Show appreciation for Upman thread

[bama9999]

I'd also like to add my thanks to Paul for his hard work and dedication. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[AA6IO]

You will see my posts about headphone issues and P25 decoding on other threads. However, one thing I have never doubted is the sincerity of Paul (UPMan) and Uniden to resolve these issues and make scanning a better (albeit much more complex nowadays) experience for all of us.
Paul, you have my greatest appreciation for all you do for this scanning community.

Steve AA6IO

 

[WILSON43]

With all due respect to Paul, ( and to the many other hard working folks at Uniden, Whistler, Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom, etc., who make the products for the radio hobby), I just don't see how accolades are in order at this juncture.

Paul is an employee getting paid a salary. At some point the folks at Uniden decided having him rep the company and products here would be a good thing. Maybe so.

But it is also obvious that Paul's comments and interactions here are tempered and measured responses based on what Uniden wants to to reveal relative to their products.

If Uniden released a slam dunk, whiz bang SUPER line of new scanners that actually worked well, would you still be honoring Paul? I don't think so unless he was a major engineering force and factor behind the design manufacture and implementation of the new scanners.

We all know he is not. He is a marketing spokesperson, like that little green Gecko in the Geico Ins commercials. Do you all honor the lizard for good insurance products?

Despite the OP request for no negative comments, this is an open forum whose purpose is the respectful exchange of information and OPINION, pro or con.

I bet Paul is a very nice fellow. But to honor him or conversely, to criticize him as well for sub performing products is silly.

Now, I'll have some Cherry Kool Aid please.......

 

[mciupa]

I am a happy owner of both BCD536HP and the HomePatrol 1 Extreme. I thank Uniden and Upman for their innovative products. Thanks for being here to listen to the membership.


My first task after selling my 996XT and buying the 536 was to make the 536 match or exceed the functionality of the 996. Sentinel software made this possible with the swapping of hpe files from the HomePatrol which I used as a portable version of my 996XT.

The 996XT would show me a muted talk group when I found a P25 Phase II talkgroup. I am now listening to those talkgroups with my 536. My latest favourite list project was to create a VHF Low Band list that I can isolate for listening when the band opens up. This takes only a few minutes when you use the editor in Sentinel.

Only issue I encountered was a prolonged squelch tail which was corrected with the latest firmware update. I use headphones almost always and never had any hiss, only perhaps if I use the scroll wheel to move to another task while on hold.

Also, I want to thank the Forums Manager for creating some organization by creating sub forums in the Uniden category.

 

[Weathernet]

With all due respect to Paul, ( and to the many other hard working folks at Uniden, Whistler, Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom, etc., who make the products for the radio hobby), I just don't see how accolades are in order at this juncture.

Paul is an employee getting paid a salary. At some point the folks at Uniden decided having him rep the company and products here would be a good thing. Maybe so.

But it is also obvious that Paul's comments and interactions here are tempered and measured responses based on what Uniden wants to to reveal relative to their products.

If Uniden released a slam dunk, whiz bang SUPER line of new scanners that actually worked well, would you still be honoring Paul? I don't think so unless he was a major engineering force and factor behind the design manufacture and implementation of the new scanners.

We all know he is not. He is a marketing spokesperson, like that little green Gecko in the Geico Ins commercials. Do you all honor the lizard for good insurance products?

Despite the OP request for no negative comments, this is an open forum whose purpose is the respectful exchange of information and OPINION, pro or con.

I bet Paul is a very nice fellow. But to honor him or conversely, to criticize him as well for sub performing products is silly.

Now, I'll have some Cherry Kool Aid please.......

Thanks for NOT honoring my request
Tim

 

[UPMan]

I do more than dconti thinks but freely admit that I also do less than what many other folks think. I am backed by a great team of engineers who take my product definitions and help to refine and realize them, a great operations team that helps make our processes (and process adjustments, when necessary) work. My general instructions to them, when reading threads like this, is to replace the word "UPMan" or "Paul" with their own name.

 

[WILSON43]

"Thanks for NOT honoring my request
Tim"

You live in internet forum fantasy land if you think such a request is :

1. Valid in an open forum of debate and ideas.

2. Going to be respected in an open forum of debate and ideas.

Based on his response above I will certainly concede that Paul is a Pro.

