Uniden - UPMan, time to give it up !

[MTS2000des]

All that said. I have one of each and they work fine here in SO CAL. the hand hels is so sensitive I use it all over the city of LA monitoring the LAPD with a TINY 3 inch flexable wire antenna (I borrowed it from a lectrosonic wireless transmitter) and i hear way more than I need to, the local simplex operations are tough to monitor but anything going through a repeater is very good sounding. The LAPD is a wide area non trunked apco 25 system.
The La county sheriff is another dept that is received very well on both the 436 and 536.

Neither of those systems are 700/800MHz trunking systems utilizing CQPSK-LSM modulation, which is what many of us in other parts of the country have, and are the subjects of the horrible reception. IIRC the LAPD system is all UHF T-band P25 phase 1 using C4FM, not CQPSK-LSM. Huge difference in how a simple disc. tap based receiver will behave on such a system. Huge.

As to WHY this is has been explained very well by people like KA1RBI. In short, it is the HARDWARE design on the receiver and it's use of discriminator tap to get raw audio off the discriminator and feed it to the vocoder. The waveform itself is too distorted for the vocoder to deal with the raw bit errors in the stream. The lack of a proper I/Q demodulator is why these scanners are so poor at dealing with CQPSK-LSM, which has been part of the P25 standard for over 15 years.

No amount of "improvements" short of a complete overhaul of the front end using an I/Q stage will give across the board acceptable to good performance under most conditions when receiving CQPSK-LSM. No amount of DSP trickery can make up for garbled data sent to a vocodoer.

Garbage in=garbage out. No way around it.

 

[Hit_Factor]

Uniden -UPMan

It's pretty clear that the 536HP has major design issues,hardware and firmware. You limit the functionality of your Sentinel Software to where it's almost required to buy Butel's ARC536. As of today Butel delayed release their software because " issues with the reliability of USB/serial port on the 436/536".
There is no sign of the Siren Wifi App. No beta,nothing. No talk of the Analyze Mode,no beta ,nothing.

Is the design of the 536HP so bad that we may never see a fully functioning scanner ?

There has been 'sign' of the siren app, you'll need to search the forums to find it. Not having a 536, it wasn't a priority for me.

I'm pretty sure analyze is a firmware function and that it's also been discussed. It's coming, but that doesn't reflect on quality, it's a promised feature.

Pinning a 3rd party software developer issues on Uniden is a little bit of a stretch in my opinion. I've been running ARC536 and there are problems and features not yet implemented that have little to do with problems in the serial driver. The serial driver probably only effects the VC, I'll admit I am guessing.

I have a 436 and it's meets all of my expectations. I'm stepping up from a PSR-500. Sure there are some user interface flaws in Sentinel and a couple things I would like fixed in the 436 firmware. Nothing is a show stopper, not even close with the 436.

 

[KevinC]

Ok, I'll bite...

My BCD436HP works awesome on Phase 1 and 2 7/800 simulcast. I can be in full capture of a single subsite, deep in overlap of several subsites or on the fringe of the simulcast and it just works. I have 7 simulcast sites I can monitor (total of about 70 subsites) and it works on all of them.

I know this doesn't help the people that are having problems, but it's just puzzling to me why mine works and others seem to be having major issues.

 

[dkf435]

I must thank the brave souls that have gone before me and done the ultimate $600 sacrifice to get there new Uniden boat anchors. Thank you for the Beta Testing.

Now I just hope the PSR900 gets off the ground.

Psst .....go look at Ebay the last few auctions this month for the Psr 800s are up in the $400- $480 and even one for $599. Should I sell a few or just hoard my collection???

David Kb7uns

 

[bberns22]

I must thank the brave souls that have gone before me and done the ultimate $600 sacrifice to get there new Uniden boat anchors. Thank you for the Beta Testing.

Now I just hope the PSR900 gets off the ground.

Psst .....go look at Ebay the last few auctions this month for the Psr 800s are up in the $400- $480 and even one for $599. Should I sell a few or just hoard my collection???

