SDS100 Prerelease Discussion

[Minus1]

Any hope that the repeater reverse (REV) function will be user programable on the SDS100?
I have this function on six of my Uniden scanners, but it is completely useless here in the UK because all the defined band splits are for the US. (Though it doesn't work in the VHF Marine band which is international.)
As I understand it, the definition is simply a two column table of frequencies and splits, so making it programable would be a trivial task, and would make the function work properly for anyone anywhere in the world.

 

[woodpecker]

Ok, I found the section of the video where he loaded conventional channels. He was clearly conventional scanning, not searching.

The first channel he had to skip (Columbus Green Cabs) was of an unknown digital type. I don't know of any scanner that will skip a digital signal that it cannot determine is a digital signal.

I didn't watch long enough to see the 2nd avoid.

No he was custom searching, I think it said custom 5 at the time, the freq was something like 451.7125 from memory, anyway you know it has this quirk with custom search.

 

[woodpecker]

Based on his description of what he was doing:


But if it was a search, that is exactly what it should do. Stop on the data and display the information so that you can make a note of the system ID and other relevant information before you AVOID or tap scroll to resume searching. If it skipped, then you would lose that valuable information.

There is an option to timeout and move on. Negative delay.

If you look at this video starting at 33:39:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WMM7rQ2Im8

Clearly custom searching, hangs on a DMR system which is beaconing, it takes 40 seconds for the OP who's live demoing it to notice its hung during which time there was not 1 single piece of useful information on the screen, he avoids the system so if its active 5 minutes later you'll never know and never get any audio or info from it.

If he had been running negative delay and it had been active and busy he would only have got x seconds of audio or info from it and missed the rest.

If you had an OPTION to auto skip, it would be perfect, next time round if it was active you could get the info and/or listen to it.

If the scanner had been in a backpack searching discretely, you're stuffed, it could sit on the beaconing DMR all day.

 

[racingfan360]

If you had an OPTION to auto skip, it would be perfect, next time round if it was active you could get the info and/or listen to it.

I'm with Woodpecker on this one....I often use one of my 436's in pretty much the same mode as he describes before:

....in search mode looking for new stuff and listening to it as I drive, I also do a lot of discrete, scanner in backpack monitoring at events in search mode, where frequencies are often temporary and unknown before hand

....If you stop on a digital system that beacons continuously and has no data or voice being transmitted, its no use to man or beast to indefinitely hang on it.

My only way round it is to use -ve delay. So I get only short recordings to review later. The TRX has a great feature where you can set it to search for specific digital types across a band (eg NXDN DMR P25 or a combination of all). It would be excellent to see a similar feature in the SDS100. Of course, on balance the TRX can only cope with one search band, and if need to search for analogue and digital it doesn't even have the basic -ve delay feature to prevent getting stuck on data/birdies etc.

 

[APX8000]

Thanks for the mobile scanning video. Much more realistic for us guys that drive all day everyday. Sounding good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[UPMan]

There are about 25 different things that can be displayed in the fields below the frequency. Unfortunately, none of them were set to show the recovered digital system information in that video (likely because it is currently a hassle to keep custom display settings...any time you write from Sentinel they get wiped out and putting them back in is a bit of cut and pasting). Had those fields been active, the 40 seconds would have shown useful info.


At any rate, the operation isn't going to be changed. If you want to skip, set a negative delay.

 

[racingfan360]

If you want to skip, set a negative delay.

Noted Paul. Do you think there is a possibility off adding a custom search filter by [digital] format - ie the custom search function as is today, but only have it hit on one or more user assigned digital modulation formats (aka "only hit on DMR signals in this frequency band" etc).

 

[scan-pa]

Noted Paul. Do you think there is a possibility off adding a custom search filter by [digital] format - ie the custom search function as is today, but only have it hit on one or more user assigned digital modulation formats (aka "only hit on DMR signals in this frequency band" etc).

I would also like to be able to set searches for just digital. Have 3 settings. Both, analog, digital...

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[woodpecker]

At any rate, the operation isn't going to be changed. If you want to skip, set a negative delay.

Thanks for the confirmation, its a shame you don't want to improve your product functionality, at least I know I've got to wait for Whistler to bring out something new or go for the AOR DV10 if it ever arrives.

 

[UPMan]

I don't want to degrade product functionality. I think you'll be waiting for quite a while for anything comparable.

