Possible QK bug

[W5JCK]

I'm hoping this is a QK bug and not just a design flaw.

In older Uniden scanner models like BCD396XT, you could use Group QK (GQK) numbers and they never had ANY effect on GQKs in other systems, nor dod they have ANY effect on System QK (SQK). So for example, I could set up my scanner with three systems:

SQK 1 Arlington PD System
SiteQK 1 (Arlington Site)
GQK 1 South
GQK 2 West
GQK 3 TACT

SQK 2 Arlington Fire System
SiteQK 2 (Arlington Site)
GQK 1 Dispatch
GQK 2 Ground
GQK 3 Training

SQK 3 MilAir System
(Conventional System--No Site)
GQK 1 General MilAir
GQK 2 Refueling
GQK 3 KZFW ARTCC

With the older scanners, I could then turn off the Arlington Fire System Training group SQK2-GQK3, and only that group was affected. In other words, SQK3 was not completely turned off, nor were the groups SQK1-GQK3 or SQK3-GQK3.

However, along comes a new layer or tier called Favorites in the BCD536HP. That's cool. Groups get renamed to Departments, not so cool, but okay I guess. And now my BCD396XT three systems look like this in the BCD536HP:

FQK 01 W5JCKs First Favorite

SQK 01 Arlington PD System
SiteQK 01 (Arlington Site)
DQK 01 South
DQK 02 West
DQK 03 TACT

SQK 02 Arlington Fire System
SiteQK 02 (Arlington Site)
DQK 01 Dispatch
DQK 02 Ground
DQK 03 Training

SQK 03 MilAir System
(Conventional System--No Site)
DQK 01 General MilAir
DQK 02 Refueling
DQK 03 KZFW ARTCC

FQK 02 W5JCKs Second Favorite
(a bunch of systems and departments)

FQK 03 W5JCKs Third Favorite
(a bunch of systems and departments)

But now with the BCD536HP if I turn off the Arlington Fire System Training group FQK01-SQK02-DQK03, the entire FQK01-SQK 03 MilAir System is completely turned off, as are the groups FQK01-SQK01-GQK03 and FQK01-SQK03-GQK03. Only the one Favorite is affected though, as far as I can tell.

So basically, as far as I can determine it is now a NO NO to reuse any SQK or DQK within other Systems or Departments contained within the Favorite. If you do, and you turn off any QK numbered 03 (or whatever) the scanner will also turn off any other System or Department that also uses that specific QK number.

Surely this a bug and not a stupid design feature. Either way, it needs to be fixed or changed. It causes massive confusion and it took me forever to figure out why so many Systems and Departments were not scanning at all.

My solution, which is kluge to say the effing least, was to use all unique QK withing a Favorite:

FQK 00 W5JCKs First Favorite

SQK 01 Arlington PD System
SiteQK 01 (Arlington Site)
DQK 11 South
DQK 12 West
DQK 13 TACT

SQK 02 Arlington Fire System
SiteQK 02 (Arlington Site)
DQK 21 Dispatch
DQK 22 Ground
DQK 23 Training

SQK 03 MilAir System
(Conventional System--No Site)
DQK 31 General MilAir
DQK 32 Refueling
DQK 33 KZFW ARTCC

Now when I turn off the Arlington Fire System Training group FQK01-SQK02-DQK23, that is the ONLY GD thing that gets turned off, as it should be.

And don't even get me started on the total lack of Uniden support. I used to by Uniden radios and scanners without doing much research on them because they were that good in hardware and software quality. But that won't ever happen again. From now on I will exhaustively research user opinions due to the major shank Uniden did with this scanner. I'm a seasoned radio expert and can program any ham or commercial rig, but this scanner has taken days to decode crap like I showed above to make it work correctly. Shame on you Uniden. You owe me a lot of hair back that I pulled out!

W5JCK, Jack

 

[jonwienke]

Not sure what you are complaining about. If I have more than 1 thing linked to a quick key, I would expect everything linked to that particular QK to toggle on/off when I toggle that QK. Not sure why you would expect otherwise, or call behavior conforming with that paradigm a "bug".

 

[UPMan]

A little confusion for me. There is no such thing as a Site QK. Site QKs share the same "QK space" as Department QKs.

Otherwise, I cannot duplicate what you are seeing. 01.02.03 only turns off DQK 03 that is in SQK 02 which is in FQK 01. It does not affect any other "DQK 03" group in any other system that has an SQK other than SQK 02. I actually built a FL w/systems departments in about the same structure as you show above, and tried it.

01.02.03: Arlington FD Training was turned off.

01.02.0 will then show F0:-1-------- S0:-123------ D0:-12*------ (then pressed MENU to abort)
01.03.0 shows F0:-1-------- S:-123------ D0:-123------ (i.e. S3 was enabled as was S3/D3, otherwise they would have shown as asterisks).

What version firmware are you running?

 

[W5JCK]

Confusion over site QK is possible. In older scanners like the BCD396XT you either assigned a QK to a System (conventional systems) or a site (trunked systems). In those scanners neither system or site QK had any affect on the group QKs. Anyone who says differently does not know what they are talking about. On this new scanner the documentation is so terrible that who knows what QK level goes with a site. Perhaps Uniden should make that clearer in its docs.

@jonwienke, You can bleep yourself for that attitude.

 

[jonwienke]

You do realize you're telling a Uniden corporate rep he doesn't know how his own product works?