063 bf7 E South Privat South Police Private Law Talk

Given that there are 4 sites with matching names, each site likely carries only the TG with the matching name (NE, NW, Central, South). So if the scanner only monitors the site with the strongest signal, you're only going to hear one of these 4 TGs at a time, and you won't be able to control which of these TGs you hear without going for a drive.

How exactly is that a good idea?

 

[durangoGreg]

If the firmware were released and had Wifi Connectivity, here are a couple of things that I would like to see added.

Digital Graphic equalizer on audio so that tone could be adjusted.

Clock option to bypass prompt at startup, or set via internet site on power up.

Ability to connect sentinel to radio via wifi.

If possible ability to save a unique audio equalizer preset for each scan frequency in favorites.

 

[Voyager]

What you're asking for is physically impossible with a simulcast system.

Well, short of moving to the immediate vicinity of the site you want to monitor. :wink:

 

[MisterPixel]

Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.

And referring to a set of sites on different frequencies that may or may not carry identical traffic as "simulcast" doesn't make it so.

Either way, my original point still stands. If the sites truly are simulcast, it is physically impossible to receive one and not another, unless you use a highly directional antenna. And that is not something that can be accomplished with firmware.

If the sites are not simulcast, there's a good chance they don't all carry identical traffic, and limiting the scanner to strongest site only pretty much guarantees you're going to miss otherwise readable transmissions. In the case of the Lancaster system, it has a plethora of regional/one-city department and municipal talkgroups that are pretty much guaranteed not to be broadcast from all sites. Some examples:

3060 bf4 E NW Private Northwest Police Private Law Talk
3061 bf5 E NE Private Northeast Police Private Law Talk
3062 bf6 E Central Priv Central Police Private Law Talk
3063 bf7 E South Privat South Police Private Law Talk

Given that there are 4 sites with matching names, each site likely carries only the TG with the matching name (NE, NW, Central, South). So if the scanner only monitors the site with the strongest signal, you're only going to hear one of these 4 TGs at a time, and you won't be able to control which of these TGs you hear without going for a drive.

How exactly is that a good idea?

Ok. Currently I'm scanning the central site. Using the quick keys I have Northwest, Northeast and South sites turned off. The talk groups I'm currently hearing loud and clear are northwest police and northeast police. If I can only hear talk groups in the area of the site I'd not be able to hear these. Plus if you look there are several talk groups that are county-wide.

 

[jonwienke]

turned off. The talk groups I'm currently hearing loud and clear are northwest police and northeast police. If I can only hear talk groups in the area of the site I'd not be able to hear these. Plus if you look there are several talk groups that are county-wide.

The county-wide TGs would not be affected by your proposed "closest site only" feature, but TGs that are not carried on all sites would cut in and out depending on your location, terrain, and atmospheric conditions. What TGs are carried by each site is decided by the system administrator, and depends on the purpose of the TG and traffic levels.

County-wide and interop TGs will likely be carried by all sites, but local/municipal departments generally will only be carried by the site(s) closest to the city/town in question. The more traffic carried by the system, the more likely the site coverage for a given TG will be limited, to prevent traffic congestion.

 

[MisterPixel]

The county-wide TGs would not be affected by your proposed "closest site only" feature, but TGs that are not carried on all sites would cut in and out depending on your location, terrain, and atmospheric conditions. What TGs are carried by each site is decided by the system administrator, and depends on the purpose of the TG and traffic levels.

County-wide and interop TGs will likely be carried by all sites, but local/municipal departments generally will only be carried by the site(s) closest to the city/town in question. The more traffic carried by the system, the more likely the site coverage for a given TG will be limited, to prevent traffic congestion.

Being that this is the BCD436/BCD536HP Firmware Upgrade Wish List I'll close with this:

Hey Uniden!!! I wish the upgraded firmware had the option on my BCD436hp scanner to have the scanner only scan the site on a trunked system that has the strongest signal. Therefore when I drive around the county the scanner switches to the strongest site without me having to pull over and turn sites on and off with quick keys and without having to buy a GPS, even if jonwienke thinks it's dumb. . I hope I don't have this much trouble with my Christmas list.