 

[Citywide74]

UPMan, are you interested in BETA tester for Baltimore County, MD. This is another LSM site with poor performance on the 36 series scanners, which I own 3 of.

 

[woodpecker]

I don't want to degrade product functionality. I think you'll be waiting for quite a while for anything comparable.

How would adding an option be a degrade?

It doesn't matter how long the wait is, Uniden scanners suffer from what is IMHO a design flaw, this means for one of the ways I use this type of product they are unusable, the wait for the ultimate scanner continues...

 

[mtindor]

I really think the videos have proven that the SDS100 can "handle" LSM. Will it be absolutely 100% perfect across the board, in all cases, when monitoring all systems? Perhaps not. But I doubt the Unication is 100% perfect, eve though their fanboys suggest that they are. Besides, that's what firmware is for. Paul has already said in the recent past [I think] that they were making firmware changes almost daily. I'm sure lots of "tweaking" can be done.

If you think about OP25 and specifically Max KA1RBI, I'm betting that even after successfully having developed software to handle LSM, he likely had to make tweaks to various things here and there for best performance / lowest overhead / etc.

BTW, that does remind me that I want to Thank Max, KA1RBI. Had it not been for him and his collaborators efforts to do P25 (and specifically LSM), on the cheap with a $20 or less dongle and OP25, Uniden may never have felt the "kick in the butt" that was needed for them to redesign.

I can't wait til the SDS is released. I'm absolutely confident that I'll never have a complaint about LSM. I'll save my complaining for some other aspect of the scanner

 

[W4ELL]

How would adding an option be a degrade?

It doesn't matter how long the wait is, Uniden scanners suffer from what is IMHO a design flaw, this means for one of the ways I use this type of product they are unusable, the wait for the ultimate scanner continues...

I think you hit the nail on the head... your use case is atypical.

When I am in search mode, I have the scanner within reach so that I can react. I want the scanner to wait for me to respond and not move on until I see what it has stopped on. Most of the time, especially when stopping on any digital transmission, I want to see the data being displayed and hear the audio if possible.

Adding features for niche use cases is just not cost effective, not to mention making the firmware more complex and bloated.

 

[woodpecker]

I think you hit the nail on the head... your use case is atypical.

When I am in search mode, I have the scanner within reach so that I can react. I want the scanner to wait for me to respond and not move on until I see what it has stopped on. Most of the time, especially when stopping on any digital transmission, I want to see the data being displayed and hear the audio if possible.

Adding features for niche use cases is just not cost effective, not to mention making the firmware more complex and bloated.

Hardly niche use case, the whole hobby is niche.

I wouldn't call using one of the scanners features in a car, where it should not really be fiddled with while driving, atypical.

Anyway, I accept Uniden won't add it, I think its naive, so unfortunately my money will be spent elsewhere.

 

[ecarvalho]

Loudoun County also has horrible Simulcast LSM here... I have a 536 here ... it has a terrible time with it. If I could also jump in the Beta, I can compare on the same antenna against the 536 or an Unication G5 or a MACOM Harris P7300.

 

[03msc]

Well said W4ELL. My thoughts as well.

And the "beta" program isn't a program at all - Uniden has testers throughout the country already. I think it's obvious that it is something they have in place already and isn't something we can join.

 

[natedawg1604]

Can someone PLEASE, PLEASE make a comprehensive video comparing the SDS100 to the Unication, APX and/or XTS (both simulcast performance and overall audio quality)?

 

[mtindor]

Can someone PLEASE, PLEASE make a comprehensive video comparing the SDS100 to the Unication, APX and/or XTS (both simulcast performance and overall audio quality)?

It's absurd to expect anyone to do that. At this point I don't think Uniden even needs to "prove" anything to anyone. If you are hesitant, don't buy until it comes out and you hear reports from others. You and 99% of the other people "on the fence" about this scanner are going to buy it anyway. It's just the nature of the beast. What I can't wait to see is the naysayers buying the scanner and then eating some honking big crow.

Mike

 

[natedawg1604]

It's absurd to expect anyone to do that. At this point I don't think Uniden even needs to "prove" anything to anyone. If you are hesitant, don't buy until it comes out and you hear reports from others. You and 99% of the other people "on the fence" about this scanner are going to buy it anyway. It's just the nature of the beast. What I can't wait to see is the naysayers buying the scanner and then eating some honking big crow.

Mike

Shortly before the SDS was announced, I was planning to buy another XTS 5k. Now I will be holding off on that, I just need to know how the audio & simulcast performance compare.