BCDx36HP Firmware 1.19.00 Available

[Jimco]

I finally updated the firmware on my 436. I've been listening now for about an hour and it sure seems like simulcast decoding has been HUGELY improved. I have my G5 and 436 sitting here and the 436 is picking up everything without any distortion.

Am I just lucky today, or are others experiencing the same improvement? Fingers crossed!

Jim

 

[Jimco]

I finally updated the firmware on my 436. I've been listening now for about an hour and it sure seems like simulcast decoding has been HUGELY improved. I have my G5 and 436 sitting here and the 436 is picking up everything without any distortion.

Am I just lucky today, or are others experiencing the same improvement? Fingers crossed!

Jim

Never mind. Spoke too soon. Communications still garbled a lot of the time and miss a lot of transmissions or partial transmissions.

 

[03msc]

Never mind. Spoke too soon. Communications still garbled a lot of the time and miss a lot of transmissions or partial transmissions.

As has been said before in other posts, simulcast decoding cannot be improved with a simple firmware update...that is a hardware thing.

 

[bob550]

Never mind. Spoke too soon. Communications still garbled a lot of the time and miss a lot of transmissions or partial transmissions.

Not surprising. It always seems that P25 possesses a devious artificial intelligence. It lets you believe you've improved the scanner's performance, until it all goes back into the toilet again.

 

[Jimco]

As has been said before in other posts, simulcast decoding cannot be improved with a simple firmware update...that is a hardware thing.

I've seen that debated in many posts, but never come to any agreed-upon conclusion. However, before someone posts the dreaded dead horse GIF, I'll move along.

But before I go, I asked because Uniden has actually released firmware updates that claimed to improve P25 decoding.

 

[03msc]

I've seen that debated in many posts, but never come to any agreed-upon conclusion. However, before someone posts the dreaded dead horse GIF, I'll move along.

But before I go, I asked because Uniden has actually released firmware updates that claimed to improve P25 decoding.

I understand. But P25 decoding and P25 simulcast decoding are two different animals - they may improve the decoding of P25 protocol/rf but without changing the internal hardware (such as they've done with the SDS100, apparently) they really can't 'fix' the simulcast issue due to the nature of what causes the simulcast issues.

 

[UPMan]

anyone else seeing any odd ASCII characters with the alias stuff now with .19?

im monitoring a not so busy nxdn96 system here in Springfield Mo and it was fine with .18
but after .19 im getting some weird characters now

trying to get a picture but its quick
this is on my 536 since my 436 is enroute to uniden for the clock issue

We know what is causing this and will fix it in the next release.

 

[Jay911]

We know what is causing this and will fix it in the next release.

I suppose it's too much to hope the character set will expand to allow for these odd characters, instead of just replacing them with an underscore or blank or something.

 

[W5RGP]

We know what is causing this and will fix it in the next release.

Awsome
Thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[boy7777777777]

This may have been addressed in earlier firmware but I didn’t notice it until this latest release. I have had the threshold mode set to manual and level set to 5. This has been working for me until now. I updated to the latest firmware and suddenly lost the system I have been monitoring. It’s a 48 nxdn. I put the setting back to auto and 8 and it works fine now.

 

[Jimco]

I understand. But P25 decoding and P25 simulcast decoding are two different animals - they may improve the decoding of P25 protocol/rf but without changing the internal hardware (such as they've done with the SDS100, apparently) they really can't 'fix' the simulcast issue due to the nature of what causes the simulcast issues.

Thanks. I typed a ton of angry things about Uniden here and deleted them before posting. It stinks to pay $400+ for a radio that simply doesn't work in my area. It would be awfully nice for Uniden to make this issue known to prospective buyers.

Off my soapbox.

 

[bob550]

It stinks to pay $400+ for a radio that simply doesn't work in my area. It would be awfully nice for Uniden to make this issue known to prospective buyers.

Firstly, if Uniden wants to sell scanners, they're not about to publish warnings and advisories regarding any shortcomings. No other manufacturer does that. That's why it pays to wait out any new product purchase until some time after launch, and let others be the guinea pigs. Secondly, given all the technical variables of our hobby, your monitoring experience is yours, and may not reflect other's experiences. Finally, these forums tend to collect far more product complaints than praise, and so it's not possible to get an accurate idea of the degree of trouble Uniden scanner owners may be having.

 

[jonwienke]

In fairness to Uniden, they don't guarantee that a scanner will decode good audio from any system at any location. There are too many variables, especially with a handheld. The 436 performs according to its specs, it's your responsibility to determine if that is adequate for your particular purpose.

The thing is that simulcast isn't a problem everywhere within the simulcast coverage area. I monitor 3 simulcast systems with generally good results--I can hear them all with good decode in my house. Now if I drive around, reception quality will vary dramatically, there will be dead spots where one site or another is completely unreadable. Fortunately the systems I monitor have 2 or more simulcast sites, so in areas where one is unusable, I can almost always get good decode from the other site.

Not everyone lives in a simulcast area, and you can get decent audio decode in most simulcast coverage area with a x36. But they are obviously not perfect, and if the SDS100 can get good decode in 99% of the coverage area instead of ~70%, it's a big step forward.

 

[Garymaxon1234]

After leaving my 436 in discovery from 05/11 15:28 to 05/15 09:21 looks like 14 bad TGID’s and 16 bad RID’s on a 5 channel, RAS enabled CAP+ system. Looks like a little over 2000 transmissions.

 

[bob550]

Nothing is perfect in the radio world. You'll occasionally hear the agencies you monitor having trouble themselves.

 

[UPMan]

0.7% error on TGID and 0.8% error on RID. Not perfect, but not terrible. With RAS, the scanner is unable to do any CRC error checking of incoming channel grants/updates, so errors are to be expected.

 

[werinshades]

Since alot of departments have switched to P25 simulcast systems, many of us have been chasing our tails in trying to tweak the scanners so we actually hear the conversations. On each Digital scanner model since the 796D/296D models, simulcast reception has improved slightly, but from what I've seen in the videos on other similar simulcast systems, this scanner appears to be the one that will resolve the issue. I'm assuming that all other digital formats will benefit from i/q processor as well. In the not to distant future, we will be able to hold a scanner in our hands (and hopefully on our desks/kitchen counters a mobile version) that will properly decode any unencrypted digital format available.

 

[buddrousa]

You forgot the 785D the first Uniden P25 scanner.

 

[werinshades]

You forgot the 785D the first Uniden P25 scanner.

Yep...that one too!

 

[Voyager]

It stinks to pay $400+ for a radio that simply doesn't work in my area. It would be awfully nice for Uniden to make this issue known to prospective buyers.

They make the specs available as to what it can and cannot do. That is about all they can do. The rest of the research is up to you.