What to do with the BCD536HP?

[wk5h]

I purchased the BCD536HP primarily for one thing, and that was to use the Siren app to be able to leave my scanner at home attached to an external antenna, and be able to listen on my iPhone from work or while mobile.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the Siren app is probably not going to come to fruition. It was a great idea, and would've worked great for what I wanted to do... but, just doesn't look like it's going to happen IMO. From what I've read, just seems like there's just way too many problems with the wifi dongle and too much dormant time for the app since it was supposed to be released till now.

So, that leaves me with a BCD536HP I bought for ~$600. I don't need Phase II, and I still want a desktop with a serial port . I've also grown annoyed with having to write to the SD card all the time just to make 1 or 2 changes, and it's pretty much impossible to make any changes to the radio unless you're physically in front of the scanner and computer, even when using RDP.

I'm thinking of moving to the BCD996XT, running FreeSCAN (only software I've found so far that has a working IOS app) and then streaming the audio via ScannerCast.

I've come to the conclusion that with selling the BCD536HP, I'm going to loose probably $150-200 off what I initially paid; I might be able to recoup enough out of it to buy a new 996XT; not sure at this point, just pretty sure I'm going to loose money on this.

Does this sound like a feasible plan, or anyone else have a better but similar setup?

 

[firemantom26]

How much would you want to sell it for?

 

[JamesO]

I purchased the BCD536HP primarily for one thing, and that was to use the Siren app to be able to leave my scanner at home attached to an external antenna, and be able to listen on my iPhone from work or while mobile.

Its not clear, but I do not think the Siren App ever was designed to allow remote access beyond either an AdHoc or LAN connection??

I may be wrong, but this was my take on things.

Being able to operate the scanner remotely and listen to if outside of the local LAN environment is not an trivial task.

Might want to read the Siren info a bit closer.

If I am wrong, I will be very surprise if WAN remote and monitoring is offered.

 

[wk5h]

Its not clear, but I do not think the Siren App ever was designed to allow remote access beyond either an AdHoc or LAN connection??

Here's the part of the video where I was taking from Uniden that you'd be able to listen to the scanner from the Siren app from anywhere within internet access. Although, it's about the only spot I've found where they mention this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zGPEEGw5NzE#t=995

 

[tsalmrsystemtech]

I purchased the BCD536HP primarily for one thing, and that was to use the Siren app to be able to leave my scanner at home attached to an external antenna, and be able to listen on my iPhone from work or while mobile.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the Siren app is probably not going to come to fruition. It was a great idea, and would've worked great for what I wanted to do... but, just doesn't look like it's going to happen IMO. From what I've read, just seems like there's just way too many problems with the wifi dongle and too much dormant time for the app since it was supposed to be released till now.

So, that leaves me with a BCD536HP I bought for ~$600. I don't need Phase II, and I still want a desktop with a serial port . I've also grown annoyed with having to write to the SD card all the time just to make 1 or 2 changes, and it's pretty much impossible to make any changes to the radio unless you're physically in front of the scanner and computer, even when using RDP.

I'm thinking of moving to the BCD996XT, running FreeSCAN (only software I've found so far that has a working IOS app) and then streaming the audio via ScannerCast.

I've come to the conclusion that with selling the BCD536HP, I'm going to loose probably $150-200 off what I initially paid; I might be able to recoup enough out of it to buy a new 996XT; not sure at this point, just pretty sure I'm going to loose money on this.

Does this sound like a feasible plan, or anyone else have a better but similar setup?

I went back to two BCD996XT and a BCT15X and sold my two BCD536HP for 560.00 bucks each. Never looked back. All the stress of figuring out when Uniden was going to release the app doesn't matter anymore as well as all of those radio were not built right and still have hardware related issues which firmware upgrades will not fix. Dump it and move on. Uniden knows these radios have issues that's why Paul from Uniden does not know what to say at this point.

