BCDx36 owners, how as this experience affected your future purchases?

[MidTNScanDude]

I have a 536HP and it's just a Cheap made radio. Processor is slow, screen is dimming, Reboots if I try to use an external speaker and does not have the features that the box says it does. I currently own over a dozen scanners that are used daily.

The next scanner I buy will do DMR... and I hope someone beats Uniden to it.

 

[Voyager]

Processor is fine. It's likely the SD card that is bogging it down. At least that's what virtually everyone who has replaced the card has found.

Guess your next scanner will be an AOR. But, be warned: no trunking.

 

[XTS3000]

Processor is fine. It's likely the SD card that is bogging it down. At least that's what virtually everyone who has replaced the card has found.

Guess your next scanner will be an AOR. But, be warned: no trunking.

Again, Unidens "flagship" scanner comes with a garbage SD card. Akin to a BMWs coming with a Krako AM mono radio.

So we buy a 436 and have to run out and buy a charger for it, then a new SD card. What next?

What about Whistler? They have phase 2 trunking.

 

[tumegpc]

I sold both my 536HP and 436HP and listening to WS1080 and Pro-668 and HP-1. Nov 16,2013 "We talk to our customers , more importantly we listen to them " I don't think so - Where is the Analyze feature for the 436HP? I don't remember the customers asking for micro small fonts in a 1970's CB style radio. I don't remember customers asking for a LED light that times out after 5 seconds. I don't remember asking for the recording feature to record all or none. I don't remember asking for the microSD to be buried underneath the THREE batteries.

My future Uniden purchase ? I'm thinking more like the 396XT form factor with X2 - audio record - NO microSD - Keep the MultiColor backlight - just get rid of the unusable BLUE.

 

[eaf1956]

- Keep the MultiColor backlight - just get rid of the unusable BLUE.

I actually like the blue!

 

[Voyager]

Again, Unidens "flagship" scanner comes with a garbage SD card.

So we buy a 436 and have to run out and buy a charger for it, then a new SD card. What next?

What about Whistler? They have phase 2 trunking.

Yep. AND they have sd card problems as well. And you know full well that it's the CEC that mandated the lack of an AC charger (which most people have a drawer full of anyway).

I don't remember customers asking for a LED light that times out after 5 seconds.

Nope. That would be the USPTO that required that.

I don't remember asking for the microSD to be buried underneath the THREE batteries.

Why not? I've changed mine ONCE in over a year, and that was only out of desire for more recording capacity. Better than having it where it can get full of dust and fail.

My future Uniden purchase ? I'm thinking more like the 396XT form factor with X2 - audio record - NO microSD - Keep the MultiColor backlight - just get rid of the unusable BLUE.

The alert light on the x36s is light years ahead of the backlight alert. You can always read the display on the x36 without having to wait for the alert to time out.

I just wish they would have put the 436 light around the scroll knob like the 536. That would have been fantastic.

While we are asking for impossible things, how about making it transmit, too?

 

[drdiesel1]

I was a 536 early adopter, bought solely for Android listening while mobile. At min I will not buy until thoroughly reviewed, I won't let them screw me for another year again. (Actually still getting screwed via the SD-Card fiasco)

Problem is right now they are pretty much a monopoly, I put them in the same boat as Verizon and Comcast.

Sure wish Elecraft made scanners.

 

[nosoup4u]

I think I can say as a scanner community, we are in "uncharted waters" this time. Usually a new scanner comes out, a few bugs are ironed out but for the most part it works as it should. I would be a lot more understanding if they at least fixed the minor stuff over the last year and took their time getting the major stuff done.

The only other time I can think of anything even remotely like this happening is when the Pro-92 came out and it couldn't track type 2 systems properly, then the "A" model was released that fixed it. RS eventually did to the right thing and upgraded everyone's radios with new boards. If memory serves me right, they did it in a matter of a couple months after the A version and 2067 were released.

 

[drdiesel1]

I would be a lot more understanding if they at least fixed the minor stuff over the last year and took their time getting the major stuff done.

This is absolutely correct. If they were truly waiting on the 3rd party (aka world's cheapest vendor they could find) they would have had time to fix other firmware issues as well.

