SDS100/SDS200: Official Performance Report Google Doc

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jwpottberg

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SVRCS system

Found that my new SDS100 works extremely well with the SVRCS 700MHz system (West site) in south SF bay area, much better than my 436HP, and worlds above my TRX-1.

Did some subjective field testing with SDS100 and 436HP in my car, both laying in the seat with stock antennas and identical programming. Drove around and between 5 of the tower sites (which all use the same West site freqs). When close to the towers performance is very close, although I would give a slight edge to the 100. But in the marginal areas more equidistant from the towers, or away from the edge towers, the 436 starts breaking up or shuts up completely, while the 100 still works.

I found the RSSI level had to drop to a weaker level than about -95dBm to -100dBm before the 100 finally cutout, while the 436 started breaking up at about -75 to -80 (as seen on the 100). I am impressed! It is clearly better. My home happens to be in one of the marginal areas between towers - the 100 shows about -75 to -85 and my reception was always iffy on the 436. The SDS100 now works everywhere in my home!

(As opposed to the 436, the SDS100 only broke up or cutout completely away from the edge towers of the system area, almost never in the marginal areas between towers.)

Jim
 

N4BSH

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Just got the SDS100

Works 9-10 on Duval County First Coast Radio JFRD P-25 Simulcast. A bit choppy at times but I think that is the system and not the scanner.

BCD436 was about a 2-10 audio was distorted and completely unreadable.

Noticeable improvement!
 

N9PBD

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I've had my SDS100 for a couple weeks now, and I've been testing it on STARCOM21, specifically in the St. Clair county, Illinois simulcast system. My home is litterally 1/4 mile from one of the sites, but I've always had problems with my HP-1, and BCD436HP at the intersection of US Highway 50, and Illinois 158/Scott-Troy Road, a location I like to refer to as RF Hell. The SDS100 is 100% solid there, with no drop outs. With the HP-1, I was lucky if I could follow 20-30% of the traffic there, while it was somewhat better with the BCD436HP, it was never better than about 50% with lots of drops and broken transmissions. I'm loving the SDS100. I added a line to the spreadsheet.
 

K2KOH

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SDS 100 works very well on the Connecticut State Police system along I 84 Fairfield County out to New Haven County. 436 is so so, and my 536 is not far behind the SDS
 

David628

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bravo14

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Just got the SDS100

Works 9-10 on Duval County First Coast Radio JFRD P-25 Simulcast. A bit choppy at times but I think that is the system and not the scanner.

BCD436 was about a 2-10 audio was distorted and completely unreadable.

Noticeable improvement!

I'll be in Jax area in a few months. I wonder how it will do on the SJC 800 system. I know the 436/536 did good on the SJC system.
 

werinshades

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I haven't looked at this thread in awhile and noticed my entry was changed. After reviewing other entries which I know were 10's, it would appear someone is playing with the numbers. So...as usual a good thing can't be appreciated.
 

N9JIG

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I noticed the same thing for systems in 4 states. The optimist in me suspects that someone after I entered the ones I did altered the existing entries instead of adding new lines. The pessimist in me thinks there is someone who doesn't like my results.
 

UPMan

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Looks like on August 9, someone made 33 edits, many were downgrading SDS100.


If you have a different rating for a system than an existing entry, don't change the other entry. Just make a new one for your own rating. I'm changing back what I can.

I've now locked all currently populated rows to prevent future adjustments to existing logged reports.
 
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werinshades

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I haven't looked at this thread in awhile and noticed my entry was changed. After reviewing other entries which I know were 10's, it would appear someone is playing with the numbers. So...as usual a good thing can't be appreciated.

Yeah just noticed my Louisville MetroSafe was changed to a 6, not the 9 or 10 I had listed. Interesting.

I noticed the same thing for systems in 4 states. The optimist in me suspects that someone after I entered the ones I did altered the existing entries instead of adding new lines. The pessimist in me thinks there is someone who doesn't like my results.

The original intent was good, but as usual the children had to intervene. Rich..their was a lot of complaining about Arizona's system's and haven't seen much in the past few firmware upgrades. Are we safe to vacation there and bring our SDS 100's or will we be disappointed as others have led us to believe?
 

KevinC

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I haven't looked at this thread in awhile and noticed my entry was changed. After reviewing other entries which I know were 10's, it would appear someone is playing with the numbers. So...as usual a good thing can't be appreciated.

Oh wow! It definitely looks like a disgruntled person changed a lot of entries.

Hmm...I wonder which banned member it was?
 

jasonhouk

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I haven't looked at this thread in awhile and noticed my entry was changed. After reviewing other entries which I know were 10's, it would appear someone is playing with the numbers. So...as usual a good thing can't be appreciated.
There should be snapshots of previous sheets before the rouge changes that UPMan only has access to. It may even give him the user that made said changes.

Houk

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jonwienke

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Seems like it would be fairly easy to track down who made the changes, and ban/shame them.
 

UPMan

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Since the sheet allows anonymous editors, no way to know who it was (unless they really were "Anonymous Gazelle".
 

TailGator911

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I would hate to think that someone would be so immature and childish as to go in and purposely sabotage those numbers to denigrate the SDS100. That beats all I ever seen. There should be a way to do a trace on that. Y'all are working so hard to improve the engineering of this radio to be the best it can be, and the haters just can't stand it. Amazing.
 

N9JIG

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The original intent was good, but as usual the children had to intervene. Rich..their was a lot of complaining about Arizona's system's and haven't seen much in the past few firmware upgrades. Are we safe to vacation there and bring our SDS 100's or will we be disappointed as others have led us to believe?


The SDS100 works fine for me all over the valley, others seem to have some issues. I suspect they are having cellular interference.
 

TailGator911

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I don't usually do polls and stuff like this, but I want to help build the numbers with a positive report. I just added an entry for Ohio Marcs Greene and Montgomery county. Hope that helps some. FYI, SDS100 - 10, 536 - 7.5, TRX-1 - 7.
 
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