I have read many claims by SDS200 owners that the digital abilities of the unit are superb, but that the analog leaves a lot to be desired. I know from my own experience that the Uniden BCT15X is an excellent analog only receiver. Wouldn't it be the best of both worlds to have both the SDS200 for digital systems, and the BCT15X for analog ones?
Best of both worlds: SDS200 & BCT15X?
- Thread starter wbswetnam
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I think if your primary systems are trunked/P25 then the SDS200 shines. If your primary systems are VHF analog, then (by what I read here) I bet the 15X will outperform night and day, when all things are equal (antennas etc).
In the analog-VHF only Northern California, I LOVE my 15X's. I can make them sing and dance with little tricks and nuances of the dynamic systems/groups and how the priorities work. I needed a remote head 4 years ago when I got a new vehicle and the WS1098 was the only option so I got it, replacing the mobile 15X. The thing is deaf as a doorknob on lowband, VHF-High it is mush, not much UHF, and then does great on P25 P1/P2 and Simulcast. It has seriously made me hate mobile scanning, something I've done for 25 years in CA, and I often don't turn it on anymore now that I have a commercial P25 in there that I can scan as needed. Just last night I finally got a mobile head project done for the 15x, combining bluetooth serial and mobile phone. I'll get it all installed this weekend and test it out, just in time for a 1200mile drive through California in a few weeks. I can finally enjoy actually having CHP and whatnot again, and leave the 1098 to the trunked systems I'll pass through. If successful I'll share that write up in the tavern.
I'd love to replace the Whistler with the SDS200, if it had a remote head, and killer VHF....
In the analog-VHF only Northern California, I LOVE my 15X's. I can make them sing and dance with little tricks and nuances of the dynamic systems/groups and how the priorities work. I needed a remote head 4 years ago when I got a new vehicle and the WS1098 was the only option so I got it, replacing the mobile 15X. The thing is deaf as a doorknob on lowband, VHF-High it is mush, not much UHF, and then does great on P25 P1/P2 and Simulcast. It has seriously made me hate mobile scanning, something I've done for 25 years in CA, and I often don't turn it on anymore now that I have a commercial P25 in there that I can scan as needed. Just last night I finally got a mobile head project done for the 15x, combining bluetooth serial and mobile phone. I'll get it all installed this weekend and test it out, just in time for a 1200mile drive through California in a few weeks. I can finally enjoy actually having CHP and whatnot again, and leave the 1098 to the trunked systems I'll pass through. If successful I'll share that write up in the tavern.
I'd love to replace the Whistler with the SDS200, if it had a remote head, and killer VHF....
My IC-R30 using the included antenna clearly picks up aircraft in the air and tower traffic from Selfridge AFB and I live more than 50 miles from the base. It doesn't trunk track, but in many jurisdictions the 200 channel per second (advertised) scan speed cover P25 phase I very well.
There are still some parts of the country where virtually everything public service is still analog. Utah and Nevada still have statewide analog trunked systems, New York State still doesn't have a statewide trunked system of any kind. Other rural areas of the country are still primarily or exclusively analog. So, simply using a BCT15X still makes sense in those areas, and it's an outstanding analog scanner which costs only $155 to $170 on average.
That's really a myth, as it's impossible to have good digital performance without having analog performance at least as good. All signals are analog coming in from the antenna, and then the analog signal is converted to bits. If the analog performance is poor, the process of converting the analog signal to bits will have a high error rate, and you get garbles and dropouts. Digital performance cannot be any better than the performance of the analog section of the receiver receiving the signal being digitized.
That said, it's possible for one unit to perform better or worse in one band than another unit (e.g. VHF 136-174MHz). But that has nothing to do with digital vs analog; it's most commonly a disparity in antenna performance, rather than receiver performance. I don't have a BCT15X, but I do have the SDS200, SDS100, 536, and 436. Connected to a common antenna with a multicoupler, there's very little difference in reception performance between them (also throwing customer 436 and SDS100 units in the mix), except where simulcast is involved. The SDS units have a clear advantage there.
If you have a BCT15X, there's nothing wrong with programming it with the analog stuff in your area, and programming the SDS with just the digital stuff to divide the scanning workload. But if you only have a SDS, it's not necessary to buy a BCT15X to pick up analog stuff for the reasons I mentioned earlier, unless you want to split up what you scan among multiple scanners.
Again MYTH I have 16 Uniden Scanners in a rack sharing the same antenna at the same time and your statement is not true as I can setup my SDS200 and a 15x just alike and hear the same traffic or I can setup my SDS200 and a 996P2 just alike and hear the same traffic or I can setup my SDS200 and a 536 just alike and hear the same traffic. Now with this said on the digital I had to play with the filters to optimize the SDS200 on DIGITAL but now it hears just as well as my 996P2' and 536's.
Ubbe
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The filters are not not only optimizing digital. They are changing the general RF reception of the receiver that includes analog as well as digital modes.
/Ubbe
/Ubbe
I only needed to change on DMR and NXDN.
P25 and Analog are the same as my other scanners.
You still have not answered how well your SDS100 and SDS200 work?
P25 and Analog are the same as my other scanners.
You still have not answered how well your SDS100 and SDS200 work?
Hi Budd. I don't doubt you at all, and love hearing more reports on how the SDS performs. But my bit was on how it performs on VHF itself, regardless of analog or digital. It sounds like the SDS sings an amazing song on 700/800 systems, but that VHF is simply moderate; and moderate certainly works for most folks. However I'm smack dab in the middle of a 51,000 square mile piece of Northern California that has zero 700/800 digital trunked systems (one's coming online in about a year...). This is VHF country and we rely on pulling in signals from the furthest reaches, especially during fire season with CalFire. The bulk of that $700 investment here would be for VHF, and if it doesn't sing, then that would be very frustrating.
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And comparing the SDS200 and SDS100 to the 436, 536, and other models, I've not observed any significant deficit in the SDS200's VHF performance relative to other models, at least when they are all connected to the same antenna through a multicoupler. Simulcast excepted, performance from model to model is pretty consistent.
I did compare VHF range is equal to the 15x 996p2 536 and even my old 785d that still works
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