 

[mrkelso]

I sold off my 436 and 536 early on. Just to many problems with these radios. I am sticking with my 996xt and won't be buying another Uniden any time soon if ever. I am starting to get bored with all this stuff.

 

[mciupa]

No regrets or no animosity towards Uniden.

I bought the 536 for its P25 Phase 2 capability primarily. I hated selling my 996XT to help fund the 536 purchase. Also, sold my HomePatrol 1 after four years since it was lacking Phase 2.

But now, there is a BCD 996 P2 and a HomePatrol-2. Guess what my "future purchases" will be? :wink:

 

[ve1sef]

my 536 works okay for my needs. the replay feature has been useful. but the trade off on the scan speed rate was disappointing. i don't regret buying it, but i'll not buy another.
as for uniden. i'd have to think long and hard before purchasing another radio
from them period.

 

[scanman1958]

Up front I will say I don't own either of the new ones. I have read too much to purchace either at this point. I do wish that Uniden represenetives would either send me a questionire or email me with my hopes for a better scanner. I am your basic every day scanner head. Not too dumb but for sure not too smart. I think I could be of some help with ideas. Again it is all in hopes for a "better" scanner.

 

[WILSON43]

Situations like what we've encountered with Uniden will most likely rear it's ugly head with Whistler as well to a greater or lesser degree, or may not.

There is a HUGE profit margin to made from the "Gotta pre-order, pay list price and have the first day it's out" segment of our hobby. Hopefully membership in that group will diminish as a result of this fiasco.

I am not quite sure who the future Guinea Pigs will be, or how many, but I will NEVER be a first day buyer of these items again. (Not that I ever really was in the past anyway).

I saved so much money and grief by waiting for reviews and buying used or re-furbished. Or, waiting a little while for the prices to come down. A new HP-2 is now $457.00 On Amazon and PRIME members get it shipped free in two days. Why anyone in their right mind would EVER pay initial release list price of these things, especially UNIDEN, is beyond me.

And yes, I have both X36 radios, but purchased them deeply discounted, with additional AMAZON discounting because of false advertising.

Now, about that Analyze feature........

 

[Voyager]

This message is hidden because Voyager is on your ignore list.

This is known as Ostrich syndrome... :lol:

 

[wrratt]

The less than 1 percent...

As with restaurant and business reviews, if your happy, had no issues, you go your merry way and say nothing, if you have issues you find a place to vent, imo most Uniden owners don't frequent these forums and have no issues with the products.
Having had a few Rad Shack gre's and whistlers and a few Unidens, I've had no memorable issues with any that I've owned, sure, I dropped my bc245xlt and it lost reception, but a micro drop of solder on the bnc surface mount connection solved it, my stupidity for being too drunk that night.
My 436hp has done as I need it to do and I expect it will continue to do so as I don't take them apart unless needed, hook them up to Hack and Crack programs to find out the what and why, follow instructions in manuals to the letter and in general leave the damn thing alone.
I understand the defect problems some have experienced are real (mostly), but realize they are a small percentage of the overall production numbers and in no way has soured my belief in Uniden as a decent quality product.
Now the missing features and no DMR are issues I will wait and see...
I will continue to buy Uniden products.

 

[Jay911]

Well, you probably don't want to hear from me since I'm branded as a Uniden shill, but I don't care - the title says "BCDx36 owners", and I'm an owner.

How has this experience affected my future purchases? Probably very little. I judge products based on their own merit. If I "held a grudge" to coin a phrase, I'd never have owned a Ford vehicle because of the Edsel. I'd never have purchased a Windows computer because of Microsoft's dubious competitive practices.

Uniden had some definite, serious problems with the x36 line's rollout, there's no doubt about that. Yes, there's still issues yet to be solved. It doesn't cause me to vow to never touch another Uniden product again. I'm not going to get into the whole argument because it's all been said before. If you don't agree with it, that's your choice.

As for the whole "shill" argument, I've owned GRE scanners and Uniden scanners and all sorts of other scanners in over a third of a century of being in the hobby. Uniden puts out the product I like the best right now. If I had the money, I'd get a second 536 for my desk at work and a third for mounting in my truck. I don't use earphones with my radios, so I haven't even noticed if my 536 has that issue; and I've been lucky so far that both my 436 and 536 have yet to develop any problems with the clocks. However, I have no reason to doubt that Uniden (or any other manufacturer, if it was their product) would make it right if/when the problem crops up.

