Is the reception for the 536 that much worse than the 996? Is there a way to adjust setting for analog? Missing a lot of my conventional conversations and the ones I do get are not clear at all.
Well I always want people to hear the truth. I was one of the guinea pigs and I have regrets too. I ended up selling both of my BCD996XT radios and bought two of the 536HP radios and was really excited. Then with all of the hardware problems I ended up selling both 536HP radios and taking a hit and buying two more BCD996XT radios again and I am really happy now. I just did not want to have to deal with it anymore. I will just sit on the side lines and enjoy. Plus having to make P25 adjust and tweaks to the radio was a bum deal too. I had so much error rates with the new radio and it was driving me crazy.
No more hardware issues anymore and love my radios again.
What firmware version are you running in your 536HP radio?
How do NOAA broadcast come in?
I know someone had a issue with the BNC connector center terminals that were too loose and would cause intermittent contact the antenna connector.
Also where are you located and what system(s) are you trying to monitor?
Starcom could be a simulcast problem, what site are you trying to monitor? Make sure the attenuator is turned off for any Starcom sites and any conventional frequencies.
Att off. I seem to be able to pick everything starcom up fine when using the full database. All problems seem to be with favorites. I do not believe it is the settings as I get some conversations just not all or they just cut out with high error rate. I think I got the analog (can't be sure yet) set now with threshold of 5 on conventional. After reading another post on here I see that I am not alone with this problem. Took him months to figure out. When I hold on a talk group I should see the signal bars correct? I did have them, but were there and gone and up and down. No real steady middle. I would leave on full database but way more than I need and slows everything down.
The problem is the S meter/signal bars do pulsate even on a solid signal. This signal pulsation is partially a function of the Uniden firmware and how the scanner does some form of housekeeping.
As for the Full Database, you should be able to append the full database to a Favorites list then delete or lock out what you not want to listen to. This is usually better than trying to create a Favorites list from scratch until you REALLY understand the scanner.