Conventional scanning performance of x36HP's

[LIScanner101]

What with 99.99% of the focus on the performance of these scanners being on digital trunking systems, I was wondering if anyone has any report for their conventional analog scanning abilities? Where I live there is a ton of FD and some PD still on analog frequencies but there are some trunked systems, with only one of them 100% digital (the other one is I would guess 90% analog). Are the x36HP's doing OK on analog?

 

[kikito]

My BCD436HP is pulling in the analog stuff as good as my GREs radios. And that's something because GREs are known to be pretty hot on VHF. There's times it pulls in a little clearer some of the weak analog VHF signals.

So in short, yeah, it's does pretty good for me for analog in the areas I've used it.

 

[AK9R]

My experience is purely subjective as I've not done extensive testing. I live about 7 miles from a large CSX rail yard. I am hearing their VHF conventional FM repeated and simplex transmissions as well with a 536 and an 800 MHz rubber duck as I hear them with any of my other radios. In other words, no problems.

 

[LIScanner101]

kikito,

Thanks, that's great to hear. I'm back "on the fence" but I'm still being watchful for any late-breaking developments, if you get my drift....

 

[LIScanner101]

My experience is purely subjective as I've not done extensive testing. I live about 7 miles from a large CSX rail yard. I am hearing their VHF conventional FM repeated and simplex transmissions as well with a 536 and an 800 MHz rubber duck as I hear them with any of my other radios. In other words, no problems.

ALSO good news! Thank you for the info.

 

[davenlr]

Mine picked up a fire department repeater from a town about 60 miles away over several large hills and ridges, using a half wave rooftop antenna with no issues at all. Very good analog receive.

 

[SCPD]

my 536 is very slow scan speed on conventional analog... Had to create a favorites list with frequencies in order and set them all up under 1 system and 1 department so it scans in order on conventional... takes about 3 seconds to scan 36 channels with the db the way its organized and about 1/2 a sec to scan the 1 department with all the same frequencies organized from highest freqency to lowest... I also had to do this on the hp 1.... perhaps a firmware update that will auto scan by frequency instead of system/department should be in the works

 

[LIScanner101]

OK so these are "analog winners" so far!

 

[LIScanner101]

my 536 is very slow scan speed on conventional analog... Had to create a favorites list with frequencies in order and set them all up under 1 system and 1 department so it scans in order on conventional... takes about 3 seconds to scan 36 channels with the db the way its organized and about 1/2 a sec to scan the 1 department with all the same frequencies organized from highest freqency to lowest... I also had to do this on the hp 1.... perhaps a firmware update that will auto scan by frequency instead of system/department should be in the works

You can auto-optimize the XT scanners frequency-wise with FreeSCAN. Doesn't Sentinel have a similar feature?

 

[SCPD]

You can auto-optimize the XT scanners frequency-wise with FreeSCAN. Doesn't Sentinel have a similar feature?

sentinel only has database and is assorted in a specific order which scans system then department in current system then scans the system by department then channel...
example conventional mode
scans state police\troop\channel
then scans state\county\channel
then scans common\ems\channels
then common\utilities\channel


now the problem that slows the hp1 and the x36 during conventional scan is that when it gets to scan channels it does them by system then department the channel and if you have 3 systems (ems, fire, state police)
it scans each system separately and by channel name per department per system... so if you don't have the capabilities of scanning by frequency and only by system 1, 2 or 3 then department 1,2 or 3, then channel 1,2 or 3 in unsorted frequencies the scanner in conventional scan mode takes about 3 or 4 seconds to scan conventional channels...
where if scanned by a test list I set up with same frequencies in an order from highest frequency to lowest all in 1 system and 1 department its scan speed is about 1/2 a second to scan the same 36 analog conventional channels... however just cant do them in the fancy system/department/channel alpha tags

so instead of state police/troop b/channel and new York/Essex county/ems channels everything would be named something like this manually

New York/My Area freqs/Channel name... which I programmed by hand in order...
so sorting by system name/department/channel As recommended by uniden will not optimize scan performance on conventional analog/digital systems

