BCD436HP/BCD536HP: Volume issue after firmware update..

[DannB]

Maybe, and youarguee right a future update could probably have some effect or another on the audio.

My question is who does Uniden pi$$ off, the few who have found what they think is a radio audio issue, or the many who don't have a problem with their audio?

Someone obviously, isn't going to be happy with either choice.

Forget it . Forget it..
I'm not out to bad mouth uniden I have many of there products and love them.
But it's not my imagination that there is a difference in the radio from doing the update
But im done with this now..im not gonna argue this anymore with ya.

 

[duke018]

What is the maximum volume for the BCD436HP? Mine only goes to 15.

 

[DannB]

What is the maximum volume for the BCD436HP? Mine only goes to 15.

Yeah mine goes to 15 also. But it's just not that loud as it once was

 

[Jay911]

Hold the phone, back up the bus a sec.

It's clear that some people have this problem while others do not.

I am one of those who does not.

N0UDG pointed out in post #17 that "one of the changes that Uniden did in the Firmware update was to change the default modulation from NFM to FM on several frequency ranges to improve the digital decoding. However, as Baayers points out this may reduce the volume for certain stations."

To reiterate: the default modulation was changed from NFM to FM on several frequency ranges.

Signals that are transmitting in narrowband but are configured to receive in "normal" FM will sound quieter after this change is made. That's just how radio works. Every radio ever made will behave this way.

There is a user setting in Sentinel (Edit Profile, Band Defaults) and in the scanner itself (Menu, Settings, Band Defaults) which will allow you to choose the default settings for every band in your radio.

Every one of you who is complaining of the low volume "bug" needs to go into these settings, change them from "FM" to "NFM" for the band of a known "quiet" channel, and listen to see if it has improved.

These settings aren't something you need to change repeatedly, not even every week when the DB gets updated. Change it once in your profile and be done with it for good. I haven't had to change entries in the DB nor in any favorites lists. Only the profile settings had to be altered, and only once, globally.

All of my FM bands are set to NFM with the exception of 88-107.9 which is set to FMB (FM Broadcast). I have no problems hearing any signals, and in fact at 15 sometimes the radio is too loud. And I'm a firefighter who has been half-deafened by sirens and roaring diesels for ~25 years, so my hearing is not exactly perfect.

All of you demanding that Uniden fix this - Uniden has given you the tools to fix it yourself.

 

[DannB]

Then why does my 396xt blow away my 436 in volume loudness..across the board?

 

[Jay911]

Then why does my 396xt blow away my 436 in volume loudness..across the board?

Have you gone into the settings on your 436 and changed them from FM to NFM?

 

[DannB]

I have to go in and manually change everything to NFM. !! Are you kidding I didn't do that to my other units and they work fine

 

[Jay911]

You don't "have to" do anything. If you want it louder, change FM to NFM on twenty rows in the "Band Defaults" settings in your profile. That's it.

You didn't have to do this to "your other units" because they're "your other units", which the 436 is not.

Once you make those changes, get back to us on how it sounds. Bellyaching and resisting making the change won't make a difference, but turning your settings from FM to NFM will.

 

[DannB]

ill give it a shot

They are all set to "NFM" ...so next suggestion please.

 

[Jay911]

You can do it on the scanner. Press the Menu button, then scroll to Settings, then to Band Defaults. Once there, you will find a list of each band identified by its frequency range. When you enter a band (by pushing on the rotary knob or hitting E), you will be asked to set the modulation. Find the ones that say just "FM" on the list of bands, and change them from FM to NFM by scrolling and choosing it. Just hit E again (or push on the knob) when it asks for the step. There's more than one screen's worth of bands in the list - keep going until you don't see any more 'FM' items. When done, hit Menu as many times as necessary (3 or so) to go back to scanning.

 

[DannB]

I did that they were already set to NFM. So that's not the problem.

 

[Jay911]

I did that they were already set to NFM. So that's not the problem.

I can't offer any other suggestions, then, except maybe send it to Uniden to have them check it over for damage. Nothing Uniden has said about the firmware indicates anything in it, other than what I've said, would affect the audio level.

 

[DannB]

Well it did Change it ..iI'm not making it up..If only I could go back to the way it was out of the box..I guess I'll just pull out the trusty never gave me any issues BCD396XT..anyone want to by a 436hp make me a offer. Looks brand new bought it in Feb'14

Anywhoo thanks for the help, I appreciate it

 

[JamesO]

Regardless of bandwidth, the Volume offset should work and should work in a way it is noticeable.

I just checked my 436HP and only 2 bands had FM selected, I believe by default as I have not changed them. 72 MHZ and 174 MHz.

There may be more to all of this and I have been meaning to try to get to the bottom of this.

Not sure if my radio has an issue or not, but it was not very obvious about the Volume offset.

This being said my 996XT volume is rarely set more than 5-6 in the current configuration.

My 396XT is usually set between 7-10 most of the time, unless I am in the car and I may crank it up to overcome road and wind noise.

Additional info will be needed here.

People need advise if AGC is enabled on any of the "problem" radios. This by itself is a very open ended issue that I will hopefully be starting a thread on soon as it is totally unclear if the AGC works, there is no description on how is works/what the settings do and there are no examples or suggested settings. More on that one later.

I have yet to be able to try an experiment that should confirm the volume control with my radio. I will hopefully get to this later today or tomorrow.

