N7OLQ said:
In reply to Voyager's message:
#7 - I'm not sure I understand your objection. Are other people looking at your scanner screen on a reguar basis that you would need to hide information from them? I'm really referring to displaying the trunked freqs and TG ID in addition to the text tag. In conventional mode, the freq with the text tag.
If they can make a $300 dual band HT with TX capability, it can't cost $200 for the receiver. On low cost HTs, they use a single receiver with frequency dividers. There is no need for a separate decoder since when a TG is active on a voice freq, the decoder is unused since it has no more data coming in. The first receiver could feed the decoder all the time and the second receiver would be tasked with tuning voice freqs.
Remember we are talking about future base/mobile units here so size and battery life are not issues we have to worry about.
#7. Not often, but frequent enough that I would not want the frequencies displayed. Lots of people are interested in the newer scanners who don't have one. Murphy says that someone will key up on a sensitive frequency when someone else is looking at it. I wish the
Even on trunking, the frequency display is not necessary and 'clutters up' the display. It would be much more readable without it there. I wish the CTCSS were not displayed, either. (except on SEARCH mode) But, that's the screen mode that others are wanting added back to the feature list. IOW, others think the display has too much on it already and want the option of a 'cleaner' display.
2nd RX. You will need two decoders. One for converting the digital voice and one for decoding the control channel. If trunking priority only works on analog TRSs, that will likely cause a riot. Most TRSs going on for the past couple years are digital, and most if not all the statewide TRSs are digital. That's a lot of users.
All the Uniden costs are irrelevant unless Uniden wants to start giving scanners away at manufacturing cost. You have to look at it from the street price - period. That is where my figure is based - on how much it will cost US, not Uniden. They certainly won't sell it for only their cost to add it. How would they recover all their R&D?
If we look at the price of a trunking scanner vs a comparable non-trunking one, it's about twice the price. From that, would you say that the trunking decoder is worth half the price of the scanner? P-25 costs about twice the trunking scanner price. While the licensing fees are siginificant, I'm sure, do you think the decoder costs $200? I doubt it on either point. Demand factors into things, too. Trunking priority would be a high-end high-demand item. It will command a higher price tag over and above the cost of the parts to add it to the scanner, and over and above the street price of the circuits. You also have to add muting circuitry for the second RX OR add 'VFO-switching' logic if the second RX is always muted. Either way would work fine. If they want to add true dual receive, that mandates the muting circuitry and squelch circuit. Switching for the decoders for SAME, CTCSS/CDCSS, trunking CC decoding, P-25 decoding, FTO, Etc.is another consideration. Or, basically duplicating the entire scanner circuirty minus the P-25 decoder and audio amp.
You know that people are going to be wanting the features in portables, too. With base/mobiles there is not the size concern so you can have multiple units monitoring the system. That is not the case with portables where size is a concern.
Maybe trunking priority will be one of the features they can add to the mobiles. It sure would be nice as long as it doesn't add more than $100 to the price tag. I'm not sure they can do it for that much, though.
Joe M.
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