SDS200 Hum Reports

[TailGator911]

UPMan, a quick thanks for your dedication to the job. Your efforts are highly appreciated. I find it amazing that Uniden has taken on the challenge of SDR technology and is working hard to perfect it. It is those that take the first step into the unknown that are remembered. Uniden has always been known for cutting the edge, and I have the utmost respect for them that they do so. Again, thanks for your efforts.

JD
kf4anc

 

[allend]

They should of worked hard on fixing hardware issues first and laid the concrete correctly before building the house.

We all know if you do not lay the foundation correctly from the beginning its an up hill battle at this point. Hopefully Whistler is taking their sweet time to perfect their new Flagship hopefully

 

[trentbob]

Typical corporate posturing. We'd all do the same if in a similar situation. However, I'd at least would have sent the mitigation part by express mail. Only thing I'm offended by.

LMAO, I'm a little confused by your response and not sure what you mean by corporate posturing, those here who know me know that I am the last person on Earth who's a fan of the Uniden Corporation or any other corporate brand of radio. I pay my money and the company gives me a dependable, well- constructed radio that works as advertised.

I have been pretty harsh on Uniden and their competitor when they had one, this SDS business speaks for itself and it is what it is.

I've owned the SDS 100 from the beginning and even that didn't work properly on my local system until the new update with the filters came out. Now I really like it.

I'm on this thread because I desperately would like to have an SDS 200. The money is in my pocket and ready to go but I'm not going to pull the trigger until feel comfortable doing it. This and all the other SDS threads are the only thing I have to help me do that.

Now again, maybe we can put this situation to bed about did the beta testers know about the hum... we can go back and look at the videos that were made with the beta units which again are probably different from the standard issue. We should be able to hear the hum if it's present.

Sorry if I misunderstood your reply but to say that I would say something that's corporate posturing in defense of Uniden is hilarious, on the other hand I'm a pretty big fan of... Fairness.

 

[m42duster]

By posturing, I mean, they aren't going to discuss this situation in great detail. They'd be fools if they did. I believe you understand that. I'm satisfied with their intended fix. I haven't received my part yet, but with what little anecdotal evidence exists that says it works, then I'm OK with it. I still plan on buying a second unit.

Again, only thing that bums me out is how they sent the part by the slowest possible means. To me, it's a slap in my face. Also, maybe they are sending out so many, that the cheap shipping was necessary. Who knows? This is where the posturing comes in....they won't tell us how many units are affected. I wouldn't either, if in their position.

 

[AK9R]

A sign I remember seeing in the product test department of a vehicle transmission manufacturer: "There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineers and ship the product."

Development of a new product as complex as a modern digital trunk-tracking scanning receiver takes lots of time and money. I have no doubt that when the SDS200 product planners made their case to Uniden's corporate leadership that a prediction was made of how much time and money it would take before the product would be ready to ship. The brass signed off on the project based on those predictions. And, someone in an upstairs corner office may have had to make the decision to start shipping before the engineers thought the product was fully ready to ship. The person who makes that decision has to weigh the financial hit that the company would take by delaying the product (time is money) vs. the reputation hit the company would take by shipping a not-quite-ready product. It happens all the time in product development.

And, then once the decision to start production and ship the product is made, the development engineers sometimes get over-ruled by the production engineers. If someone in Production says, "we can make it per the print, but if we do things a little bit differently we can save [time or money]", they may be given the green light to make the change over the development engineers' objections. It's this sort of thing that can cause a problem that didn't exist in hand-built beta test units to magically appear in production units. Again, this sort of thing happens all the time.

I'm not defending Uniden. I have my issues with Uniden's scanners and I've sold all of them except for a couple of BC780XLTs and an HP-1, none of which have even been connected to a source of power in the past 12 months. Some of you are quite correct that Uniden is not going to discuss their issues in great detail. OTOH, I do believe that they (Paul Opitz) are listening. But, whether or not Uniden fixes the issues that have been raised depends on the guy in that upstairs corner office.

 

[trentbob]

Duster... Yeah okay, you quoted my response though when you said that. Again this has been a long process. A lot of the rhetoric has toned down since Uniden finally responded and acknowledged different problems.

People weren't happy with the initial denials or what appeared to be denials of what was obvious and well documented findings. Again this is what it is.

It seemed like the rhetoric was quieting down and it certainly did on my part a while ago but now we see a resurgence of vitriolic reactions. I'm not saying they are not accurate but now they are in the face of intervention by Uniden.

I sure do hope I'm able to feel comfortable enough buying the SDS 200, maybe around April as a lot of people have said. We will see.

