SDS100 your likes / dislikes

[jonwienke]

The unit seems to get warm to the touch. My 436 does not seem to have that issue

The battery does not last as long as I would expect. Uniden says they are aware of this issue and will replace the battery at no charge when a better model is available.

SDR requires more power for the ADC and CPU than an all-analog receiver. It's just one of the differences. More power, more heat.

An external GPS appears to use the same miniature USB connector as the charger / PC cable. I was hoping it would be the same connector as the 436, since I already have that cable. I should have caught that when I looked at the prototype at Dayton. It would be nice to have a pin-out, so I could make my own cable.

GPS data goes to the ID pin next to ground.

 

[klinquist]

Received my SDS100 yesterday. In short, it's a 436 with a new display and better receiver. But you all knew that .



I do believe I've found some bugs:

* With "external power backlight on" and backlight set to squelch.... I assume I would be able to manually toggle the backlight with a tap of the power button. I can, except:
If I turn the backlight off by tapping the power button, then I expect the backlight to turn back off after a transmission ends - but it stays on.


* I have the LED alert turned on for several frequencies. The light doesn't seem to remain on during the entire transmission or only turns on for a few seconds each time a given transmission is received during a session. Maybe this is a user error, will have to dig into it a bit more.



I do wish Uniden would have taken the opportunity to modernize the UI/Navigation using the better screen. One big example of this is all of the screens that still show "Yes = E No = ." It would be much better to just show "No" and "Yes on the soft keys. Another example is the recording playback screen. When playing back, instead of showing "groups of 100" I would like to see a screen that gives me the option to play all THEN lists all the transmissions that I can scroll through to play individually:

--Play All
--15July15:02 462.025Mhz
--15July15:05 462.025Mhz
--15July15:06 462.025Mhz
--15July15:07 462.025Mhz
--15July15:07 42.500Mhz

Finally, the "sort" key would let me group the transmissions by either DAY or system/dept/channel/close call. I left my scanner on last night recording local PD *and* close call... but I'd really love to just find the close call transmissions...
(I'd also like the files written to the SD card to include system/dept/channel).


This is just one menu of many that could have be more user friendly.

 

[03msc]

Received my SDS100 yesterday. In short, it's a 436 with a new display and better receiver. But you all knew that .




* I have the LED alert turned on for several frequencies. The light doesn't seem to remain on during the entire transmission or only turns on for a few seconds each time a given transmission is received during a session. Maybe this is a user error, will have to dig into it a bit more.

This is as designed. There is a patent held by another company that allows it to remain on the entire transmission; Uniden had to set a limit so it goes off after a few seconds. So, what you noticed is by design and requirement and not any error on your part.

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

Well, my SDS100 (finally) arrived today and I've been 'playing' with it for a few hours now, and I have to say that so far, I am very impressed with this new scanner.

Likes.....

1) The display. Not just the color options, but the amount of information shown is incredible. Still working on finding just the right color combo for my weak eyes.

2) How it handles the Lake County (IN) P25 Phase II Simulcast system. From my house, I have had trouble picking up this system with a variety of scanners (PSR-800=deaf, HP2=at most, 50% non-garbled reception, BCD325P2=70% to 75% non-garbled reception, BCD436HP=80% to 85% non-garbled reception), but so far, every transmission picked up by the SDS100 has been crystal clear. For about an hour, I had the SDS100 sitting side by side with the 436HP. Each was scanning just one FL, the Lake County system. With both set to ID Scanning and each using a RS 800Mhz antenna, the SDS100 was picking up transmissions the 436HP wasn't and when both were receiving the same transmission, the audio quality was much better on the SDS100.

I'm sure I'll have more likes once I put it thru more of its paces.

Dislikes.....

1) The SMA to BNC adapter. As others have posted here in this thread, and others, it's ridiculous that a pair of pliers is needed to remove a BNC based antenna from the adapter.

2) The design of the SMA connection itself. Once again, as others have posted, a number of my after market SMA antennas cannot currently be used on the SDS100. I know it's necessary for it to be water resistant, but still.... Grrrrr!!

That;s it for the dislikes for now as well. Hopefully I won't find any other dislikes the more I fiddle with it.


The keypad really isn't a "dislike" per se; it's just going to take a little while to get used to flatter keys. I have somewhat plump (i.e., fat LOL) fingers, and on a few occasions, I've had a wee bit of difficulty getting the correct key pressed.


If I come up with any more likes or dislikes, I'll share them in a future post.

 

[KR7CQ]

I met with yet another SDS100 owner today for lunch at a different location away from my office a bit, and we compared SDS100s, a 436, a G4, and the results and our overall opinions are very similar. The SDS100 doesn't work quite as well as the 436 on our local simulcasts. We also agreed that the issue appears to be interference. Even the beta tester I met mentioned that from what he understood, the SDS100 isn't able to handle interference the same way the 436 can, due to design differences. In certain spots away from RF sources, they are very similar though to be fair.

One thing we agree on for sure, is that the SDS100 does nothing that the 436 can't do at least as well, at any location in the valley that we have tested, and we have well over a dozen simulcasts in the Phoenix metro area. His 436 is still his go to unit to pick up systems that the SDS100 can't pick up a control channel on. The SDS100 is a world away performance-wise, from the G4, no comparison, at least on any of our many different simulcast systems. Once again we both saw the G4 pull in distant simulcasts one after the other, while the SDS100 sat silent, without even picking up the control channel. We will both likely be selling or returning our units fairly soon unless a game-changing "fix" comes out very soon.

