While it is true that we can't expect $500 scanners to do what a $3000 piece of equipment does, we have the right to want scanner technology to catch up to radio technology. When trunking was introduced, scanner manufacturers responded to the needs of their consumers and created trunktracking scanners. P25 technology has been in use for what-nearly a decade now? And we're still having these discussions. Granted, if simulcast decoding were an easy solution, the problem would be solved. I credit the work Uniden has done in advancing their scanning technology to meet the challenges of the modern scanning world, but the work clearly isn't done.
And therein lies the responsibility of the consumer-WE are the ones with the money, WE are the ones whom Uniden, Whistler, etc. is trying to win over. WE have the opportunity to say, "make p25 simulcast (or whatever) your top priority, or I'm taking my hard-earned money elsewhere!" I'm reading this thread worrying that we're starting to get complacent. I'm impressed by many things about the new Unidens, but they wouldn't matter if I lived in Indianapolis, or other locations where the new x36's have proven still inadequate at scanning the systems of greatest local interest. There's no real victory until a scanner that advertises compatibility scanning P25 systems does so with the same level of performance as it does analog.
If it's a cost issue, why no $3000 scanners that can decode LSM with the same agility as Moto radios? Why no $1000 scanners that do twice as well as a $500-$600 x36? Why no $2000 scanners that perform three times as well as an x36? Surely there are some folks who would shell out $1000, the price of a used XTS5000 on ebay, to purchase a scanner that could be programmed without the means necessary to program a Moto XTS. Therefore, we can only assume that scanner manufacturers just don't know how to solve the problem entirely. However, we can also tell that they're learning, and they're getting closer. But if they see that consumers are blissfully forking over cash for products that perform so-so, they will not fight to produce the products that consumers really want.
The answers are there, we just need to pressure these companies to keep looking, keep testing, keep improving to earn our money. And to top it all off, one of these said companies has a product developer on the most popular forum! I applaud the hands-on approach of Paul "Upman," and the thousands of posts he reads and answers. Uniden (and possibly Whistler, too!) is listening, folks, and I, for one, am saying, "Good progress, but not quite there! Back to the woodshed you go! Keep at it!"
I apologize for posting something besides a simulcast report, but I think we are starting to form a general idea of the new x36's-improvement over the XT line, the HP-1, and, generally speaking, the GRE/RadioShack models, the former leaders in p25 decode. Uniden has pushed to the head of the race, but will they go all the way?