Official BCD996T Post Release Thread

[drsouth]

Just got my 996 but i can't for the life of me get my local p25 system to work.

http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=195

That is the system of which I speak. I've used the software to enter the system, site info (for now I just have all the channels of both sites entered. I also have TGIDs for all of the fire entered and I'm hearing nothing on ID scan or ID search.

What have I done wrong?

Looks like a standard type 2 motorola system, did you set the system as a Motorola Type2/P25, and then add the sites as 800MHz Standard?

David

 

[UFEMTFF]

Looks like a standard type 2 motorola system, did you set the system as a Motorola Type2/P25, and then add the sites as 800MHz Standard?

David

OOH, I did the sites as p25 as well. Let me try changing them to 800mhz standard.

EDIT: also, does it matter in which order I enter the sites, and do I have to do them separatly or can I just have all the freqs. listed under one site?

 

[UPMan]

Any site order is OK. If you want the scanner to check all frequencies for control channel activity, you need to enter each radio site as its own site in the scanner. Otherwise, (if you enter all radio site frequencies in one site in the scanner), the scanner will stop on the first control channel it can receive, even if it isn't the strongest or carrying the traffic you want to hear.

 

[wm8s]

Does anyone else find the default settings of 10 or 20 miles right at the verge of being annoying while site trunking?

Yes, the lack of finer radius resolution is maddening. Sometimes it's hard to understand why certain design decisions are made. I would think it wouldn't have been that difficult to add a lot more radius options (or make it a semi-continuous setting from 1-255); the only math involved is in calculating the distance b/w two points, and that's already done.

Firmware upgrade? ;^)

...R

 

[nickraz]

GPS Radius Settings

Does anyone else find the default settings of 10 or 20 miles right at the verge of being annoying while site trunking? Down here in the low country of South Carolina, My mobile NMO antennas work just fine, but I've seen where 20 miles is not always wanted, or intelligible and 10 miles is just too small for smartnet sites (I get blackout spots unless I hold on a t/g before it locks out)

I've tried editing the .USD files to force them to a 15 mile radius which would work so much better for my use, and the radio of course is smart enough to force it up to 20. Any chances that at a later date, the UASD and scanner firmware will accept different ranges?

I've attached a model of my area with the coordinates of the cells having a 15 mile range ring as an idea of the overlapping coverage.

Thanks in advance for your thought and comments,
David

I feel your pain David.

With 800 mhz here in the Northeast a 12 mile radius would be ideal but a 15 mile would be an improvement. A 20 mile radius defeats the purpose as it's much larger than most sites are designed to cover.

On individual town systems a 1 mile radius ( roughly 4 sq.mi ) is usually too small but your next choice is a 3 mile radius ( roughly 36 sq. mi ) which is 3 times larger or 9 times the area.

It boggles my mind that you would take a great feature like GPS and then cripple it with inadequate range choices.

So I'm also hoping a firmware update can help the GPS feature reach it's full potential.

Nick
p.s. Paul Opitz any comment would be truly welcomed.

 

[ofd8001]

Kinda sorta sounds like a fix ought to be considered by the Uniden folks. Until they do, I got a couple of real off-the-wall ideas.

First, set your site up as 20 mile radius, but also turn the attenuator on. I see where that knocks off 20db. I don't have a clue what that translates into mileage why, but what the heck - nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Second, you might try to do some fooling. Re-set the lat-long of the centerpoint so that it is 5 miles away on the opposite side of the transmitter site.

That idea came to me as I was loading points of interest. There were certain interstate exits to take, but the choices of how far ahead to alert were limited. I wanted a 5 minute heads up before a turn. So I just set the point of interest about 5 miles farther away. So instead of telling me I'm so close to an exit, its telling me I'm 5 miles away from the exit, which is what I wanted to know.

This might be trying to use a screwdriver as a chisel, but no matter how bad inflation gets, you can still use a dime for a screwdriver.

 

[Uplink]

I Just added the Garmin GPS18 PC OEM, $83 bucks at Amazon.com, and is PLUG-AND-PLAY with the Uniden 996T. Works great at turning my systems on and off as I drive from one valley to another here in So Cal.
I used my Garmin Mapsource route tool to figure out the center points of my radius. I got a little confused at the GPS formats at first as I was entering my POI's in DEG format, so I did the same format in my systems. Then I found that Systems MUST use DMS format. (in the Locations programmer you have a choice of 3 formats, however in the SYSTEMS programmer you do not)
I agree with the earlier posts, It would be nice to have 1 mile incriments for the radius.

Thanks UNIDEN and Paul! I love this scanner!