 

[pyro424]

I do not understand what the attraction is of listening to your home scanner when out. When I am home sure I will sit and listen to my base scanner with base antenna. But when I am out with a portable or mobile scanner then that is part of the fun. I want to hear what is happening around me not what is happening at home. Sure a lot of the time I might be monitoring the same frequencies if I am close to home. That is part of the fun though. To see how the coverage is inside the local walmart. Or if I go further from home then of course I start thinking of new things to listen to that I would not from home. Besides that the whole idea of listening with a cell phone or some device seems so finicky and unreliable. I WANT to be playing with a real radio not a cell phone.And what if there was a real emergency or severe weather etc and the cell phones / internet was down anyways? That is why we have radios in the first place. I just could not imagine going around with ear buds in trying to listen to some online broadcast of my home scanner or any scanner for that matter. Someone please explain to me what the attraction of this is. Is there something I am missing? Why not carry a radio on your belt?

 

[mancow]

Ask all the users of proscan. The uses are too numerous to list. My main one is the ability to listen while at work where signals don't reach the inside of the building.

 

[wk5h]

I do not understand what the attraction is of listening to your home scanner when out. When I am home sure I will sit and listen to my base scanner with base antenna. But when I am out with a portable or mobile scanner then that is part of the fun. I want to hear what is happening around me not what is happening at home. Sure a lot of the time I might be monitoring the same frequencies if I am close to home. That is part of the fun though. To see how the coverage is inside the local walmart. Or if I go further from home then of course I start thinking of new things to listen to that I would not from home. Besides that the whole idea of listening with a cell phone or some device seems so finicky and unreliable. I WANT to be playing with a real radio not a cell phone.And what if there was a real emergency or severe weather etc and the cell phones / internet was down anyways? That is why we have radios in the first place. I just could not imagine going around with ear buds in trying to listen to some online broadcast of my home scanner or any scanner for that matter. Someone please explain to me what the attraction of this is. Is there something I am missing? Why not carry a radio on your belt?

Well, for me, I already carry my personal phone, work phone, computer, and misc other items back and forth from work to home every day; i don't wanna lug one more thing around with me, and have one more piece of tech gear littering my desk.

The area I want to monitor, I can pick up everything from my house with the antenna I have outside. I also have several other jobs I do other than my 8-5, one of which involves working on a farm. Again, I don't like cluttering up my work space, and since I already carry my phone with me, it'd be nice not to have a scanner hanging off of me or rattling around in a tractor cab.

And not to offend anyone who does... but I'm not about to go walking around with a police scanner flopping around off my belt.... just not gonna do it.

It'd be nice to be able to listen when I want to without having to have the scanner right there on me, when I already have a phone that could stream the audio to me.

*edit* also, the building I work in has crap reception for anything wireless. When I first got the 536, I brought it to work with me one day to tinker with when I had time, and I couldn't pick up crap from inside. So, a scanner at work, would be a waste of time.

 

[ofd8001]

Its not clear, but I do not think the Siren App ever was designed to allow remote access beyond either an AdHoc or LAN connection??

I may be wrong, but this was my take on things.

Being able to operate the scanner remotely and listen to if outside of the local LAN environment is not an trivial task.

Might want to read the Siren info a bit closer.

If I am wrong, I will be very surprise if WAN remote and monitoring is offered.

You might look at the Product Announcement video on YouTube. I'm pretty sure Upman was saying you could listen to your scanner "Anywhere in the world as long as you had interent connectivity". I think this is quite similar to being able to watch your home security cameras via internet.

As for the "Will we ever see it" discussion, there's a lot more at stake than just having a feature we can use with our scanners.

I'd think one of the last things Uniden wants is a reputation for promising something that they don't deliver. Especially now that they have a competitor on the horizon. That kind of thing would come back and haunt them in the future.

So I'm quite certain Uniden is going to move Heaven and earth to make the Siren App happen because they do want to protect their good reputation. But there are third party vendors they can't control.