 

[blackmonte]

As far as signal, I can pick up conventional analog up to 2 counties away with outdoor antenna. I'm happy with that. But what I'm not happy with is it seems conventional analog priority channels miss the first 1-2 seconds of transmissions repeatedly and sometimes a 5+ second transmission is missed. I have an older scanner side by side and it is annoying what the 536 misses. I hope this is addressed in the next firmware update. Now the P25 priority channels seem to be better. It probably misses the first few milliseconds which is understandable.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SCPD]

As far as signal, I can pick up conventional analog up to 2 counties away with outdoor antenna. I'm happy with that. But what I'm not happy with is it seems conventional analog priority channels miss the first 1-2 seconds of transmissions repeatedly and sometimes a 5+ second transmission is missed. I have an older scanner side by side and it is annoying what the 536 misses. I hope this is addressed in the next firmware update. Now the P25 priority channels seem to be better. It probably misses the first few milliseconds which is understandable.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

if you don't mind losing alpha tags try what I did and hand type everything into a new favorites list in sentinel
create new favorites list
then new system and name whatever you want
then new department
then all your channels in order from highest to lowest frequency 1 and a time under same system and same department
and see if it performs any better... that was the same issue I was having...
sucks that uniden didn't offer an option in sentinel to sort conventional frequencies by frequency...
people would really see a huge improvement on conventional systems... maybe in a future update... fingers are crossed....


also avoid all systems u don't need... and yes reception is awesome if programmed to scan by frequency high to low otherwise 95% is missed on same antenna with multicoupler. and my old pro-62 radioshack scanner outscans both hp1s I own and the 536.. and that scanner has 83 channels programmed..

 

[K2KOH]

Both my 436 and 536 are doing nicely in Putnam County, NY. I love these scanners!

 

[LIScanner101]

OK, now I see some issues...this is what I just learned from all this:

On the plus side, users are reporting great conventional analog reception. That is of course great news to me.

On the negative, the scanners scan slow because there's no "elegant" way of making the scanners work in frequency order - which always results in faster channel scans. This is a shortcoming of Sentinel, which is a Uniden program. The workaround is to enter everything manually which sounds awfully painful and is a serious step backwards.

Why isn't it possible to reflash these units to operate in frequency order?

Is there another program out there that can accomplish this?

 

[kruser]

Is there another program out there that can accomplish this?

The last I heard is that Butel's ARC HP Patrol (or whatever he calls it!) will allow you to sort to improve the scan speed.
I know he had some other issues so the beta was pulled before I ever downloaded it.

I think you will also be able to use it to remove the groups and departments and put everything under one scanlist sorted by frequency if that is what you want. I know it will be a lot more flexible than Sentinel for working with Favorites.

I think if you order a pre-release version, he will send you a link to get the latest unreleased version.

That's the only one I've heard of so far that will allow sorting and editing your Favs outside of Sentinel.

 

[phask]

Upman has stated (and I'm too lazy to find it) that order hasno bearing on scan speed on the newer Uniden's, including the HP1.

Know what I'm unsure of does the amount of Departments has any bearing.

I stil use the HP1 and just looking at it, it goes through my conventional in under a second - not sure how many but there is at least a dozen departments and maybe 100 total freqs.

 

[LIScanner101]

I'm just going by what hydro12943 has reported in this thread - that after putting his channels in frequency order his unit scans faster. There has to be some bearing in this.

 

[kruser]

I need to test this. I have a pretty large amount of conventional analog Favs with departments and all. I can't say I've noticed any slowness when it goes through those favorites.
But... after reading hydro12943's post's, I do wonder if changing things will improve scanning speed.

 

[LIScanner101]

"Slowness" is a relative term. Slowness as compared to what? I like scanning "everything" and don't want to miss "anything" . Those reporting "slowness" notice a change, but I realize this could be a subjective observation.

 

[freqhopping]

My 436 doesn't pick up weak signals as well as my 396XT does in the commercial aviation band.