SDS250 potential?

[Bob1955]

I've decided I am holding out for the SDS250, assuming one will be released, before buying a 150. My 100 works fine for what it is, and my 436 makes up for the analog side the 100 has issues with.

Smart decision.

 

[ansky]

Best scanner by far. Knocks the snot out of my SDS200 I sold awhile back. I was hesitant at 1st but glad I jumped. You will not be disappointed.

The biggest problem with my SDS200 is that digital transmissions often sound muffled or garbled, even when the signal strength is high. Does the 150 improve on that?

 

[buddrousa]

The same can be said for a $12,000.00 Motorola Subscriber Radio.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

The biggest problem with my SDS200 is that digital transmissions often sound muffled or garbled, even when the signal strength is high.

Try experimenting with different filters?

 

[dmfalk]

The same can be said for a $12,000.00 Motorola Subscriber Radio.

Digital transmissions have a low bitrate, considered slower than what dialup internet used to be, when it was still a thing.

They're highly compressed, meant for intelligibility rather than fidelity. They're not meant for audiophiles!

 

[Ubbe]

The biggest problem with my SDS200 is that digital transmissions often sound muffled or garbled, even when the signal strength is high. Does the 150 improve on that?

Set the display to show digital bit errors, D-error, and if that show a low value below 5 then it is the portables/mobiles in the system that are received poorly by the system, or if the dispatchers can be heard clearly but mobiles worse.

If you always have full signal from a system then try and enable the attenuator to bring the signal down in level. It can be a too strong signal that makes reception worse in the scanner. The receiver in SDS scanners overloads very easily compared to other scanners.

/Ubbe

 

[4436time]

The biggest problem with my SDS200 is that digital transmissions often sound muffled or garbled, even when the signal strength is high. Does the 150 improve on that?

Have you tried connecting an external speaker to the 200? All of my base/mobile Uniden's have these due to the stock speaker lacking mid/high tones. The 150 is about perfect at volume level 5 IMO although it can be screechy at times on some transmissions to which I adjust the volume offset. YMMV

 

[captainmax1]

Yes, The 250 Will Happen.

 

[pyeman99]

Yes, The 250 Will Happen.

You seem very certain

 

[dmfalk]

You seem very certain

Considering the technical improvements implemented in the 150 over the older 100/200's, yes, it's inevitable. When, however, is the real question.

 

[rf_patriot200]

The biggest problem with my SDS200 is that digital transmissions often sound muffled or garbled, even when the signal strength is high. Does the 150 improve on that?

Probably not the fault of your 200, but a glitch in the network you're hearing.

 

[Horace_Wimp]

Probably not the fault of your 200, but a glitch in the network you're hearing.

For strong interfering signals in the area, it is necessary to use band or channel suppressors, use a spectrum analyzer to find them, and also adjust the level with an adjustable attenuator, because this scanner incredibly suffers from being overwhelmed by strong secondary signals. It also has a poorly functioning squelch. I strongly doubt that Uniden will fix the most important thing in the receiver in the "planned" SDS 250.

 

[buddrousa]

@Horace_Wimp
There are more of us SDS users that are very happy with these scanners. That includes the new SDS150 which is greatly improved as will be the SDS250 when released. Not sure why you can only trash Uniden for your ability to not be able to use a SDS scanner. Sure Uniden has had some problems but they have worked on or fixed most of them, but things like that are going to come up when you design and build new cutting edge devices that no other manufacture cannot or will not build. It is sad you sit and trash the new SDS150/SDS250 when you have not even tried one.

 

[Horace_Wimp]

I no longer have the Uniden SDS100 or SDS200 because they didn't suit me. I have experience with them. I can confirm that the radio spectrum distribution and use of radio networks in Europe is different from the US.
I have read the posts of SDS150 users here and I don't think anything has changed in terms of RF parameters, only GPS and Bluetooth have been added. The SDS150 is not on the market in Europe. But I have other Unidens and other receivers from other manufacturers.