David Kb7uns

Do like I did - run of them with your car - makes a funny video...

 

[garys]

It seems to me that it's the same small group of people complaining about every new scanner. As someone else pointed out, there was a ton of pressure on Uniden and Paul to get this to market.

People reported a hardware issue with the headphone jack on the 536 and Uniden reproduced the problem, found the cause, developed a fix, and are now recalling and repairing the scanners.

Other people found problems with audio decoding and other issues and here it is about a month after sales started and a firmware maintenance has been released.

I think some people just have unrealistic expectations. By far most of the reports here and other places say that these are great radios. A friend of mine that occasionally stops by here send me an email and said that he sold his PSR800 because the 436HP blows it away on the Austin/Travis County system. That's a hard system to monitor and my 396XT was practically useless there.

I'm planning to buy a 436HP in early April. I expect to have no problem programming or operating it.

Having used both EZScan and Sentinel, I will say that neither is a particularly intuitive program to use. I've said before that both companies should concentrate on hardware and sub out their programming applications. Even at that, I've bought ARC53 and am getting used to it.

 

[MStep]

Hey guys (and gals) --- you guys are the pioneers in the world of scanners--- you are blazing the path for others to follow. I was more conservative and waited a year or so before buying my HP-1 so that I was pretty confident that the bugs were worked out. But there is always a price to pay when you want to be on the forefront--- my guess is that most of the issues can be worked out with firmware changes. But these things take time. So rather than b**tching and moaning about all the is wrong with the these new units, be patient and contribute constructive criticism and suggestions so that problems can be properly addressed. I applaud those who went ahead and purchased these units sight unseen. I have a lot of faith that Uniden will eventually get most of these kinks worked out. It might take weeks or months to address some of these issues, so patience is paramount. Just my 2 cents.

 

[MTS2000des]

--- my guess is that most of the issues can be worked out with firmware changes. But these things take time.

I and others have already pointed out the design flaw in the 436/536 in regards to CQPSK-LSM simulcast reception, and firmware or DSP will not fix it. It's a technical fact.

If you choose to believe the fairy tale that it will "get better" in time with future firmware updates, then I have some ocean front property in the greater Memphis/Shelby county, Tennessee area I can make you a great deal on.

 

[yaesumofo]

I and others have already pointed out the design flaw in the 436/536 in regards to CQPSK-LSM simulcast reception, and firmware or DSP will not fix it. It's a technical fact.

If you choose to believe the fairy tale that it will "get better" in time with future firmware updates, then I have some ocean front property in the greater Memphis/Shelby county, Tennessee area I can make you a great deal on.

Just go buy a Motorola or Harris radio and be done with it!!


Sent from the moon using the x12c.

 

[Ghstwolf62]

Just go buy a Motorola or Harris radio and be done with it!!


Sent from the moon using the x12c.

Exactly!!!

 

[Skypilot007]

Just go buy a Motorola or Harris radio and be done with it!!


Sent from the moon using the x12c.

Seems to be to only reliable option for P-25 Phase II CQPSK-LSM type systems at this point in time...

Thankfully for me it's a couple more years until our county migrates to a new system like this. Maybe the Uniden scanners will be redesigned by then and actually work as advertised. Or maybe the Whistler products will have been designed properly. If not I guess I'll be adding some APX radios to the collection.

 

[scover5555]

Mounted my new 536 in my new car, $599 for the scanner and $37,995 for the car. However they just sit in my garage because I'm waiting on software updates so that the 8th cylinder in the engine fires and the transmission will shift out of 1st gear. Because of these issues they have pushed back the software that will make the radio/Cd player work. It's all good though because I bought and paid for both before they were released for sale to the public.

