SDS100 and SDS200 Comparison

[shansmi]

I am now the proud owner of a SDS100 (for about a week) and a SDS200 (for only a few hours). Today I set them up sided by side after udating the SDS200 with the database and favorites list. The 100 was already up to date with both. Both are running stock antennas and I am having them scan same favorites list. Consistently I see the 100 pick up more and do it faster than the 200. When the 100 is locked onto a conversation, sometimes the 200 will scan the same system an not lock on. I mean miss it completely and move on with scanning. ?? This has happened a few times in a few hours. Other times the 100 will find something in say city 1 and the 200 will find something in say city 2. That said for a bit once those conversations end, they will be offset while scanning. Seems they eventually do catch one another. Seems also when they both lock on the same system, dept and channel the 200 seems to be slower doing it. This means you miss a word or two on the 200 that can be heard on the 100.

Now I understand scanners by definition are looping through a list. If they find something they lock on. When the conversation ends the continue scanning where they left off from within the list. All of that I am ok with. Finding different things while scanning I am ok with. What concerns me on the 200 is the slow lock and complete miss.

Please understand I only scan local LEAs in all the small towns adjacent to my hometown. This "should" in theory give me a clue when something is going on like civil unrest (peaceful protests) or weather situations (when power is out as well as when TV and cell towers are down). If anything is of interest one can always stop scanning and lock onto a system and dept - had that happen the other night when someone ran from johnny law!

 

[nessnet]

The only way to accurately compare them is with the same antenna.

This is done with an antenna coupler, like a Stridsburg, etc.
Multicouplers

Seriously, it can make a world of difference, especially when considering most stock antennas are a POS.

 

[shansmi]

ya I know about the antennas. My new ones arrive on Friday.

 

[Ubbe]

If it's a trunked system it misses it can be that the "late entry" function sends out the info about the call using long intervals. The scanner stays 1,5 sec on the control channel but the info about ongoing calls on the voice channels could be at 2 sec intervals or longer. Then the hold time for the system needs to be set at 2 or 3 sec or even longer depending of what the system admin have programmed in the system. It might be set to 5 sec to not load the control channel too much.

/Ubbe

 

[dave3825]

Consistently I see the 100 pick up more and do it faster than the 200

The only way to accurately compare them is with the same antenna.

This is done with an antenna coupler, like a Stridsburg, etc.
Multicouplers

ya I know about the antennas. My new ones arrive on Friday.

Two of the same antenna may work out better for you but I have spots in my house, even in my yard where moving the scanner to the left or right as little as one inch changes reception.

The best way to perform a receive comparison is the way @nessnet mentioned using 1 antenna for the two radios with a multicoupler.


.

 

[jtwalker]

My 100 and 200, connected to same antenna through a multi-coupler, and programmed identically, perform exactly the same. I can’t make any bold claims about it for everyone else, but this is my experience.

 

[shansmi]

Well now with the stock antenna connected to both units and the databases / favorites exactly the same, they are running neck and neck. Thanks for the input folks. I watched them for a few hours last night and figured a few things out. particularly during a high speed chase. They caught everything but the next jurisdiction call-out.

1 - settings are per profile - knew this already but it took a bit to get them running alike.
2 - favorites are common between profiles - knew this one as well.
3 - the main USA/CAN database is per profile. I thought I was going crazy last night knowing I had all the national stuff "set avoid". Turns out that was on the 100 profile but not the 200 profile. Equaled them up and done.
4 - per comments here it depends on network settings whether or not a scanner can lock on once a conversation starts.

We shall see what happens when the new antennas arrive.

 

[shansmi]

Update:

Eureka!!! We have success!!! The new antennas arrived today and they make all the difference in the world.

They are:
SDS100 - SMA REMTRONIX PORTABLE TRIBAND ANTENNA with a size 5 o-rings to seal her up
SDS200 - BNC REMTRONIX PORTABLE TRIBAND ANTENNA with a 90 as well as a 50ohm 3' cable

Now on top of that I found out most of my "scanning" issues were related to encrypted channels. Why these are not flagged in Sentinel is beyond me but here is how I found the issue. Last night I was listening to the scanners and heard a police shooting in a neighboring city come over the air. A few minutes into the conversation they called for switching over to a tac channel. Turns out this channel is encrypted. I wondered why the units would lock onto that channel for a few seconds with no audio then start scanning again. Now at the time I did not know it was encrypted. I noticed it was no longer getting hit today so I went to the database and looked it up. Low and behold it was flagged as encrypted. I started thinking about some other channels that were doing the same thing for other cities. This forced me to do a "favorites audit" where I deleted all the encrypted channels from my favorites. In some cases all channels were deleted for cities like Mesquite, Rowlette and McKinney. This explains why I have heard no calls from those cities but for a few of them I have seen the radios lock on to channels for a few seconds with no audio. When listening to them when they are side by side, this is how they would get out of sync because one would hold the channel longer than the other.

Now on another note related to favorites and locations. Favorites are common to all profiles per se. They are seen no matter which profile you have loaded in Sentinel. They can be set to Monitored on/off and Download on/off with a context menu when right clicking on a Favorite. This is profile specific so be careful as this cost me several hours trying to figure out what was wrong with my SDS100.

After all the above was dealt with I cleaned up my favorites list so that "home" is all the adjacent cities that I frequent the most (non encrypted). I created other lists for areas that I frequent as well as added specific locations based on LAT and LONG for these areas. I used a range of 50mi for all of them so everything in the fav list would load when turned on after setting my location. This seems to be working much better but this part is based on my understanding or "range". "Range" is a simple reference point that the radio uses to load up sites. This is based on their "location" as defined in the RR database compared to the radios "location" wheter manually entered or when using a GPS. If it is within "range" it loads. The reset is up to the receiver.