The current line of GRE radios (and their Whistler/Radio Shack/etc counterparts) just don't work well for me - for one thing, "E-Z Scan Digital" software is anything but user-friendly, in my opinion. I own a GRE PSR-500 and a PSR-600, both of which are used regularly, and I had a PSR-800 until I chose to sell it to another RR user. I'd have kept it if I didn't need the money. Those of you insisting I only ever speak anything good of Uniden and badmouth other manufacturer's radios haven't seen me discuss the way Uniden handles multi-site trunking (or you choose to conveniently ignore it).

I met with a ham today on a completely unrelated subject and in expressing his frustration over some hurdles in the ham radio scene locally, he said, "This is supposed to be about [people in the hobby] having fun". The same applies here. The scanner hobby is supposed to be for our entertainment. If I spent all my days and nights foaming at the mouth about how Uniden hasn't delivered on such-and-such, even though they have promised that it will be delivered eventually, I'd just be wasting time being grumpy, and there's no reason to go through life grumpy.

What the x36 line currently does - it does very well. You all knew that certain features were not going to be available at launch - or, if you didn't, you didn't do enough research. Uniden made a "promise" that the features were going to be available by a certain time; they weren't able to meet that deadline. Whether you want to say it was their fault or someone else's fault, it can't be helped at this point. If this is an injustice that is, in your eyes, cause to sever all ties with a company forever, that's your choice to make. However, some of us think that's pretty stupid, and quite frankly we don't need you to be in agreement with that.

 

[ratboy]

I don't own an X36 radio, never have, probably never will, but I have quite a few friends that have bought, mostly against my advice (Why do they ask me if they are going to ignore me?)436's. All have at least one annoying issue, and all of them have had a what I consider a fatal issue, like deafness on VHF, and the most annoying of all the common issues, the SD card problems. Throw in the USB plug issues, speakers rattling or cutting out, and all the rest, it's too much. The crappy build quality is another thing, I wonder how can they hold up over time? The GRE 500/106 isn't exactly ham HT solid, but I've seen many of them that still work great, and mine still look very good, even after very heavy use, but I don't abuse my stuff anyway. I dug my old Uniden BC205XLT out, and it still works, but the battery pack is dead as a rock, and the manual button is worn out, along with several other keys. That radio had it's teething issues too, the low battery circuit that shut the radio off even though the battery wasn't close to being low. The solution? Take a pair of dykes and cut the circuit out of the radio! At least, as crude as it was, it solved the problem, and it was annoying more than anything else anyway. In the future, Uniden should concentrate on basic RF performance, building a solid device that doesn't seem to be a ripoff at $400-500, and if they include a feature, such as recording ability, it should be done RIGHT, with each channel/object being able to be recorded separately. GRE/Whistler got it right, Uniden didn't, the record feature is pretty useless, IMHO, if I used it, the vast majority of what it would record during the day would be the local dumpster people talking about dumpsters. The political stuff one guy says is pretty amusing, but filling hours of recording time amusing and missing stuff I really want? No way. Until Uniden gets it's act together, I will pass, and recommend everyone else do the same.

 

[Voyager]

I've never seen any deafness on my 436/536. I'm not doubting people who have, but many people have posted that they don't see it. So, this is another location issue or it's an issue that only affects some scanners, or it's operator mistake.

And keep in mind Uniden HAD recording features that were not radio-wide. I can see why they made the choice they did in the x36 models, as you would then have the issue of replay/recording conflicts. What do you do if you hit replay on a recording channel? Should you replay the other channels and not those in record mode? Or should you give the error and not replay?

There are a few things I would like to see implemented differently on the x36, and that is one of them. Return to being able to select what you record. Even if it's Department or System based, you can simply separate the channels accordingly.

 

[Triangulum]

I have a 536hp that was purchased this past month and I don't notice deafness on VHF. Its picked up hits from Civil Air Control in different locations across the state, ARTCC (in a city borders outside the state) and can picked up one or two NOAA transmitters in a bordering state when testing it. This is using the stock antenna with the scanner next to a window.

I haven't experimented with any of the new Whistler models yet, but that wait will be ending. Someone is dropping off a Pro-668 to me later this week and I look forward to it.