 

[m42duster]

Well said.

 

[radio3353]

Based on the numbers mentioned, it appears that the result would be 5% (five percent), not .05% (five one-hundredths of one percent). Quite a difference.

I was thinking the same thing. Dang that 5th grade math!

In most companies, 95% is not an acceptable yield.

 

[m42duster]

If it only affected the units reported here, then I suspect we'd eat the problem. As quick as this issue was addressed, I'd say the majority of units were affected.

 

[mkt853]

I was watching a video on the flickering screen problem that you could see clearly and I noticed the loud hum coming from the radio clearly on the video...

A few videos were posted by beta testers... Go back and look at them again. If the hum was present we should be able to hear it.

I'm sure those radios were constructed differently or in a different manner than the standard issue radio.

I don't think Uniden would ever tell us what the difference is as they will not come out and say how they make their "sausage".

Has Uniden or UPMan addressed the screen flickering issue? To my knowledge there is no Uniden approved fix we can do ourselves like with the hum issue that requires a simple part that they will provide free of charge.

 

[buddrousa]

One poster stated when he fixed his hum GROUND ISSUE his flicker went away.

 

[mkt853]

One poster stated when he fixed his hum GROUND ISSUE his flicker went away.

Weird. I have no hum, and the flickering started out of the blue about two weeks into ownership and cycles from not noticeable to horrible at times. It's not the SD card either as I swapped SD cards with another SDS200 that is working perfectly fine. I'm tempted to crack it open and start testing, but not at the risk of voiding the one year warranty. I am waiting for Uniden to tell us what we should do. In the end I'm guessing we'll have to ship the scanner back to Uniden for repair.

 

[Stecomp]

Thanks Paul for the insight into Uniden's repair priorities and beta tester info. This hum part must have been a 'red' since it was so rapidly deployed 2 weeks after launch. I wonder if perhaps the issue was already known due to the quick fix and shipping out of the part. It would be interesting to hear of the actual behind the scenes maneuvering to get it in the hands of the user.

Unfortunately my 200 has been sitting at Uniden repair for exactly 4 weeks waiting for the hum repair. Who would have imagined I could have had the part in hand and up and running again much quicker!

 

[03msc]

Some of you seem to fail to realize that it is 100% possible (and probable) that this hum issue did not exist in the beta testing units (this has been stated many times!). Some, it seems, would rather believe some crazy conspiracy theory than the likely truth that it appeared in the production units only. Kind of like vehicles that have recalls, which happens fairly often. Uniden’s goal is not to put out poor quality products and have to do a repair campaign...

 

[UPMan]

Thanks Paul for the insight into Uniden's repair priorities and beta tester info. This hum part must have been a 'red' since it was so rapidly deployed 2 weeks after launch. I wonder if perhaps the issue was already known due to the quick fix and shipping out of the part. It would be interesting to hear of the actual behind the scenes maneuvering to get it in the hands of the user.

Unfortunately my 200 has been sitting at Uniden repair for exactly 4 weeks waiting for the hum repair. Who would have imagined I could have had the part in hand and up and running again much quicker!

Your unit was actually brought to our engineer for evaluation (different facility than the repair facility). I dropped it back of with the repair tech this morning. Will likely go out today or tomorrow. Sorry about the delay, but it came in while we were evaluating reports and we wanted a confirmed problem reported unit for the engineer to ensure we were seeing the same thing.

 

[n2pqq]

Received nmp200 part today .
Did the install as per instructions.
A little tricky to properly set part.
After assembling radio the hum
is gone on the internal speaker .
External speaker was attached and unless
you are REALLY listening for it the hum is gone.

 

[maus92]

I received the part today, but probably won't be able to install it until the weekend. I'm very interested to read about people's results.

 

[Stecomp]

I feel honored that mine was helpful in perhaps getting the ball rolling. I will never clean the scanner knowing 'The Man' actually handled it!

 

[garys]

Maybe he'll autograph the scanner for you!

I feel honored that mine was helpful in perhaps getting the ball rolling. I will never clean the scanner knowing 'The Man' actually handled it!

 

[janetball1994]

Received nmp200 part today .
Did the install as per instructions.

I might add to this that the "instructions" to which n2pqq refers omit what seems to me to be an important consideration: after you strip off the black strip -- adhesive remains on the chassis lip, and unless that's removed in the area the grounding lug is placed, any "ground" you're getting suffers. Alcohol won't remove it, so I used some acetone (nail polish remover), which removed it completely, followed by an alcohol wipe to remove the acetone residue. The result: no hum at all, internal or external speakers.