Uniden 396 / Outstanding Bugs? ;)
- Thread starter b52hbuff
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Sounds more like a feature. And may not be possible to be fixed with current hardware...slicerwizard said:
If you'll remember the battery voltage indicator was an 'undocumented feature'. I wonder if this was intentional?
I'm no means a battery expert, but my understanding is that some of these charging algorithms require very careful measurement of battery voltage in order to know when battery is done charging. Perhaps the voltage sensor in the uniden isn't that accurate.
check this out:
http://www.thomasdistributing.com/maha-mh-c801d-details-win.htm
It features eight analog-to-digital converters with precision resolution at 0.001V (that’s one thousandth of a volt) per battery delivering just-the-right-charge.
Anyway, as has been mentioned many times before why treat a $500 scanner like a $50 battery charger? Why take the chance of a battery failure ruining the unit? Or even worse (and more probable), the slow death of extra heat from the battery charging?
...anyway, this is more like a feature and not a bug... The 14hr charger works as advertised in the manual...
...that confirms nothing. It just menas that they changed it.TedTed said:
What does the 396 manual say about how systems are ordered?
From memory, the ordering between the 246 & 396 are different. I know the 396 is in SQK order. I think the 246 is in system name order. I can change the ordering by manually editing the .usc files.
Which is why I was saking wolter why he was removing sqk's in the radio? If you're trying to do a 'temporary' lockout. You could easily assign multiple systems to a single SQK and simply disable systems you're not interested in. No need to remove the SQK assignment.
By "the latest" I mean their newer scanners, BCT15, 996, etc.
slicerwizard
Member
Cooking batteries is a feature? I have to wonder why you think it might be unfixable, since the A/D converter has more than enough resolution.b52hbuff said:
What are you getting at? What does that have to do with cooking batteries?
We aren't talking about knowing when a charge is done. We're talking about not initiating a charge (or maybe pro-rating it somewhat) when the batteries are sitting at about four volts UNDER LOAD.
We don't expect just-the-right-charge out of a scanner. We just want some intelligent design. It won't charge alkalines, even if you tell it to, but it will charge fully charged cells.
Still waiting for all that gloom and doom to take out my Pro-32, Pro-43's, 245, 246 and 396. All those Unidens out there with custom battery packs - where are all the horror stories? Odds are far higher that I'd eventually damage the battery door doing daily battery swaps.
Eh? The manual says nothing about what it does with batteries that don't need a charge. They carefully avoid mentioning this problem and Paul's official response has been that charging fully charged cells for an additional 14 hours will not harm them, even though enough of us have already seen what the true effects are.
So do you want defects with this model fixed or not?
slicerwizard said:
Where are the horror stories about battery doors being damaged?
http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showpost.php?p=203969&postcount=9
Because sometimes I want systems to be scanned without assigning them to a key. In fact, most of my systems are not assigned to a key for the reason below.b52hbuff said:
My radio is packed with systems that I use during my frequent travels througout the state of California. When I'm in a particular area (let's say 'Bakersfield'), it is MUCH easier to find "Bakersfield" by looking alphabetically through the list than trying to recall which of the 100 possible quick keys I assigned it.
With the potential of having hundreds systems assigned to any of the 100 possible quick keys, how many people will remember which key each system is assigned? Some people will say, "Just add the key number to the system's name." But this still does not address finding the system in a large database list because each system can be assigned a completely random quick key number. Turning though your lenghthy database list, how easy will it be to find a system when you don't recall which number it is assigned?
Sorting by system name rather than a random number solves the problem.
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slicerwizard
Member
I've seen enough (older) radios with the battery doors held on with tape. Plastic tends to get brittle as it ages. Sooner or later, instead of bending, the snaps just break.b52hbuff said:Where are the horror stories about battery doors being damaged?
http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showpost.php?p=203969&postcount=9
Not sure what point you're trying to make with the link - the author indicates that NiMH cells are quite safe, with the most likely failure mode being a defective rapid charger. And scanners don't do rapid charging, so??
slicerwizard said:
Glad I wasn't the only one, but then I would rather charge my batteries outside the radio, than take the chance of a mishap with batteries.
slicerwizard
Member
Another bug that has gone unfixed in the 246 and 396 - turning the scroll knob while monitoring a trunked system talkgroup will more often than not just dump you back on the same talkgroup, even though other unlocked talkgroups are active. Turning the knob is supposed to make the radio "scan" for other active, unlocked traffic, but it usually doesn't.
Given how trivial the fix is (lock out the current talkgroup for a second or two, find something else instead), they should've done it by now.
A related bug - when a voice comm drops and the scanner starts the talkgroup delay timer (I use two seconds to catch replies), the scroll knob does nothing - you can't get off the talkgroup. They can fix (some) DSP issues, but not this? Makes no sense.
Given how trivial the fix is (lock out the current talkgroup for a second or two, find something else instead), they should've done it by now.
A related bug - when a voice comm drops and the scanner starts the talkgroup delay timer (I use two seconds to catch replies), the scroll knob does nothing - you can't get off the talkgroup. They can fix (some) DSP issues, but not this? Makes no sense.
DavidNVA
Member
slicerwizard said:
I too find this pretty annoying and would like to see it addressed.
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