These radios rock!! I hope explaining my trials and tribulations help other FNGs!!

 

[dave3825]

Now on top of that I found out most of my "scanning" issues were related to encrypted channels. Why these are not flagged in Sentinel is beyond me

I went to the database and looked it up. Low and behold it was flagged as encrypted.

This forced me to do a "favorites audit" where I deleted all the encrypted channels from my favorites.

When in the database, note that there is full time enc and partial enc. For trunked systems, I leave all enc tg's in my favorites lists (set to avoid) because if I ever set a system to id search, for discovering new talk groups, the deleted ones will just show up again and would need to be avoided. It is a pia to try catching and avoiding enc tg's from on the radio so leaving them in the list set to avoid works fine..

 

[mc48]

Never delete encrypted channels, avoid them. If you ever use the ID search mode it will stop momentarily on those encrypted channels that you deleted, if you avoid them it will never stop on them.

 

[shansmi]

When in the database, note that there is full time enc and partial enc. For trunked systems, I leave all enc tg's in my favorites lists (set to avoid) because if I ever set a system to id search, for discovering new talk groups, the deleted ones will just show up again and would need to be avoided. It is a pia to try catching and avoiding enc tg's from on the radio so leaving them in the list set to avoid works fine..

Never delete encrypted channels, avoid them. If you ever use the ID search mode it will stop momentarily on those encrypted channels that you deleted, if you avoid them it will never stop on them.

I just added them back and set them to avoid in the main database. I do not plan on doing a search per se but I do plan on using the GPS when traveling to non-fav areas so they will load as I leave and return home.

Now for other reading this, I did a force push of the database as well as delete and replace of my favorites when writing to the scanners.

Thanks!!!

 

[shansmi]

Wow! Antennas do make the difference. Now with all the swapping around I have done on the SDS I cannot remember when or exactly where I was able to get Rockwall Co to hit while at home but I know it did it. My requirement was simple... The SDS200 should be better than the SDS100 since I use it at home meaning it should be able to do at least what the SDS100 can do when the antennas are side by side. For me this does not happen. The SDS100 is what I take to other rooms and in my vehicle.

Now that said, I have played with following antennas:

SDS100
Stock
ALINCO REM-820S
ALINCO REM-842S (added a #5 o-ring)

SDS200
Stock
ALINCO REM-800B
Inland AN-5008


Now here is the story. I have always noticed the 200 being 10 to 15 dBm lower than the 100. I was searching for higher gain antennas and wound up reading a thread where as a joke someone took an HD UHF/VHF antenna to a SDS200 and was shocked at how well it worked. These were "powered" antennas. It was either try this or go attic or outside and from my man-cave neither of those options are viable for various reasons. I went to Best Buy and picked up a house brand antenna made by Inland (different than the one noted above) and one made by RCA. Please research whatever you buy to make sure the necessary bands are covered. After making my selections I learned Best Buy has "Nothing BNC" per the sales guy so this now meant a trip to MicroCenter. While there I checked out their antennas as well. They hand the Inland antenna noted above which was different than the BB branded unit. I grabbed one of those as well as an F to BNC adapter.

Once home, the AN-5008 was the one I hooked up first. I was amazed at the signal strength. From inside (Murphy which is a suburb of Plano) I was not able to get Dallas (with MUCH less static), Frisco and The Colony. Even this antenna is still not enough to pull in Rockwall Co. The RCA unit failed miserably with no scanner hits whatsoever. The other Inland unit just seemed more like a mouse pad to me than an antenna so I never hooked it up.

The AN-5008 rocks on the SDS200.

As for the SDS100, the 820s for sure beats the 842s in the 700-900 MHz range and is very decent in the 150 MHz range (around here Dallas). I am leaning towards the 820s as a preference. Everything noted for each unit beats stock.

 

[Ubbe]

Once home, the AN-5008 was the one I hooked up first. I was amazed at the signal strength.

Be careful when going by the signal level numbers. Amplified antennas also increase the signal of interferences and noise. Disconnect the USB power cable and tune to a free frequency where there should be no signals and look at the signal level and then connect the USB power and you will probably see that the signal increase even though you don't receive anything. Do that with the squelch open to get a signal reading.

Configure a display field to show D-error and use that when comparing antennas and to get as few errors as possible and do not look at the signal strength values.

/Ubbe

 

[shansmi]

Be careful when going by the signal level numbers. Amplified antennas also increase the signal of interferences and noise. Disconnect the USB power cable and tune to a free frequency where there should be no signals and look at the signal level and then connect the USB power and you will probably see that the signal increase even though you don't receive anything. Do that with the squelch open to get a signal reading.

Configure a display field to show D-error and use that when comparing antennas and to get as few errors as possible and do not look at the signal strength values.

/Ubbe

Done! I have been watching both radios. the 200 has the amplified antenna and the 100 has a REM-820s. I see 0 all of the time with a good signal. When I add areas that are in the mud to both radios they both get errors in similar amounts. Nothing major. I would expect that from a weak signal.

Thanks for the help and pointer!!

 

[buddrousa]

The short answer the 100 has a battery the 200 does not. As mentioned earlier I have both connected to a multicoupler and the both received the same.

 

[shansmi]

The short answer the 100 has a battery the 200 does not. As mentioned earlier I have both connected to a multicoupler and the both received the same.

My gear to do that test arrives in a few days. Nothing fancy. just a splitter, some adapters and a few short cables.

What does the battery have to do with anything other than the obvious?

 

[buddrousa]

In your original post you ask the difference thats it.