 

[Jay911]

Just added the Garmin GPS18PC

Uplink, in that picture, is it inside the right rear corner of your back window? I'm trying to get mine to work in that location and it's not being friendly. I'm wondering if I need to move it outside the body of the car. (A GPS12MAP with an external antenna on the trunklid works just fine.)

 

[DaveIN]

That is an awesome find thanks. I just ordered one from Amazon.

 

[Uplink]

Uplink, in that picture, is it inside the right rear corner of your back window? I'm trying to get mine to work in that location and it's not being friendly. I'm wondering if I need to move it outside the body of the car. (A GPS12MAP with an external antenna on the trunklid works just fine.)

Thats the front left dash of a GMC Sierra under the windshield. I Can't beleive the technology nowadays, a satellite receiver and antenna in that little disc picking up signals from outer space. Works great inside on the dash.
Jay, Not sure if you are using an amplified/powered antenna, if not, maybe you are getting some cable loss using an external antenna. Just a guess.


Amazon link for the GPS18 PC OEM

 

[JASII]

Twelve Additional PL Tones on the BCD996T vs. BCD796D

I was looking at the PL/DPL chart comparing the BCD996 and the BCD796. If I am reading this correctly they both have all the standard DPLs, but the 996 adds the following twelve PL tones that the 796 does not have:

69.3

159.8

165.5

171.3

177.3

183.5

189.9

196.6

199.5

206.5

229.1

254.1

 

[tvalenti]

milair reception?

Hey,

Sounds like the 996T is a hot topic! Just wondering about the milair reception? is it any better/worse then the pro96? Has anyone made any observation or could you possibly?

Thnx

 

[blueline_308]

Mil-Air is nothing to write home about. I cant compare it to pro96, but my old pro2006 is much better than the 996 for me...and my Icom pcr1500 is just awesome for mil-air...and everything else, 'cepting 800 trunking.

 

[compubandit]

800/P25 Problem

Has anyone ran into this problem or maybe a fix for it?

I have programmed in UASD software the KSIS system in Kansas. Where I live, I can receive 3 towers, Buffalo, Xenia, and West Mineral. I had these towers set to QK 1. I had other sites on QK 97,98, and 99.

Today I went mobile into an area where the site was on QK 97. I enable QK 97 and would only scanned the sites that are on QK 1. I changed the QK settings on all sites to QK 1 and loaded it into the scanner. It would still only scan the 3 sites that were originally set to QK 1. I could place the scanner on hold and scroll to the site I was closest to and the control channel would show the tower ID on the scanner but it still wouldn't include that site in the scan of the system.

I downloaded the system from RR to the ARC software and then dumped it into the 996T. It worked just fine scanning all of the sites.

Any ideas out there? I would like to keep the UASD system because it has several more TGID's that I have updated, but I still want to be able to ad sites to the scan list when needed.

Thanks for any help!

 

[UPMan]

It sounds like you might have locked out the site(s) you assigned to SQK97.

 

[compubandit]

Paul,

Sure enough, that was what happened. Now could you explain to me how I managed to lock the site and is there a way to unlock them without using the software? I thought that pushing the QK assigned to them would lock and unlock them.

Thanks for you help!

 

[UPMan]

Lockout and SQK are completely seperate. To be scanned, a system must be unlocked and if it assigned to a SQK that SQK must be enabled. (So, in an attempt to help differentiate between the two L/O terminology is "lock" and "unlock" while SQK terminology is "enabled" and "disabled.")

This allows for the Startup Key overlay, for example (you can have 5 systems for completely different areas assigned to the same SQK, and the startup key sequence will lock/unlock the systems as appropriate for the area you are currently in). It also allows you to turn off scanning of GPS-enabled systems (disable a system's SQK and it won't be scanned even though you are within the defined range and so the GPS function has unlocked the system).

To unlock a system using the keypad, F+SCROLL to the system. Continue to hold F and press L/O.

 

[Schnoor1648]

Conventional Channel Scanning Speed

Upman, on some of the older Unidens we would program conventional channels in either ascending or descending order to improve scanning speed. Is that an issue with the BCD996T or does the radio just scan the channels in ascending order anyway regardless of what order they are programmed in?

 

[garys]

Lockout and SQK are completely seperate. To be scanned, a system must be unlocked and if it assigned to a SQK that SQK must be enabled. (So, in an attempt to help differentiate between the two L/O terminology is "lock" and "unlock" while SQK terminology is "enabled" and "disabled.")

This is probably one of the most confusing features of the 396 or 996. Not that you made it that way, but it took me a long time to understand the difference and the functionality. Once I did, it was pretty simple.

Gary

 

[rdale]

"Upman, on some of the older Unidens we would program conventional channels in either ascending or descending order to improve scanning speed."

Never changed scanning speed in the past, and doesn't now...