The new BARECAT

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eaf1956

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Anyone else notice the typo in the startup screen on the new BCD536HP?

Uniden Barecat
BCD436HP/BCD536HP
Digital Trunking
Dynamic Scanning

And yes I changed mine after I noticed it. Although I did wonder about the terminology BARECAT....
 

JamesO

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Too funny, never bothered to pay enough attention to the boot screen as the backlight is not on when booting/starting up.

Just went and opened Sentinel and see that Barecat is programmed into Sentinel!!

Easy fix/change, BUT Uniden needs to correct this for the next Sentinel update as well!!!

Go to Edit, Edit Profile, Display Options and look at the opening screen info at the bottom of the screen and you will see "Barecat" plain as day!!

I purchased a very clean used 396XT and always wondered why the display showed 2 lines of Digital Trunking, then I realized the original owner must have changed the opening screen and forgot to reconfigure the Digital Trunking Dynamic Scanning message??

Some folks put their name and phone number or other info in the start screen as well.

But "Barecat" may have been a reference to the fact the unit was missing some "features" when delivered, might have been a funny programmer!!!

Hope they go easy on the person that did this, we may want to keep them around.
 

K2KOH

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Why does it have to be quality control? Could also be a smart *** in programming. It has happened before.
 

JamesO

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Why does it have to be quality control? Could also be a smart *** in programming. It has happened before.

^+1!

This is not a hardware or firmware issue. Also did this happen with EARLIER versions of Sentinel or did someone toss it in the latest version. Also you do not know who is writing the software, could be someone outside of the US with non native English and just made a mistake. Could be some smart *** programmer wondering how long before someone noticed and can just blame it on a typo.

Did the Beta testers have this same display and miss it?

Again, since the back light is not on during boot, I never really looked at it. Also my 536HP has probably only been turned on 2 times since I have owned it. Yes, it may have rebooted during firmware updates and when updating, but usually I am not paying careful attention to the unit during the boot time.

Overall I think it is pretty funny. Does not impact day to day operation, either a simple mistake or a devious programmer.
 

QDP2012

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Why does it have to be quality control? Could also be a smart *** in programming. It has happened before.

My family has owned Uniden products (and others) for years and think highly of them. Regardless of whether the company is Uniden, GRE, or any other company, the following applies:

Quality-Assurance/Quality-Control (QA/QC) in any company should have a comprehensive check-list of items to verify before a product and each of its subassemblies moves from the "testing" phase to the "production" phase. Random-sample testing at the end of the "production line" should re-verify the correctness of the product, using the same QA/QC checklist and additional checklists for a finished working product.

"A correct start-screen / splash-screen" should be one of the items on the lists.
  • Imagine if Microsoft Windows shipped with its splash-screen spelled "Mycrosfot Windoes".
  • Would you really trust a business that had a street-sign like "Grammer and Speling Tuttors and Expurts. Caul to shcedule an apoyntment"?

  • Wouldn't you begin to suspect that QA/QC was insufficient, and wonder about the product's or service's quality overall?
I know "Barecat" vs "Bearcat" is not a big deal, does not change product-behavior, is easily corrected by the end-user, and might have been done by a subcontractor by accident.

But it is an indicator of the quality of product-testing. To me it is not the same as some programmer putting a fun/harmless "easter-egg" into a software package. This typo happened in the "greeting" afterall, not in some obscure sentence in the back page of the owner's manual.

As far as employees are concerned, companies are supposed to have methods/systems in-place to protect the corporate-image from the employee who wants to joke-around or who might actually want to do the company-image harm. If the product worked perfectly in all other respects, then this typo-error would be easily dismissed as an odd fluke that some programmer might have tried to slip through just as a joke. When there are as many difficulties with the product as have been discussed in other threads here, it seems less like a joke, even if it does give the scanner-owner a good chuckle.

What's the poor sales-clerk in a local store supposed to say to the potential customer who turns on the display model and sees "Barecat" instead of "Bearcat"? "Oops"?
 
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KevinC

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Why does it have to be quality control? Could also be a smart *** in programming. It has happened before.

Because if it isn't quality control people can't complain about it.
 

QDP2012

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Because if it isn't quality control people can't complain about it.

Complaints happen because the end-users' expectations are not met, regardless of how well quality control has been implemented. In other forums/threads, I'm guessing you could find complaints about product design, (un-)wanted features, default color-settings, etc., regardless of quality control's verification that the product performs as advertised. In this situation, QC/QA should have caught it before production.
 
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15plus1

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Quality control makes sure that the final product is ready to ship to the customer. QC is supposed to catch all the flaws and smart a** programming issues. People paid alot of money for these scanners, and there was alot of hype spewed before they were offered for sale.. Many people bought sight unseen based on the word of a Uniden rep. and the subsequent reviews and reports of beta testers.
And the fact that the Uniden 'spokesperson' is no longer posting on these boards with the regularity as he was pre-release is odd... Gotta take the good with the bad...
And that post of a cat , well.... It speaks volumes to the ....
 

NWI_Scanner_Guy

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Barecat versus Bearcat? Yeah, someone goofed but it's not going to affect the performance of the scanner. Now, not having a working app yet, that could affect the perception that the 536 is worth all the pre-release hype, but that discussion is for a different thread.
 
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