Another SOuthwest Chicago Area Update
ERICMYERS said:
I run a BDD996T to monitor Starcom.
I loaded the updates the night they came out. I monitor southwest chicagoland, Plainfield PD on Starcom, Joliet MOT Public Safety, Naperville, WillCO EDACS, and WESCOM. I still get a lot of garbling on the Will County 113 site, and the DuPage site still works better than Will for what I want to hear but not without its share of garbling as well.
After the install I still get the tollway and ISP very well as I did before. However, I bought this radio primarily to monitor Plainfield PD, which is better now, but still less than 25% of the transmissions are getting through decode. Before, it was maybe 10%.
Since the firmware update, when Starcom DOES GET decoded, it sounds a good bit better..maybe even sounds what I would consider good for digital. It still fails to decode a lot of the time even on groups that come in very well. I have lots of signal strength (though the meter fluctuates constantly), and have tried all 4 of my antennas with no noticeable difference. Attenuating just kills all the traffic, so it's probably not an overloading situation. I did find that setting the P25 decode to 400ms is the best setting for me after much trial and error. Setting Digital End Code to YES seemed to help the scanning. Also I've adjusted the hold times down to 1 second, which now matches my PRO2055 for scan speed catching the traffic on MOT adn EDACS and keeps the conversations going to my liking.
Conventional, MOT, EDACS all still work just fine. My squelch knob registers no change on screen until it's turned to about half way, then it starts with zero and goes to 20 if I recall correctly....that's odd, and probably a remnant of the install??
I built all new clean profiles ahead of the upgrade, so nothing to report about that. No issues at all getting the files downloaded or installed.
I'm going to crosspost this in Starcom Yahoo forum as well. For purposes of Starcom, any advice you all might have on getting Plainfield PD to come in better will be appreciated. UPMan and forum participants, thanks for the support.
Eric
I still think it is very, very early for anyone to be making claims without real good testing in a variety of areas with a myriad of settings. I did the download Friday afternoon and spent the past 3 days where I had free time experimenting.
Starcom IN MY OPINION is just a mess. Not the Uniden scanner at fault so far as I can tell. No change noticable so far on sites 101, 102, 113, and 115. Not even audio in my opinion. Tonight site 113 actually sounds great in Homer Glen/Lockport. Weather is clear tonight too though. When weather was bad...windy, rainy, Starcom 113 totally sucks with drop outs. Tonight has been as good as that site has always sounded for me. Plainfield PD is clear on a scanner and no one on their end is complaining tonight. Weather impacts this digital stuff. No question.
I have noticed no change to Motorola 800 trunked systems. I have found TG 80 to motorboat on the O Hare 400Mhz UHF digi system and this weekend was no exception. But, I also noticed that when TG 48 or 80 motorboated, the GRE 500 would pick up a bad signal but at least catch it and struggle to hang onto it. Sadly, I was mobile so I couldn't document which frequency was at work when this happened.
Chicago Police Zone observations: While in a particular zone/district...all 460Mhz conventional analog, the squelch tail after the dispatcher would talk was almost unbearable. Adjacent zones, no problem. I had to set squelch to 6 or better to lose the squelch tail. It ONLY happened when I was in that Zone. And, no, the answer isn't to attenuate. I never had to and shouldn't have to attenuate. This is one of the only residuals I see from the update to this firmware. My Uniden 330 on same zones were perfect at a squelch setting of 2. As was the 396, pre update. However, Lemont PD uses UHF conventional...In downtown Lemont....no squelch tail.
LTR in UHF and VHF range....not really tested yet. LTR still works so that is a plus. I will concentrate on the LTR stuff soon.
Midway UHF and Metro Correctional Center. I have noticed no change in just 2 hours of listening. Both are still adequate.
EDACS. I had original firmware in the 396. Pre update...no beeps at end of transmissions. Same with my 330. Post update..one beep or half beep before the system moves on. Various antennas, same result.Test area...Will County EDACS system less than 5 miles from tower. Yet to sample from farther away. 2nd thing I didn't like about the update.
Comparison with GRE 500: Starcom. Both drop transmissions in middle of conversations....especially in bad weather and windy conditions. I never realized how many full transmissions I was missing on the 396 until I puchased the GRE 500. Nothing seems to have changed in that respect after the updated firmware. The 396 still misses many conversations...even after I played with RF gain and AGC resume values. Digital audio?...Unfair to compare. The 396 speaker is awful. No way I will touch that question. It can't reasonably be answered in my opinion. The 396 speaker ruins the real potential of this scanner.
Scan speed?...I don't care so I haven't tried.
Just preliminary friends. Much more work to do with various settings and playing before one can truly render a fair and honest report of findings.