As far as the restocking fee, 100% agreed, that's on me for buying a cool new toy and not worrying enough about that. Zipscanners are good guys, it's just a painful kick in the butt at the end of this, but one I brought on.

Reading all the super-duper amazing glowing reports about how this thing blows the 436 away and can match a Motorola handheld is really pretty fascinating. I am unable to find anyone in the Phoenix metro area who is able to demonstrate that their SDS100 works that well, whether on non-simulcast, simulcast, phase 1, phase 2, you name it, we don't see it on any system.

I've never found the saying YMMV to be more true than I do now.

 

[sfb88]

I may be talking completely out of turn here because I am not an RF engineer and don't know all that much about the subject. However, I seem to recall from earlier threads that the SDS100 was using some components similar to those used in SDR dongles. If this is the case, it might be interesting to test to see how an SDR dongle performs in the Phoenix RF environment. If it does better with similar RF hardware than maybe there would be hope for a software solution.

 

[pb_lonny]

I suspect this is more to do with the systems then the radio itself.

 

[Outerdog]

I suspect this is more to do with the systems then the radio itself.

Could you elaborate, or...? Why do you suspect that? Do you live in the Phoenix area?

 

[APX8000]

Ummmm, no. My APX and G5 pick them up just fine. Is it that hard for people to accept the fact that the SDS-100 may not work that well in certain environments ?!?


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[kikito]

I've never found the saying YMMV to be more true than I do now.

Yep, agreed. My “go-to” radio for SOLID tracking of P25 trunked systems in my area is the TRX-1. And I own the last three top scanners released from all the brands.

I think the SDS100 still has a lot of potential, especially since we haven’t seen a single firmware update yet in the one week or so it’s been officially released to the masses, addressing any of the issues. I’m going to give Uniden a chance to fix the issues because for me, the SDS100 it’s working OK in my area and for what I’m monitoring (almost as good as my 436 already, before any updates/fixes). And I think my issues seem to be “firmware fixable”.

Thanks for all your testing, patience and passing along of all your findings.

 

[kikito]

You should be able to go into Customize on the Display Options and replace any of the fields with the Unit ID Name one to show your custom Radio IDs.

If you get it to work post up a pic when done.

If that doesn’t work or is not what the OP was asking then maybe he can further specify what he’s talking about. I’ve been seeing the custom Radio IDs I entered since day one. If he meant to see the custom Radio IDs in the bigger font in the field called “Channel Name”, then that’s one of the few fields that are not interchangeable and you can only modify the color and background.

 

[kikito]

Is it that hard for people to accept the fact that the SDS-100 may not work that well in certain environments ?!?

The same way some people don’t want to accept that the SDS100 is working great for many people in other areas and even imply they’re lying and that they should post videos in order to be believed?

 

[jonwienke]

I didn't post video, but I did post recordings made internally by the scanners in various comparisons:

https://forums.radioreference.com/u...71823-sds100-vs-436-simulcast-recordings.html

I live about 1/4-mile from a cell/pager transmitter tower.

 

[APX8000]

The same way some people don’t want to accept that the SDS100 is working great for many people in other areas and even imply they’re lying and that they should post videos in order to be believed?

True... getting good reports in New Jersey from what I’m reading. Again, YMMV !


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[APX8000]

If he meant to see the custom Radio IDs in the bigger font in the field called “Channel Name”, then that’s one of the few fields that are not interchangeable and you can only modify the color and background.

That’s what I was assuming as well and was told that couldn’t be changed to show the UID alias in larger font.


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[KK4JUG]

I only rarely check this thread anymore. People are saying it's not picking this up or it's picking up something else very well. There are so many variables that can affect reception that other's experiences don't mean that much to me anymore because they probably don't match my conditions. The general consensus is that the radio pretty much does what it's supposed to do and when I get mine,,,well, we'll see what happens,

 

[kikito]

I only rarely check this thread anymore. People are saying it's not picking this up or it's picking up something else very well. There are so many variables that can affect reception that other's experiences don't mean that much to me anymore because they probably don't match my conditions. The general consensus is that the radio pretty much does what it's supposed to do and when I get mine,,,well, we'll see what happens,

Yeah, is kind of like movie reviews to me, I read them but they don’t influence much my decision to watch them or not. And many times, I like most movies the critics are putting down anyway! LOL

 

[kikito]

I didn't post video, but I did post recordings made internally by the scanners in various comparisons:

https://forums.radioreference.com/u...71823-sds100-vs-436-simulcast-recordings.html

I live about 1/4-mile from a cell/pager transmitter tower.

And thank you and everybody else for all the detailed reports, recordings, videos, etc. Regardless of being good or bad about the SDS100.

 

[KR7CQ]

I suspect this is more to do with the systems then the radio itself.

For those who know (I don't), does Motorola run into such issues where their radios only work properly in certain P25 simulcasts in certain cities? Do they have to make different handhelds for different areas so that their systems work properly? I haven't heard of this same "works here, but not there" issue with professional equipment, but someone may know more on this. I also don't seem to see that disparity in reporting in the Unication community, but maybe some have seen things that I haven't in that regard? Just a question.

 

[Outerdog]

For those who know (I don't), does Motorola run into such issues where their radios only work properly in certain P25 simulcasts in certain cities? Do they have to make different handhelds for different areas so that their systems work properly?

No and no.