Had a chance to borrow a "sample" unit from a store in the area this weekend and compare it with my 996T. More meaningful would have been a 396T, but one was not available here.
This sample unit has the gray front panel and the following status:
UP Appl ver:F1.0
DSP App ver:F1.0
DSP Voc ver:F1.0
Initial impressions:
PHYSICAL
The black front panel will work better, not just aesthetically, but because the alpha keypad labels are really tiny and even harder to see on this demo unit because they are white against the gray surface. White against the "production" black panel will improve this but the letters will still be really small and potentially unreadable under adverse lighting conditions. They are not backlit.
For me, the ganged volume/squelch control knob sticks up a little too high from the top surface. This could be an issue because I had a tendency to contact it while changing antennas. Beyond changing the volume/squelch setting when this happened, there seems also to be the possibility of damaging the control by inadvertent repeated side loading. Two shorter knobs might be more reliable.
The battery system is one of the best I have seen... very easy to install and remove batteries. Different carriers are required for rechargeables vs. expendables, however, so there is always one carrier that is not installed in the unit and could be lost.
OPERATIONAL
Like the 996T I bought a year ago, the sample unit came with all V-scanner folders preprogrammed with various systems – to the extent that the available memory readout showed only 1% remaining! I hated this then and apparently I haven’t changed my opinion : ) I ended up saving the working memory to V-folder 00 (in case the techs at the store had customized the unit before they gave it to me) and then did a working memory reset to clear everything and start with a clean slate.
I found the Scanned Object concept easy to grasp conceptually. Programming, however, was not quite as intuitive as I had gotten myself all pumped up for over the last few months of waiting. The basic issue seems to be that not every operation flows in the way you might think… not every key press does what you expect it might. Also, some menus roll over from bottom to top and some don’t. But after a little touch time, I have to say this experience was nearly an order of magnitude better than my initial hands-on with the 996T.
I particularly like the ability to click “manual” and then use the horizontal / vertical arrow keys to intuitively access the scan lists / scan list objects.
[Btw, the first thing I did was chase down the “GLOB/scan lists” submenu to see if you really can alpha-tag scan lists. Well, the answer is you can, but, as far as I can tell, this has little utility except possibly as an onboard memory jogger… because the tags don’t show in any operational displays, not even when mapping an object to a scan list! Only the scan list number appears in all cases that I could find.]
Not having the scan list alpha-tag appear when an object is monitored is about the only thing I miss here vs. the 996T.
A big positive for me is digital xmissions are much more readable with this unit than with the 996T for the same antenna and external speaker used with both.
However with the supplied portable antenna, and the internal speaker, digital reception sounds somewhat tinny and shrill with this new unit. In fact, the onboard sound system (including the speaker) seems to highly accentuate the harsh end of the spectrum for all signal sources (I can’t tell if this is due to THD or just intentional spectral shaping).
Either way, once you plug in the external speaker and a good antenna, the unit is quite listenable. The only negatives remaining are (1) sound volume is quite variable from object to object, and (2) the volume control taper makes adjustment at the low end extremely sensitive, to the extent that at low settings you can sometimes unknowingly mute the sound completely while trying to set the right level. Perhaps a different taper, and/or click stops could be used so you can reproduce a low volume setting once you find it.
I also wonder about signal strength issues. I was not able to evaluate this quantitatively but I did notice fairly significant deterioration A/B’ing the supplied antenna with a more substantial one I use with my base units.
And curiously, I found when monitoring a weak signal in scan mode, if I clicked “manual” to hold on that signal, there would always be an audio dropout of some duration, and often the unit would lose the signal altogether. Clicking “scan” would reacquire it.
Finally, scanning Marine channels cannot be done together with other objects. The Marine channels break thru squelch unless it is set at max… even with “attenuation” on.
Summarizing my initial impression, I found this unit to be a keeper (once the production one is available). The main reasons for me are better listenability for digital xmissions and easier navigation to objects using the arrow keys. I also like the V-scanner concept for system backups. I would like to see sensitivity figures relative to other models soon. And hopefully a volume control less sensitive at the lower end will be used on the production units.