 

[JamesO]

Here's the part of the video where I was taking from Uniden that you'd be able to listen to the scanner from the Siren app from anywhere within internet access. Although, it's about the only spot I've found where they mention this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zGPEEGw5NzE#t=995

I see what was said in the video, but much of the other printed material that I looked at was not that specific, actually some of it was a bit vague in my opinion. This is the exact quote from the Uniden web site for the scanner that I just copied "Plus, the Wi-Fi feature lets you use the exclusive Uniden Siren App on your smartphone or tablet to access your scanner from anywhere in your home or vehicle." Nothing really in the owners manual about the App or where and how you access the scanner.

Sure it can be done, would be a nice feature, and I hope this does get sorted out at the end of the day, but again, interesting how you need to hear about the feature on a YouTube video and it is not clearly stated in the product description or users manual. Overall I do not put a lot of stock in YouTube videos because anyone can post these. Might be different if a major vendor posts their national or regional TV commercials on YouTube. If the Official Uniden website actually had a section of cataloged imbedded videos, I might give it a bit more clout, but when the videos promise something that is not consistently documented elsewhere, it does give someone a reason to pause and wonder who is in charge and what promises are real.

Maybe this is what the Uniden web site being down is about, something to do to get ready to support the 536HP remote App??

Unless there is some centralized way to allow an easy connection, then this could be a challenge for many of the end users?

I have a Weather Station that has an Internet connection and the set up was pretty much idiot proof. There is a gateway in the house that connects to the Internet via an Ethernet cable and then the gateway receives wirelessly from the wireless Weather Station display head. Quite a bit of daisy chain from the outdoor wireless gear all the way to a central manufacturers portal.

I can remotely see my Weather Station, however, I have to log into the vendors portal and then I can see my Weather Station. For extra money I can get longer term trend data and graphs, however,the software was so poorly written and the graphing scales were so bad, I was not going to pay for the service. I can say that overall the connection of the weather station was simple and seems to have been very stable.

I expect that Uniden will be looking at some way to make some additional cash having the scanner connect somehow to their portal?? But who knows?

Just interested to see how well the audio and the scanner display sync. This is the problem with many streaming scanners, there is no display to know what you are really listening to.

Anyway I am hoping for some good things to come from the Siren App, just would be nice if the features were very specifically spelled out in the mainstream documentation.

 

[ProScan]

Ask all the users of proscan. The uses are too numerous to list. My main one is the ability to listen while at work where signals don't reach the inside of the building.

Ask if who's using ProScan to remote control a BCD536HP and listen with an iPhone? My ProScan Web Server feature was tested with my iPhone 5s using the Chrome browser. Safari / IOS 7 is a step backwards with bugs introduced and will require too many work-arounds so ProScan doesn't support Safari at this time.

 

[mikewazowski]

Gentlemen, please keep in mind all Buy, Trade and Sell must be done in the Classifieds.
Please do not post anymore trade offers in this thread.
Thanks.

 

[jdobbs2001]

Is Whistler really working on a new scanner? I suspect its just gonna be a repackaged model with some tweaks.

I doubt anything interesting will come out of it.

 

[Hooligan]

While all of us dissatisfied with both the bugs in the 536 as well as false-promises Uniden made (Siren, etc) could sell off the radios & let so e other poor person deal with the BS, I think the better solution is to hold Uniden legally responsible for the defective product, & issue full refunds.

 

[mancow]

Ask if who's using ProScan to remote control a BCD536HP and listen with an iPhone? My ProScan Web Server feature was tested with my iPhone 5s using the Chrome browser. Safari / IOS 7 is a step backwards with bugs introduced and will require too many work-arounds so ProScan doesn't support Safari at this time.

I was replying to Nighthawk424's post but should have quoted. I was replying to his asking why anyone would want to listen remotely.

 

[mancow]

Is Whistler really working on a new scanner? I suspect its just gonna be a repackaged model with some tweaks.

I doubt anything interesting will come out of it.

The remote face 900 was never released so.... it's a new product in that sense.