 

[JoeyC]

I think its a nonuseful idea as well. Having a piece of electronic equipment decide what I want to hear is not very helpful. What jonwienke has described is exactly correct. Just because all the talkgroups you listen to now are covered across all sites, does not mean that everyones talkgroup choices will be.

 

[jonwienke]

I guarantee that if you monitor all the sites and TGs on the system and log the traffic you receive, you'll find multiple TGs that are only affiliated with a subset of the system's sites. What you're asking for would screw over the majority of scanner users, and isn't going to do what you want it to do anyway, unless you're only monitoring TGs carried by every site in the system.

What you really want is a GPS. Quit whining and buy one.

GPS is not included with the scanner because people who scan from a fixed location don't need that functionality and the cost that goes with it. But if you're mobile, there is no substitute for it.

 

[MisterPixel]

I guarantee that if you monitor all the sites and TGs on the system and log the traffic you receive, you'll find multiple TGs that are only affiliated with a subset of the system's sites. What you're asking for would screw over the majority of scanner users, and isn't going to do what you want it to do anyway, unless you're only monitoring TGs carried by every site in the system.

What you really want is a GPS. Quit whining and buy one.

GPS is not included with the scanner because people who scan from a fixed location don't need that functionality and the cost that goes with it. But if you're mobile, there is no substitute for it.

From what you're saying how will a GPS help?

 

[jonwienke]

It will automatically turn sites on and off as you drive, so you don't have to stop and toggle them manually. You may need to adjust your Range setting to avoid monitoring sites you can't actually receive, and monitor all sites you can receive well. This link has more info:

How it Works: Location, Location, Location

Trust me, if you use a scanner in a vehicle, buying a GPS is well worth the cost.

 

[MisterPixel]

It will automatically turn sites on and off as you drive, so you don't have to stop and toggle them manually. You may need to adjust your Range setting to avoid monitoring sites you can't actually receive, and monitor all sites you can receive well. This link has more info:

How it Works: Location, Location, Location

Trust me, if you use a scanner in a vehicle, buying a GPS is well worth the cost.

If it turns off and on sites by your location than how is the final result any different than if the scanner would turn sites off an on by signal strength?

 

[jonwienke]

Read the article, and you'll find the answer to that question.

The short version is that if there is more than one site within reception range, you have the ability to receive all traffic within the range you specify, even if you have to monitor more than one site to get it. So if a talkgroup matching your Service Type selection is carried by a site within reception range, you will be able to receive it even if it's not carried by the site with the strongest signal.

Departments are also tagged with coordinates, so if a town's PD is within your Range setting you will receive that town's PD traffic, even if the site carrying that town's talkgroups isn't the one with the strongest signal.

With your approach, you'll have departments and talkgroups cut out randomly unless they are carried by all sites.

 

[szron]

There's no reason not to have true Roaming option.

People have been asking for it for a really long time.

GPS only works so well and it requires another device and finding the range and coordinates. Those things work only so well.

RSSI would work so much better and it has to be doable in firmware.

 

[jonwienke]

Umm, no.

Single-site roaming is a stupid idea for the simple reason that many or most talkgroups in trunked systems (especially large statewide or multi-state systems) are NOT broadcast from every site in the system, and if you only listen to the site with the strongest signal, you WILL miss traffic for no good reason.

Some other things to consider:
* In order to intelligently choose the site with the strongest signal, the scanner needs to monitor all "nearby" sites regularly to compare signal levels. If you're monitoring several sites anyway, why not play readable traffic you pick up, if it matches your service type selections, etc?

* How does the scanner know which sites are "nearby" so it can monitor them for signal comparison purposes? Does it scan every site in the system? Some systems have hundreds of sites, and polling them all would take an unreasonably long time.