 

[K8LEA]

dconti:

I don't want to get into a catfight over this, but if you've ever been the "help desk" for software or other products intended for "general" use, you'd appreciate what Paul's up against. While I'm essentially retired at this point, I was a corporate Data Processing Manager for a long time, and the "help" go-to for a lot of software inside the company, as well as a Consultant for outside entities (some of which were owned by my Corporation, and some that were unrelated), and used to deal with all kinds of people trying to run all kinds of software, including a bunch of stuff that I wrote....

I also helped out on the old CompuServe forum for HP Laser printers, and hung out with the WordStar gang, too. (Dinosaurs are us....)

When the user base is non-technical, it can get pretty difficult to keep a straight face, and you can run into all kinds of hilarity. One day, on the WordStar forum, a guy turned up hopping mad. Seems that WordStar was ruining his laser printer! All volunteers there at the time, btw. When we finally got him calmed down enough to sort it out, he was saying that when he printed something on a form, the contents of the form would turn up on the next several pages out of the printer. Since it only happened when he was using WordStar, that had to be at fault.

Well, it turned out that he was printing ON forms - just adding text to the form, like his name and address - and creating the forms themselves on a copier. (take a minute for the guys who just figured it out to get off the floor). The copier's toner had a different melting point than the toner used in the LaserJet, and it would come off his "form" onto one or more of the rubber rollers inside the printer.

Pressure rollers being what they are, and rubber rollers being a pretty decent part of an offset printing apparatus, the copier's toner was sticking to the rollers, and transferring to the next piece of paper.... It really had to....

That's just one example - the guy had no idea how copiers or laser printers worked.... Hand him something like a BCD396XT, and who knows? The available software is pretty decent, but it appears that the engineers at Uniden were instructed to stuff in as much "functionality" as would fit into the EPROM. Some of this stuff is seriously strange, IMHO, but on the "some farmer in Utah is using it to count his stock" basis, who knows who's doing what.... More than 40 years of programming, and using "computerized" systems, and it confuses the heck out of me. The difference being that I used to be able to find it in the manual, or to ask politely. As I get older, it's harder, but I ain't dead yet ....

Paul and his backups have a heck of a load to carry. These thing are being used by people who have no idea, as well as all over the spectrum, up to serious experts. Trying to help out can be a head scratcher (or hair puller) very easily. And "sorry, you can't do that" can hurt, too....

It's not easy....

It is nice that Paul's being paid to be here, but it's even better that he is here. Working with tech support people who are strictly volunteers isn't too terrible, but knowing that "our guy" can kick butt at Corporate is a big help.

No complaints here....

(No free samples, either. I've been watching the mailbox ....)

Happy camper....

Regards,

 

[bama9999]

Stu, I know where you're coming from. I used to work doing technical support for a major computer company, and as you said, some of the things you run into are hilarious! Two of my favorites that I encountered were a couple of customers, one who had a broken "cup holder" on their computer, and the other who called in wanting to know what the "floor pedal" was for! The broken "cup holder" turned out to be the cdrom drive tray and the "floor pedal" was the mouse!

 

[Blackink]

OK....here I go shaking my head yet AGAIN over such negative talk.

I mentioned in another post that I would hope that people can come back on Monday with cooler heads but after what I've read today in some of these forums, I'm the one whose gonna take a few days off and stay away from reading such nonsense.

Thoroughly disgusted in what I'm reading in these threads.....Sigh....

 

[plaws]

I thought it might be nice to have a thread showing your appreciation of Upman,,,Paul has done with regards to the new scanners.

It's quite remarkable, actually, how in tune with the market Uniden is or is becoming. They certainly heard the "hey, where's the manual and software" complaint loud and clear because they didn't repeat the mistake with the 'x36HPs.

Paul is something else. I don't know how he puts up with some people. Well, he told me once, but I won't repeat his secret. There are guys on one of the XT mailing lists who, I swear, would have trouble programming a crystal scanner who come up with the ... let's just say "amazing" questions and Paul is just as polite with them as with anyone else. I can assure you that *I* don't have that temperament!

Keep up the great work, Paul!

