SDS100 - A few basic questions

[jmulvihill]

I am a new owner (1 week) of the SDS100. The firmware update released yesterday has really helped an issue that I am having with transmission muting in mid-stream (although it still persists and is not completely alleviated, only maybe 75% better using Wide Invert filter).

So now for a couple of probably basic and silly questions, but I have looked through the manual (both the paper manual and the easy read BCDx36 online) and could not really find the answer to these. I have been out of scanners for about 9 years, so trying to reeducate myself on many things.

1. The primary system that I listen to is a re-banded Motorola Type II Smartnet analog system. In researching these systems, it says that the "mode" is NFM, and nothing is listed for the modulation. When I go in to Sentinel, I see a Modulation field that is AUTO/FM/NFM, defaulting to AUTO. I find no Mode field. So first clarification is between Mode and Modulation, and are they the same? Second part of this question is with the setting at AUTO, does this incur any delay in the scanner in trying to check if the signal is FM or NFM? Just wondering if this should be set to NFM or leave it at AUTO for the best performance. I also read that in the newer scanners that FM is really NFM, and NFM is really SNFM, so trying to see IF I should change the setting, and if so, use FM or NFM.

2. This Motorola system is all analog, but for one TG used by the Narcotics team that is listed as DE in RR. Since this is encrypted, I have set it to AVOID, leaving only analog TGs. Can I set the Digital Wait Time to 0ms (default is 400ms) since I know that they are all analog channels? I have lowered it to 200ms, as I was missing the start of most transmissions, and it has improved. I was going to try going to 0ms and see what it did, but thought that I would pose the question here too and get some feedback from the experts as to whether this is valid logic and won't negatively impact things that I may not be aware of in my current learning curve.

3. Is there a field in Sentinel for setting the option for "Set Charge when ON"? I have looked and looked everywhere in the manual and trolling through the menus in Sentinel, but am not finding this setting. Am I missing this, or is it something that is only available in the scanner itself through the SETTINGS>Battery Options menu? And once it is set, does it stay in that setting between updates from Sentinel being written to the scanner?

Thanks all. Sorry for such basic questions, but trying to learn as much as I can.

 

[UPMan]

1. AUTO uses the default lookup-table value. It does not attempt to determine modulation via signal analysis (not really possible).

2. Better to set the channels to ANALOG. Then, the digital wait time is ignored.

3. No.

 

[jmulvihill]

Thanks UPMan!

So for the first one, just continue to use AUTO...? I was just assuming that AUTO would incur some CPU overhead, and setting to the actual modulation might help in the overall scan speed performance by taking away a few clock cycles dedicated to doing that look-up. I will have to go and read up about the default look-up table, as I am not yet familiar with how that works.

I'll dig in to #2 and figure out how to set the channels to analog in Sentinel. I think I recall the field and where it is, so no worries there.

Have a great weekend!!

 

[jmulvihill]

Hey UPMan -

Just one more quick question for you regarding the transmission mute/drop issue with the SDS100 on the Collin Cty Public Safety analog Motorola Smartnet System.

I have updated Sentinel and applied the firmware update 1.02.01/1.08.05, and was told that the new WIDE filters may help with my transmission drop out issue that I have talked about in other threads and posted a video about. I tried WIDE Normal and had no improvement, but WIDE Invert has helped. I probably have about half of the frequency of occurrences as pre-update, but it is still happening a lot. Is there any desire for me to gather more log files or video examples of what is happening to assist in troubleshooting? If so, where should I share that data so it gets to the right people on the Uniden team? The scanner is new, and I was about to send it back before the firmware was released, so I am now more confident that over time, the issue can be improved even further via SW. It will probably get resolved just in time for this system to convert over to digital... They have said it was going to happen in June, but have said that for 3 years now so not holding my breath...

I tried to PM you with no luck, but feel free to reach out via any communication method. I am also in the Uniden system.

Thanks again!!