Uniden BCT15X Performance

[xantegh]

Team,

How can I test the performance of my scanners? I have a total of 4 scanners, 2 BCT15X and 2 BC125AT which sometimes I intentionally run them on the same frequency bank. I have noticed lately that when a BC125AT detects activity on a frequency and open squelch, it's only after 3-4 seconds that a BCT15X open its squelch.

any help?

 

[jonwienke]

A few observations:

1. Unless you are feeding every radio the same signal from a single antenna, you're testing antenna placement and performance more than radio performance.
2. Make sure squelch is set as low as possible on each radio, without hanging on static.
3. Different radios have slightly different scan rates, even if they are the same model. If it takes ~5 seconds to scan your list, then if it's been a few minutes since the last transmission, each radio can be anywhere in that list, and it will be a crapshoot which one pics it up first. If it's only been a few seconds, the fastest scanning radio will hit first.

 

[buddrousa]

You could always buy a communications service monitor a sinader and a few more test tools and test them.

 

[a417]

park them all on the same channel w/ squelch closed to take the scanning rate out of the equation.

 

[Ubbe]

Put all scanners locked on the same frequency, an ATIS for air or NOAA for 160MHz or a continuos control channel in other frequency bands, and try to find a weak transmission when you compare. Also check closecall and other prio settings if there are differencies between scanners.

At least on the BCT15x you'll see on the display how it scans the lists in normal scan mode, if it stays too long on a list due to the hold time being set too long or other settings that are out of the mormal.

/Ubbe

 

[xantegh]

A few observations:

1. Unless you are feeding every radio the same signal from a single antenna, you're testing antenna placement and performance more than radio performance.
2. Make sure squelch is set as low as possible on each radio, without hanging on static.
3. Different radios have slightly different scan rates, even if they are the same model. If it takes ~5 seconds to scan your list, then if it's been a few minutes since the last transmission, each radio can be anywhere in that list, and it will be a crapshoot which one pics it up first. If it's only been a few seconds, the fastest scanning radio will hit first.

Thank you @jonwienke for the prompt reply. I will check the squelch and monitor.
w.r.t point #1, I have all scanners fed from the same antenna thru Stridsberg Engineering multicoupler (MC204)

 

[xantegh]

Put all scanners locked on the same frequency, an ATIS for air or NOAA for 160MHz or a continuos control channel in other frequency bands, and try to find a weak transmission when you compare. Also check closecall and other prio settings if there are differencies between scanners.

At least on the BCT15x you'll see on the display how it scans the lists in normal scan mode, if it stays too long on a list due to the hold time being set too long or other settings that are out of the mormal.

/Ubbe

Thank you @Ubbe