 

[Ubbe]

I don't think anything has changed in terms of RF parameters

The IF filters in SDS100/200 are 10MHz wide, the same as in Unidens conventional hardware receivers. But that doesn't work with a SDR receiver so Uniden added their filter settings that sets the filter offset to try and block interference from one edge of the filter, but that opens up too much at the other end, it's either pest or colera. In the 150 they have no filter settings so that means they have to use a more narrow IF filter.

There are IF filters available at those exact frequencies that SDS100/200 uses that's only 250KHz wide that would be much more suitable to be used.

For the Waterfall feature in SDS100/200 the DSP can sample a 2.88MHz wide frequency range, the same as the SDS150, so must still be the same DSP processor. Setting the waterfall span to higher values makes it instead to do a search of the frequency range. According to the SDS150 user manual it says it still samples at 2.88MHz and then they must bypass the IF filter or switch to the older 10MHz wide one. Those narrow IF filters are $0.50 each but you have to buy 100 of them,, so I'm looking at other sources or perhaps obtain a sample and try it in one of my SDS scanners.

The processor in SDS100/200 are the second quickest and feature rich that Renesas has, the RX600 at a 120MHz clock speed but they also have the RX700 that runs at 240MHz but requires more power but the battery in SDS150 also have a 50% higher capacity. The SDS150 operates quicker when reading from SD card and so on and probably needs to be more powerful if it also handles bluetooth and GPS at the same time.

If Avery Europe will be selling the SDS150 it would be a better option for EU than the SDS100 that struggles in complex RF environments but GPS would still be useless as there's no database for EU and Avery doesn't seem to be interested in trying to maintain one based on user reports. There wouldn't be any point in keeping SDS100E/200E in the product line when there's a better scanner to be had that's more suitable for EU use. The cost would be high but Icom and AOR also has consumer receivers that are above a $1000 selling price.

/Ubbe

 

[PCTEK]

The biggest problem with my SDS200 is that digital transmissions often sound muffled or garbled, even when the signal strength is high. Does the 150 improve on that?

Ah filters. I have a few SDS200's and monitor several P25 systems. I had posted the same question and was introduced to the 'filters' feature. Having set the P25 simulcast systems to "Wide-Normal" or "Wide-Invert" made the audio a great deal better! So I hunted for this feature on my SDS150 and discovered that Uniden did away with this feature. Uniden claims the SDS150 automatically adjusts the audio for the best reception. Uh, no. It comes close, but not as good with a selectable filter that my human ears prefers.

 

[pyeman99]

Probably not the fault of your 200, but a glitch in the network you're hearing.

I tend to agree, even with zero errors displayed the decoded audio is of poor quality, this is on most systems not just one or two.The audio is very bassy,external speakers do not fit it for me. Then of course is the RF performance.It has a nice display a plus point. Myself I would give up the display for better audio & RF. Side by side the Whistler audio decode & AM performance is streets ahead.That said, many have spent unspeakable money on other makes & still the holy grail has not been found.

 

[buddrousa]

The add an external speaker that suits your ear. As far as Whistler goes they have not designed a new scanner that is their own design it is still a GRE that has firmware designs. They tried to build a scanner that would work like a SDS does on simulcast and gave up after a year. Whistler is in its 3rd owner with nothing new that are living on what was designed and built by GRE. My 3 TRX scanners have their place but sit mostly unused while my Unidens do the work.

 

[werinshades]

Uniden claims the SDS150 automatically adjusts the audio for the best reception. Uh, no. It comes close, but not as good with a selectable filter that my human ears prefers.

Yes, Uniden "claimed/sold"us on the premise that filtering wasn't needed, but many of us that use the scanner have "confirmed" the filters aren't needed. I was skeptical until I used it in a high RF area that I'm located in, and took it for a ride via stock antenna and my cupholder in the car. I could get my SDS100 to a very good place with utilization of filters, but the SDS150 saves the time and effort I had to put into my programming and have better range and reception. I still have analog near me, and can compare it to the 396T/396XT reception, plus the added bonus of resolution of simulcast distortion issues.

 

[DavidDownUnder]

Considering the technical improvements implemented in the 150 over the older 100/200's, yes, it's inevitable. When, however, is the real question.

And considering that the 150 exists and that most of the intellectual and actual capital goes into the software, it doesn't seem far-fetched at all.