OK, I have considered myself to be somewhat of an expert at scanning, heck I even get paid for my expertise. But that doesn't prevent me from occasionally being a total idiot.
Three times this week I have crossed from a simple mistake to nearly complete idiocy. One more time and I may have to find a new job.
First, over the past few days as I drove around the Valley where I make my home I have found what seemed to be routine aviation operations on 121.500. At first I thought it was just a local tower pressing the wrong channel but then started hearing the aircraft respond the next day and the third. Eventually I figured out it was coming from Glendale Airport, some 25 miles SE of me.
I was thinking on the way home yesterday about posting this to the RR Forums but forgot by the time I got home.
I was hearing this on 2 different 996XT's as well as my 396XT. I couldn't hear the same traffic on my Icom in the car. Now I thought it was some sort of image on the Uniden's. I consulted my records and saw the actual tower freq there was 121.0. I then changed the Display Mode to show the freqs and sure enough I had it programmed wrong. Since I used the same file to program all 3 radios they all had the same error.
Lesson learned: Alpha Tags do not a frequency tell.
Second screw-up: I have several USB-1 cables I have acquired over the years. When Windows 8 came around and the "D" vs. "A" version issue came up I labeled them with "New" and "Old" so I could grab the right one, depending on what computer I was using. For some reason I could never get the "New" cable to work on my Windows 8 or 10 computers. I ran the CheckVersion utility and it wouldn't recognize any of the 3 cables.
This time I did start writing a lengthy post to the Uniden Forum but after a few hundred words I decided to do some more checking. I wanted to be sure about it before I made a fool of myself, and considering the track record of the week I was right.
This afternoon I was sorting thru some junque drawers and came up with a 4th cable. It worked like a champ in Windows 10, identified as an HX-D cable with the utility and had no label. It finally dawned on me what I did: I mislabeled one of my 3 HX-A old version cables and stashed away my only "D" version new cable. I then made sure it really worked and fired up ARC-XT on my Win 10 box and it worked like a champ.
Lesson Learned: Double check before labeling.
My third screw-up was a doozy. I had a customer call on the hotline with an issue with his 325. I grabbed mine and started walking him thru the steps. The further we went the more confused he got. One of the issues was setting the radio up for charging. I told him to make sure the tiny switch under the battery was flipped to the right so the radio would charge the batteries. He kept telling me his radio was missing the switch, it was just a blank spot. I just about had him pack off his radio for a return when I finally noticed I was holding my BC125AT. I sheepishly admitted my foul-up and we got his issue resolved quickly after that.
Lesson learned: Check model numbers on similar looking radios.
Hopefully next week will be less error prone.
Three times this week I have crossed from a simple mistake to nearly complete idiocy. One more time and I may have to find a new job.
First, over the past few days as I drove around the Valley where I make my home I have found what seemed to be routine aviation operations on 121.500. At first I thought it was just a local tower pressing the wrong channel but then started hearing the aircraft respond the next day and the third. Eventually I figured out it was coming from Glendale Airport, some 25 miles SE of me.
I was thinking on the way home yesterday about posting this to the RR Forums but forgot by the time I got home.
I was hearing this on 2 different 996XT's as well as my 396XT. I couldn't hear the same traffic on my Icom in the car. Now I thought it was some sort of image on the Uniden's. I consulted my records and saw the actual tower freq there was 121.0. I then changed the Display Mode to show the freqs and sure enough I had it programmed wrong. Since I used the same file to program all 3 radios they all had the same error.
Lesson learned: Alpha Tags do not a frequency tell.
Second screw-up: I have several USB-1 cables I have acquired over the years. When Windows 8 came around and the "D" vs. "A" version issue came up I labeled them with "New" and "Old" so I could grab the right one, depending on what computer I was using. For some reason I could never get the "New" cable to work on my Windows 8 or 10 computers. I ran the CheckVersion utility and it wouldn't recognize any of the 3 cables.
This time I did start writing a lengthy post to the Uniden Forum but after a few hundred words I decided to do some more checking. I wanted to be sure about it before I made a fool of myself, and considering the track record of the week I was right.
This afternoon I was sorting thru some junque drawers and came up with a 4th cable. It worked like a champ in Windows 10, identified as an HX-D cable with the utility and had no label. It finally dawned on me what I did: I mislabeled one of my 3 HX-A old version cables and stashed away my only "D" version new cable. I then made sure it really worked and fired up ARC-XT on my Win 10 box and it worked like a champ.
Lesson Learned: Double check before labeling.
My third screw-up was a doozy. I had a customer call on the hotline with an issue with his 325. I grabbed mine and started walking him thru the steps. The further we went the more confused he got. One of the issues was setting the radio up for charging. I told him to make sure the tiny switch under the battery was flipped to the right so the radio would charge the batteries. He kept telling me his radio was missing the switch, it was just a blank spot. I just about had him pack off his radio for a return when I finally noticed I was holding my BC125AT. I sheepishly admitted my foul-up and we got his issue resolved quickly after that.
Lesson learned: Check model numbers on similar looking radios.
Hopefully next week will be less error prone.