 

[Weathernet]

OK....here I go shaking my head yet AGAIN over such negative talk.

I mentioned in another post that I would hope that people can come back on Monday with cooler heads but after what I've read today in some of these forums, I'm the one whose gonna take a few days off and stay away from reading such nonsense.

Thoroughly disgusted in what I'm reading in these threads.....Sigh....

I keep trying blackink at least in this thread LOL sigh
Tim

 

[Highpockets]

Pro or con comments, Paul keeps his mind on the target, Uniden is lucky to have him. Definitely an asset here.

 

[Ghstwolf62]

Its not your fault Weathernet. Its the childish actions and basic lack of consideration of some people that is the culprit. They stink up 50 threads but just can't leave one thread alone no matter what.

As my mother used to say "Consider the source" and don't let it get you worked up. I know that is hard and I really would like to blast the party in question but am not going to out of respect of your request.

He's also badly misinformed and therefore making comments showing his ignorance.

I too would like to extend a thanks to UPMan for being around and participating to the fullest extent he's capable of in these forums. Its not something he has to do or Uniden has to do regardless of what some may think.

The fact that Uniden and Paul do make the effort makes a big difference to a lot of people myself included. Seeing the responsiveness and attention to issues and potential problems which came up played a big role in my decision to purchase a Uniden for the first time in many years. That applies to others as well like K4DPS and AZ amongst others with their videos and reviews.

So thank you to Paul and Uniden for being willing to be there and stick their neck under the axe as they do so often.

 

[y84media]

Paul,
Thank you for everything you're doing. It can't be easy to be such a public figurehead for Uniden. I know we're rough, I think that we live in a world where most of our electronics are mini-pc's that are driven by software. It can't be easy, I know. I used to work for a software company that wrote MPEG compression software in back in 2001. Lots of bugs, lots of complaints, but yes, that's how changes got made.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[mrkelso]

That Upman is ok in my book and i have a best seller.

 

[Burninglight10]

Thank You Upman for all that you do, and making yourself available to those of us who use Uniden Products. You are definetly to be commended for standing up, listening to many complaints and working to make things right. Not many companies make themselves available on the internet like you do.

 

[K8LEA]

Stu, I know where you're coming from. I used to work doing technical support for a major computer company, and as you said, some of the things you run into are hilarious! Two of my favorites that I encountered were a couple of customers, one who had a broken "cup holder" on their computer, and the other who called in wanting to know what the "floor pedal" was for! The broken "cup holder" turned out to be the cdrom drive tray and the "floor pedal" was the mouse!

bama:

Then there was the secretary type who needed to format a floppy one afternoon. Back in the day when FORMAT didn't ask if you were sure.... Right, the default was "C". The particular PC wasn't too critical, but I was in TX at the time.... In those days you tended to have backups .... Another trip, the CMOS on a PC got flaky, and it forgot about the HD's specs. Service tech didn't understand, and decided he had to low-level the thing. Again, good backups, except for some stuff from ADP (the payroll people), and we were able to recover that easily enough. (Again, I was out of town. That'll teach me to take a vacation .)

I also relate the story, probably apocryphal, that another local Consultant told me. A client decided to see what was on that floppy he'd paid $70 for. So, he did a DIR, and then ran everything. Did pretty well until he hit FORMAT.... (I had a client with a "user" who liked to lean on the ESC key. Clipper didn't like that at all....)

Sorry to hijack the thread, guys, but if you haven't done "help desk", you may find some of this stuff hard to believe. I expect that Paul could tell a few, too, but may not want to get specific. Some of us classics could still be here ....

Regards,

 

[bkantor]

Short feedback - Paul is awesome, does his best to represent his company and products and I am very appreciative of having him on our forums. Kudos to any company that puts a representative in the heart of the hobby to listen to their customers - regardless of good or bad (and sometimes rude!) feedback. THANKS PAUL!!

Bob

 

[jkahn]

Paul has done and continues to do a fantastic job as the contact point for things that need to fixed, suggestions for the future and rarely ever gets upset at things some people say when they are frustrated and try to take it out on Uniden and/or him personally. He also monitors many forums and scanner related lists to offer assistance when he can.

Paul: Thanks for all you do.