 

[Jay911]

Offset is not a concern - you can only boost something to, not beyond, its maximum.

 

[baayers]

You don't "have to" do anything. If you want it louder, change FM to NFM on twenty rows in the "Band Defaults" settings in your profile. That's it.

You didn't have to do this to "your other units" because they're "your other units", which the 436 is not.

Once you make those changes, get back to us on how it sounds. Bellyaching and resisting making the change won't make a difference, but turning your settings from FM to NFM will.

This was something that I tried in the beginning as well with no luck. When you build a favorites list based on the RRDB it brings over and uses whatever the modulation setting is in the database. This is why I suggested the steps I posted several posts back. When I made the changes to channels I was experiencing issues with my audio went back to the way it should be. For those who don't want to do this by hand its just a couple of clicks in Sentinel.

Here in California CHP is still on 42MHz and using FM modulation and the 436 scanner handled it just fine out of the box with the newest FW. My issue was with several local PD's that had been narrowbanded but the database had not been updated to show the change. After correcting the modulation setting they went from quiet at 15 +3 to extremely loud to the point I set the channels back to +0.

At least IMO since most of the RRDB is correct most people don't have any issues with volume but where it is wrong it exists

 

[OregonScanner]

My volume offset does not work. All of the frequencies that I happen to have volume offsets on have the correct modulation type selected in sentinel. I do not rely on the built in database just my own custom programming. The freqs in my scanner that are set to NFM really are narrowband and the freqs set to FM really are wideband.

 

[JamesO]

There are 2 separate issues being discussed in this thread.

Overall Volume Level AND Volume Offset for the 436HP scanner.

The 2 items may or may not be related, but this thread my need to be split and/or members need to be VERY clear on what issue they are concerned about.

I received my 436HP with Firmware Version 1.03.00 already installed, so I cannot comment on any perceived maximum Volume differences between different Firmware versions. Also it may be possible that Uniden may or may not have done something with the Volume steps between firmware versions or like many things maybe there are problems with speakers or amplifiers that are degrading after some short period of time. All I can say is my 436HP is reasonably loud enough. I will try to closely compare to my 396XT at some point, but for now, I am assuming there is not a maximum Volume problem/issue with my 436HP. I can say the Keybeep is VERY loud on my 436HP when the Volume is set to max and this is the Keybeep set to Auto. So this seems to confirm that I think my 436HP seems to be working as expected.

I did some experimenting only on my 436HP with the Firmware Version 1.03.00. I did not try these tests with my 536HP yet.

Also for the purposes of my tests, there was no AGC turned on or enabled. AGC is a WHOLE different discussion for the X96 and x36 radios that needs to be discussed IN DETAIL and we need to somehow figure out of the ACG actually WORKS on these radios and HOW. No clear discussion about how each setting functions or examples on how to set the AGC are anywhere that I have looked. Maybe I have missed the AGC pot of gold somewhere??

First anyone that is trying to "fix" or "correct" for a highest/loudest Volume deficiency using a positive (+) Volume Offset is going about things the wrong way. I have set up a NOAA Weather channel with a 0 and +3 Volume Offset and compared the scanner max Volume by toggling between these 2 NOAA channels and the best I could tell the maximum Volume from the scanner was no different. This is what I would expect as the "Offset" is most likely just a software step that increases to Volume by up to +/- 3 fixed Volume steps. I assume when you get withing 3 steps of maximum Volume a + Volume offset is only capable to making an step adjustment up to the maximum Volume step. A +3 Volume Offset is basically "ignored" for the last 3 maximum Volume steps.

One to the Volume Offset experiment.

I make a new "Favorites List" and named it Weather. I then configured my best NOAA Weather frequency in 6 different configurations. I set up NFM and configured a -3/0/+3 Volume Offset and named each configuration as Weather NFM V-3, Weather NFM V0, Weather NFM V+3, Weather FM V-3, Weather FM V0, Weather NFM V+3. Then I put the scanner on Channel Hold so I could manually switch between the different NOAA configuration and see if the Volume Offset work and how much of a difference the IF setting made in the overall Volume level.

What I found is on my scanner the Volume Offset did appear to work. I also found there is a Volume difference between using FM vs NFM. Overall the difference between FM and NFM was not that great, maybe about 2 Volume steps overall.

I did not use any soft of audio level meter, I could, but for this test did not think anything other than a subjective listening ear would be needed. I figured if the Volume Offset did not work, I would not need anything other than a good ear to confirm this.

So, at least with my 436HP scanner running Firmware Version 1.03.00 my Volume Offset appears to function and I believe function relatively correctly at least using a NOAA Weather channel as a "source". There was also about 2 Volume steps difference in the sound level between the FM and NFM setting.

Some may find differences in P25 systems, I have not tired or tested this yet. I was going to start maybe with a control channel if the scanner would open the squelch on the control channel or I may need to configure the channel as an Analog channel to listen to the control channel??

So for anyone that "thinks" their Volume Offset does not work, I suggest you test it similiar to my test and make sure the total scanner Volume is not set higher than 12 when you run the test, turn off all AGC and then report back your findings.

Consistency in testing and comparing will be required to determine if there is any soft of Volume Offset problem.

Also for the "total" Volume issues people are reporting, some way to compare and test will need to be identified, it may even involve bad loading the scanner Firmware, however, I do not know if this is a very easy thing to do.