If wiggling the antenna cuts reception in and out, a cold solder joint is a reasonable guess, most likely where the SMA connector attaches to the RF board. If that's the case, it's an easy fix if you're handy with a soldering iron, unlike if the problem is at the connector between the boards, whichs has dozens of tiny joints. But if not, nothing wrong with using warranty/exchange options.
SDS100/SDS200: MY SDS100 RECEPTION OVERALL HAS SUNK TO UNACCEPTABLE LEVELS (AGAIN).
- Thread starter tampatracker
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Why is everyone so quick to trash the mfr? Sometimes the towers/city has designs fr just that
If you wiggle the antenna and the signal cuts in and out, who is to blame except Uniden?
So far, my SDS200 is working well, it's definitely not perfect by any means. VHF high is a total joke, and general RF performance is poor. So far, I'm happy with it, but it's lack of VHF sensitivity is annoying, any number of old scanners sitting next to it scanning rail and other VHF frequencies will be talking almost nonstop, but the SDS200 just sails through the same freqs rarely stops at all, so I deleted them. My main complaint is the time it takes to do a complete scan cycle is so long it misses a lot of stuff, so my old GRE/Whistler radios still are needed to hear most of the stuff around here.
My experience with the HP1 I had was not good. At first, it worked great, but became deaf which could be temporarily be fixed by doing a hard reset. After a while, that didn't work either and VHF high was gone, only the majorly strong WX channel could be heard across the street from the transmitter! Off to Uniden it went, and they said the unit "met specs", and it came back as deaf as it left me. Eventually, I just sent it back again, they fixed it that time, no explanation of what was done, and I sold it at a pretty big loss.
So far, my SDS200 is working well, it's definitely not perfect by any means. VHF high is a total joke, and general RF performance is poor. So far, I'm happy with it, but it's lack of VHF sensitivity is annoying, any number of old scanners sitting next to it scanning rail and other VHF frequencies will be talking almost nonstop, but the SDS200 just sails through the same freqs rarely stops at all, so I deleted them. My main complaint is the time it takes to do a complete scan cycle is so long it misses a lot of stuff, so my old GRE/Whistler radios still are needed to hear most of the stuff around here.
My experience with the HP1 I had was not good. At first, it worked great, but became deaf which could be temporarily be fixed by doing a hard reset. After a while, that didn't work either and VHF high was gone, only the majorly strong WX channel could be heard across the street from the transmitter! Off to Uniden it went, and they said the unit "met specs", and it came back as deaf as it left me. Eventually, I just sent it back again, they fixed it that time, no explanation of what was done, and I sold it at a pretty big loss.
Many of us have discovered (including myself), that using filter settings, changing the modulation to FM (Volume offset to +2 or +3 to compensate for the audio change), and IFX setting (Func-7 on the frequency) have made a world of difference on both the SDS100 & SDS200. I've posted these solutions on a Facebook group and some report back positive results. Filter settings can be changed Globally or by Site (for trunking) and Department (Analog).
So...here's my suggestion. If you come upon a railroad frequency that is "deaf" as you say, press the E (enter) button. It will bring up the Advanced Channel Menu. From there Edit Current Channel...Press E again which will bring up another menu. Try Set Modulation (first), change it to FM and see if that makes a difference.
If you haven't noticed a difference, repeat and scroll to Filter and try the different filters until you reach optimum results. I have tried this on all of my analog on my SDS200, with an outdoor antenna and railroad monitoring too...even though that's not my primary listening. After doing this, my SDS200 now receives equal or better than the 536 that has been delegated to other duties.
These scanners are not like any of them in the past. The main objective was for simulcast distortion issues which this has resolved. This has also resulted in some having analog issues, which the filter addition in previous firmware made a major improvement.
Without knowing your programming, I can't help there. Suggestions are squelch settings, maybe too many sites in the trunking system and maybe too many favorite lists open? Both are great scanners, the difference is some tweaking is needed to make it work as needed.
I simply cannot understand how any "filter" configuration can compensate for "poor" front end sensitivity.
Ok...do you own one of these, and if so have you tried it? It's a great tool.
The problem isn't poor sensitivity. It's a somewhat greater susceptibility to adjacent-channel interference. The filter settings can help greatly with that.
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Ive had plenty of scanners, and for the first time yesterday, i had to send my sds100 into Uniden, i just got it in February. Has done well till recently it, would be scanning and randomly stop and make this noice i think Ive called on here like static burst, but was still recieveing but not great, then i hadn’t used it lately, and turned it on day before yesterday, and it was scanning but wouldn’t pick up a thing, and kept randomly stopping and making that noise. So i sent it in. We shall see
I blame the person who let the antenna get abused to the point it was loose; ie, the people who pick scanners/transcievers up by the whip.
you can't build everything to the point where they stand up to all the abuse.
Ubbe
Member
Correct. The receivers front end have an automatic gain control that cannot be disabled. Any adjacent frequencies will be sensed by the AGC, as it's filter are 10MHz wide, and it will reduce the sensitivity if it thinks that the signal are above a critical level that could generate intermodulation products.
The filter settings has to be used to reduce the signal level from the offending signal. What filter setting to be used must be tested one after the other. Sometimes there could be several signals that interfere and then no filter setting will help to regain full sensitivity.
In US there seems to be a lot of strong VHF transmitters, NOAA and pagers, that make that band being the most problematic as it is also mostly analog in the band and it will be more obvious to the user that something is wrong with the reception. In digitial mode in the 700-900Mhz band it is not as obvious if a reception are compromised. You have to take a close look at the RSSI level and bit error rate to be able to tell if there's some interfering problems. But as long as the scanner have enough signal to decode the data sucessfully it really doesn't matter to the audio, as it is much more critical in analog mode.
/Ubbe
Yes the filters can help with any adjacent overload problems but as I stated they can't help poor sensitivity. When monitoring a UHF frequency at
460.1500 mhz my uniden bcd396xt receives it perfectly clear at 4 bars and sitting right next to it my SDS 100 barely receives the signal at 2 bars.
That is poor RF sensitivity. Same thing on VHF channels. 700/800 p25 LSM or not it's like a different scanner they are crystal clear.
Poor sensitivity is related to the overload as some have found out. Are your filters set at the global level or department level? All frequencies or systems might not need the filters. IFX helps at times.
Yes I tried all filter settings and IFX but no luck, but I am very happy with the performance on the LSM p25 systems it's worth it for that alone, I wish they released a model with only 700/800 reception for a cheaper price it would be like a Unication G4 but with ALL the features of a true scanner that would be great.
But as you see the G4 G5 prices are close to that of the SDS100
I have quite a bit of analog around me and live by Midway airport in Chicago. For me, global wide invert, and setting the modulation to FM from Auto setting or NFM has made these scanners out perform the x36hp series. Like many reported, the initial analog performance was adequate, but lacking. I have one UHF-T frequency that I use IFX on in addition to the filter and modulation settings. Not all analog is bad, but with a little tweaking here and there makes this scanner top of the line on all bands...in my opinion of course.
Yes but Unication's prices are ridiculous G4 should be $500 tops
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