Whistler has tried single-site roaming, and the user consensus is that it doesn't work very well, for the reasons I've outlined. GPS-based location filtering solves or avoids all of these problems elegantly, and also works on analog non-trunked traffic, an issue which single-site roaming completely fails to address.

 

[szron]

Single-site roaming is a stupid idea for the simple reason that many or most talkgroups in trunked systems (especially large statewide or multi-state systems) are NOT broadcast from every site in the system, and if you only listen to the site with the strongest signal, you WILL miss traffic for no good reason.

I fail to see this being an issue.

At least MPSCS in my area is set up that there are county simulcast sites that carry everything that I need when I'm out and about in my area.

If I leave my primary area the scanner would just pick up State Police TG since I don't have anything else programmed that is broadcasted on those sites and State Police TG are in 99% of the cases broadcasted by every site (in the district boundary). What I actually want to be able to do when I'm driving around is pause on the State Police TG for the district and not have to do anything else. And when I read a district boundary I just nudge the knob one up and I'm on the next district channel still seamlessly receiving.

Also you mention comparing sites.

VERY GOOD IDEA. P25 Control channel contains neighbor site info. USE IT UNIDEN

and polling them all would take an unreasonably long time.

You're right, that's why I switch my sites by hand. It's a pain.

 

[jonwienke]

I fail to see this being an issue.

At least MPSCS in my area is set up that there are county simulcast sites that carry everything that I need when I'm out and about in my area.

If your system carries all talkgroups on all sites, it would work for you. But for the majority of users who listen to systems where talkgroups are not all broadcast from all sites, it would cause all kinds of problems with traffic on some talkgroups not being received intermittently, depending on the scanner location and site signal strengths.

VERY GOOD IDEA. P25 Control channel contains neighbor site info. USE IT UNIDEN

This is completely unnecessary if you're using GPS, and depends on the system administrator configuring the system correctly. And it doesn't eliminate the need for the scanner to constantly monitor multiple sites to compare signal strength data to pick the one with the best signal. So you'd still be monitoring multiple sites and not playing traffic from those sites, which makes no sense at all.

You're also ignoring the issue of how the scanner knows where to start listening when it is first turned on. If a system has 100 sites, how does it know where to start looking? GPS solves that problem neatly, and renders all the other rigmarole you're proposing moot.

And your proposal does not help people who monitor traffic on individual anlaog channels or non-trunked systems. GPS location does.

You're also ignoring the fact that Whistler already tried this, and the user consensus is that it works poorly in most cases.

It's more complicated than GPS location, only works on simulcast trunked systems, and has a high probability of causing traffic on come talkgroups to be completely dropped intermittently for most users. What's to like?

 

[TedRHayes]

True "Mute" function

I don't believe the command interface for the x36 scanners has a true Mute function. I believe the computer control software such as ARC536 and ProScan can only emulate a Mute by setting the volume to level 0. Unfortunately if a user assigns a + volume offset to a channel, you will still here sound from the scanner even though it is supposed to be muted when there is activity on the channel.

Would like to see the true Mute function added in a future firmware update.

 

[ems170]

An easy way to globally enable or disable location settings. I have multiple units and only one that uses GPS/location. I dont want to have duplicate favorite lists with location enabled/disabled. There should be an easy setting in the profile that tells the unit to ignore/respect location settings globally in the radio.

 

[jonwienke]

You can set a favorite list to use or not use location control.

 

[ems170]

You are correct. However that involves going into each favorite list and turning location to on/off. It would be nice to have an option in the location area of the settings to just ignore location data. This option would supersede the settings on the individual favorite lists. As of right now there are two options. Maintain a duplicate list of favorite lists, one with location data on and one with location data off. Or after every time you write to the radios you must then toggle location data on/off for each of the radios for every favorite list loaded depending if location/GPS data is used. Both of the available options require tedious data entry.