SDS250 potential?

[MStep]

All old things are new again---- as many of you fellow old-timers will recall, back in the late 1970's and early 80's, the Bearcat 250 was the flagship of the fleet, which included some features that have yet to be emulated on any other scanner.

Here we are, nearly 50 years later, and we're talking about another 250-- this time the Uniden SDS-250. Is history about to repeat itself ???

 

[Ubbe]

the Bearcat 250 was the flagship of the fleet, which included some features that have yet to be emulated on any other scanner.

I took a look in its user manual and service manual and cannot find anything that hasn't been done by scanners in later years.

/Ubbe

 

[buddrousa]

But it was the 1st.
I still say you need to build and sell your own scanners and then we can talk about how bad and cheap they were built.

 

[DavidDownUnder]

Zip Scanners is already taking preorders on Amazon for only $1999.99 and that includes EXPERT programming and a high-quality screen protector.

 

[GTR8000]

the Bearcat 250 was the flagship of the fleet, which included some features that have yet to be emulated on any other scanner.

Such as?

 

[pyeman99]

I would like Uniden to do a dual receiver scanner. The SDR receiver chip costs less than a dollar and a second DSP doesn't have to be able to handle voice, just decode the control data and squelch, so it could even use a less costly DSP function.

The second receiver could work as a "scan ahead" receiver that monitors the next active system and when the first receiver have stopped monitoring, the info from the second receiver are copied to the first receiver, an instant scan to next active system being it digital or analog. A display info shows what the second receiver have stopped at and you can choose to let it continue to scan if that system wasn't interesting to you. Or the second receiver could monitor the control channel of the same system that the first receiver are monitor making it possible to do preemptive priority of any TG. There's lot of possibilities when using dual receivers.

A couple of switch diodes are letting the second receiver connect to the different front-end bandpass filters and some more diodes to allow either receiver to use a second antenna port. I would like all multiband scanners to have the option to select between two antenna ports.

/Ubbe

All of this will only happen if Uniden think there's a good commercial reason. Uniden aren't in this for glory make no mistake about that.Lets consider, the portable scanner market is still there,ie sds100's were selling ok even with their problems.To keeping selling portables or increase sales a new fish hook had to exist,the 150. Many will buy a portable & make it dual use by taking it in the vehicle. Maybe sales of the 200 were lower than the 100 by some margin. Do Uniden need a 250.Only their sales dept can answer that one.

 

[mikewazowski]

as many of you fellow old-timers will recall, back in the late 1970's and early 80's, the Bearcat 250 was the flagship of the fleet, which included some features that have yet to be emulated on any other scanner.

I would have said the BC300 was the flagship of the fleet.

 

[buddrousa]

I can Remember the 1st Bearcat 10 Channel Programmable Handheld and the Regency HX-1000 30 Channel Handheld.

 

[wa8pyr]

I would have said the BC300 was the flagship of the fleet.

Six one way, half-dozen the other. Basically the same feature set, but different form factor and the 300 is a few years newer.

 

[redbeard]

I was in love with my BC200XLT back in the day. It looked good and worked good. (sorry OT)

 

[kc2asb]

Six one way, half-dozen the other. Basically the same feature set, but different form factor and the 300 is a few years newer.

The Bearcat 300 had service search with a dedicated button for each service, while the Bearcat 250 did not have service search at all. I think that is the main difference in the feature set.

They were both plagued by cold solder joints and other maladies common to the Electra Bearcats. Uniden did continue producing the 300 after they bought the Bearcat line.

I was in love with my BC200XLT back in the day. It looked good and worked good. (sorry OT)

A buddy of mine had one back in the day - simply a great scanner, one of the best Uniden has ever made. It was extremely sensitive, even picking up low band skip on the stock antenna. (this was during Cycle 22, early 90's)

As for the SDS-250, a great feature to include would be a detachable head.

 

[Cef2lion]

Built in WiFi/Bluetooth and U/Aware app support. Ethernet port on the rear and option to turn on/off link and activity lights. A separate on/off knob so you don't have set the volume each time you turn it on.

 

[Isinglass311]

An improved receiver, higher quality audio, blue tooth, and most of all a remote head would get me to upgrade.

 

[Ubbe]

Uniden aren't in this for glory make no mistake about that.

I wouldn't trust AOR or Icom to do a feature rich scanner as they have too many other receivers and radios that they focus on and don't care much about scanners. Uniden, as any other company, will investigate the market to see if there's a demand of a new scanner and would it in that case hamper sales of their other scanners to make their total profit less when competing with themselves. There's lots of good products that are stopped by management as they cannot see a big enough profit from producing that product.

Uniden have done as much as they can with current scanners and if they plan for a new model in 3-5 years time it needs to be something totally different. Encryption can be a problem and for places like Scandinavia Covid was a big blow to scanner listeners as people started to work from home using apps on their mobile phones and discovered it could work just as good as a radio system. It had better coverage and they didn't need to buy or rent radios and airtime at sites. It used to be some 3 different taxi companies using radios and 4 different package delivery services and now its one taxi company with 3 cars and one package delivery service with 5 trucks still using radio. It is the same amount of decline for all other radio services.

In Stockholm we had 3 different trunked DMR systems using 3-5 sites each but now they are out of operation and some of its frequencies are used as a single conventional DMR frequency for some customer that only needs local coverage for a sports arena and such, and that could be a sponsor deal providing free radios in return to having some free advertising at the sports arena.

/Ubbe

 

[kc2asb]

. A separate on/off knob so you don't have set the volume each time you turn it on.

+1. I've never seen this on any scanner, only on higher end communications receivers.

 

[Cef2lion]

I have an old Radio Shack scanner that has an on/off switch separate from volume and squelch. When I turn on my SDS200 and it loads the volume is usually shows 0. I then dial it up to 8.

 

[W1KNE]

I am easy here. I just want the SDS250 to go back to the USB Mini from the stupid micro connector the SDS 200 has now. 5 scanners on my desk, 4 have USB Mini, then the one PITA with a USB micro.

 

[wa8pyr]

I am easy here. I just want the SDS250 to go back to the USB Mini from the stupid micro connector the SDS 200 has now. 5 scanners on my desk, 4 have USB Mini, then the one PITA with a USB micro.

USB-C. Superior to both mini and micro, and isn’t alignment specific; it‘ll work the same no matter which way the plug is facing.

I definitely concur on losing that damn mini connector; difficult to tell which way the plug is pointed, and too easy to confuse with USB-C if you’re not paying attention.

I’d also like to see fully-functional USB on both front and rear, as well as moving the Ethernet port to the back panel.

 

[Ubbe]

I have an old Radio Shack scanner that has an on/off switch separate from volume and squelch. When I turn on my SDS200 and it loads the volume is usually shows 0. I then dial it up to 8.

Uniden could easily do a function when you hold in the squelch knob or Function for 2 sec it powers off the scanner. Then in its power off state it could wake up by a push on either of those two controllers. Uniden can do a lot of things if they wanted to, but will it sell more scanners and increase their profit? We might have to rely on projects like OpenScanner and support their efforts by a $10 donation to get those kind of things done.

/Ubbe

 

[MStep]

I took a look in its user manual and service manual and cannot find anything that hasn't been done by scanners in later years.

/Ubbe

Two things that come to mind was the "store and recall" function (where found frequencies during a search would automatically be stored into new channel slots) and also a "count" function, which would show you how many times a channel was active (I believe it was up to 99).

These functions may be available with newer radios through software, but I don't recall seeing them as "onboard" features in scanners after the 250. The radio was certainly advanced for its day.