 

[detroit780]

Firmware

Have you rushed out and purchased one of these scanners? If not why not? Rather than tell the owners they are impatient for expecting for something they purchased to work as advertised.
I don't think anyone is impatient expecting the Analyze function to work. It was advertised and still isn't included in the last firmware upgrade. Is that impatient?
Why not go purchase one and show us your patience? Help Uniden out a little here and give them some money and become a paid beta tester so they can continue to develop this scanner?
The more they sell the more money they will have to finish development. Come on help is all out and purchase one today, maybe 2 or 3?

Hey guys (and gals) --- you guys are the pioneers in the world of scanners--- you are blazing the path for others to follow. I was more conservative and waited a year or so before buying my HP-1 so that I was pretty confident that the bugs were worked out. But there is always a price to pay when you want to be on the forefront--- my guess is that most of the issues can be worked out with firmware changes. But these things take time. So rather than b**tching and moaning about all the is wrong with the these new units, be patient and contribute constructive criticism and suggestions so that problems can be properly addressed. I applaud those who went ahead and purchased these units sight unseen. I have a lot of faith that Uniden will eventually get most of these kinks worked out. It might take weeks or months to address some of these issues, so patience is paramount. Just my 2 cents.

 

[SCPD]

I know

Mounted my new 536 in my new car, $599 for the scanner and $37,995 for the car. However they just sit in my garage because I'm waiting on software updates so that the 8th cylinder in the engine fires and the transmission will shift out of 1st gear. Because of these issues they have pushed back the software that will make the radio/Cd player work. It's all good though because I bought and paid for both before they were released for sale to the public.

Must be a chevy! My friends Tahoe never worked in 3rd gear.
The 536hp works if you put a delay of 2 in a p25 system,try it.

 

[n2pqq]

Must be a chevy! My friends Tahoe never worked in 3rd gear.
The 536hp works if you put a delay of 2 in a p25 system,try it.

YOU ARE 100 PERCENT CORRECT !


I put a 2 second delay on the Rockland county public safety communications system.

Rockland County Public Safety Communications System Trunking System, Rockland County, New York - Scanner Frequencies

The radio is now working correctly on that system.

It was if the radio was just bypassing everything without the delay of 2 seconds.

 

[larry308]

I received my 436 0n the 7th (ordered on the 2nd of march). Programmed it and was happily surprised at the quality of the audio and the range it was picking up signals. The biggest problem I have is that it will NOT mute encrypted signals . The manual say's it does. It also has a habit of jumping from the list I'm listening to, to others that are turned off. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[racin06]

I'm extremely satisfied with my 436. However, I realize there may be a few people who are having issues with their x36 scanners. Though some of you guys are bellyaching way too much. There has never been a scanner released that didn't need some tweaking...either via firmware or settings. I'll be honest, I have to wonder how much of these problems are due to user error. Just saying...

 

[pinballwiz86]

I have a 7 year old daughter and a 6 year old stepson who whine less than this

We're just boys and our toys.

 

[MTS2000des]

Seems to be to only reliable option for P-25 Phase II CQPSK-LSM type systems at this point in time...

Yep, and I already own several Motorola radios setup using documented no-affiliate methods of scanning the local P25 DTRS' and am very happy.

These are not appropriate for all situations. For example, when traveling, I would LIKE a scanner, some states aren't all "warm and fuzzy" about transceivers programmed on LE/PS frequencies/systems, even as "RX" only. Scanners do not contain transmitters, and no "hacking" is required to program them.

But Uniden isn't interested in producing a modern, first rate product for P25 simulcast, as evidenced by their same, tired and ineffective discriminator tap designs. 10 pounds of dung in a 5 pound bag.

If Whistler actually DOES bring a competing product to market, hopefully they will use an I/Q section in the front end and knock our socks off. I could care less if it is the f-ugliest turd looking radios, IF IT USES A FOR REAL I/Q demodulator and decodes phase 2/LSM, I WILL BUY IT.

I am not holding my breath...back to shopping for a couple more APX portables.

 

[sfd901]

Many f you forget when the bearcat 101 first came out. Many problems. When theywere fixed it was fine