Whistler Fake News

[SCPD]

Well .. those that know me well, know that I am hard on both Uniden and Whistler at the same time. If that offends you .. stop reading now as you likely cannot handle it. :wink:

I can sum it up in 1.3 sentences .. Uniden wins in performance and Whistler wins in features, definitely customer service, and user interface design (homepatrol excepted). Done. If you wanted a review .. there you have it.

Prove me wrong .. or this is truly fake news.

I am broken .. as who wants to use a scanner that you cannot figure out how to make it work. So Whistler for the win in some regards as who wants to have to remember a ton of favorite list info. Mostly you just want it to work. Btw .. do not comment about LSM here.

But .. both manufacturers need to put their big girl panties on. This is the Whistler forum, I will concentrate on Whistler.

Oh btw .. a scanner is just a fancy receiver, if it does DMR or NXDN and scans at 280 channels a second, well who cares .. if it is a crappy receiver.

Oh .. before you challenge my background I have been an advanced level (extra class like) ham for over 2 decades and scanner user for almost 4. I do know a bit about how these things actually work as compared to just being able to push the buttons.

But .. I am not going to state that I know everything just cause I have been around the block a few times. One of my friends a former broadcast engineer and advanced level ham for longer than some of you have been alive confirmed my thoughts exactly last night.

At the table yesterday discussing this scanner issue .. well over 150 years of rf experience.

I will just state, the scanners we had back in the 1980's perform better than the ones we have now. Done.

Remember the Pro 200x series (I still use one 24/7) and Bill Cheek and how they were just wonderful scanners that 'just worked' doing the one thing first and foremost .. picking up the desired signals. We have lost a lot of that as we moved forward. Am I wrong ?

Like .. what good is a scanner that will not make any noise ?

I experienced exactly that yesterday .. cause my WS-1095 quite simply just caved under the pressure.

As I drove closer towards the city .. nothing. The scanner was silent.

It was a weeping mess of crying rf incompetence.

Oh .. the fix if you do not want to read further, using a 2m / 70 cm (146 / 440 MHz) duckie inside the tin can that is my vehicle .. so likely about 20 dB less rf hell than with the Maxrad below. You should understand that my desired signals are in the 800 MHz band.

I knew the only answer .. to reduce the signals hitting the scanner cause it was screaming out in sheer pain. Actually it was not screaming anything, like a horror movie with no horror.

Oh .. before you say, use the global attenuation .. sorry, you need to fix the problem before the antenna as the radio is already pretty much overwhelmed and that GA did not do a darn thing to fix the problem.

That is why the old school scanners have good shielded metal cases on them btw. Pull out your old school scanner and have a look inside it sometime.

Btw .. do not drop your Uniden .. it will likely break. At least my PSR-800 etc can at least take a hit.

Whistler really needs an updated PSR-500 .. just with all the modern bells and whistles you all want. Me .. I am already in line.

I give my Icom IC-R7000 a hug right about now.

For those that are hams .. the above is like using a 1.2 GHz antenna on 2m. I think that you get it.

Just a bit of info .. I was using a Maxrad 800 MHz low profile antenna on a mag mount (I do not want to drill holes in my car in case you care to ask) and nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to my install.

Just power, external speaker (I soldered that long 15 ft cable so that was not the cause of the no audio issue), programmed SD card and antenna etc.

First .. love love the scanner mobile. It is wonderful, as the install was very nice and relatively easy. I live in a bad area of town .. so a discrete and almost invisible install was a requirement. No ram mounts or visible scanner parts was a priority. Everything is hidden.

But .. I am not going to bore you with all the technical crap as to why this is, but if you want to .. read about it here. Just Stuff

So .. I have lost many by now. The thing .. you have to ask yourself, what good are all the wonderful features in a scanner when it will not do its fundamental job well. Yes .. picking up signals. Oh .. and not only any signals, the desired signals. :wink:

But I see on Radio Reference that there are many that get it .. and some that do not. Some come to mind, Boatanchor (who thinks like me btw), Dr Sherman (who you will likely see on the Uniden forum and has returned ALL his Whistler scanners cause they just did not work), and well a few others that are pretty harsh like me on the manufacturers.

You may see I have been here for over a decade, and have owned probably more scanners than many. Yes .. the dreaded scanner disease.

You have to ask why I am so harsh on them ?

Well simple. Cause they do not work and the scanner manufacturers need to get back to the fundamentals and realize what is JOB 1, as all the fancy features are worthless if the radio does not any noise.

Edit .. depending on your needs, you can sometimes filter things .. but it is a scanner and most of us want to use several bands making filtering a tough thing to do. But where I live at home .. some VHF frequencies cause me issues, and as a result .. a nice notch filter to take care of them.

I have 2 radios on my desk that put ALL Whistler scanners to shame and yes, they are over 30 years old. Oh .. at the repeater location for my local ham club all the equipment is like a ride down antique row. Why .. cause newer is not always better.

Those radios sitting here .. Pro 2001 from 1978, and Icom IC-R7000 from the 80's. Both are absolutely rock solid receivers.

One of my friends refuses to buy a Whistler .. ever. He always tells me that they suck in the performance area. Sadly .. he is mostly correct on that one.

However .. in a few weeks I am going to try to convince on of my friends to allow me to take his TRX-2 out for a little mobile test. That will tell me if Whister has improved at all lately.

In fact .. Whistler needs to get back to one thing first and foremost (making a scanner that receives well) rather than blowing sunshine up our *****.

So .. are you accepting of mediocre performance in your scanner or do you just want one that looks pretty ?

My broadcast engineer friend said to me something along the lines .. "why I use a duckie on my 1095 in my house". Yes .. when mine was in my house, the same thing. That in itself is pretty sad, as well .. this thing is designed to be mobile if you so choose. Something as I found out yesterday .. it mostly failed at. But .. you would never know it was there, so no one is likely going to steal it.

Oh ... any of you can come ride in my car and we can see if the Whistler actually works or if it is all just fake news.

 

[K2KOH]

Well written, and well said. I have a TRX-2 sitting at my computer desk right now, I'm also in a relative;ly rural county, so no problem hearing what I want. But in the car is a 436. I will say, you're making me want to drag my Icom 7100 out and use that!

 

[SCPD]

Well .. those that know me well, know that I am hard on both Uniden and Whistler at the same time. If that offends you .. stop reading now as you likely cannot handle it. :wink:

I can sum it up in 1.3 sentences .. Uniden wins in performance and Whistler wins in features, definitely customer service, and user interface design. Done. If you wanted a review .. there you have it.

Prove me wrong .. or this is truly fake news.

I am broken .. as who wants to use a scanner that you cannot figure out how to make it work. So Whistler for the win in some regards as who wants to have to remember a ton of favorite list info. Mostly you just want it to work. Btw .. do not comment about LSM here.

But .. both manufacturers need to put their big girl panties on. This is the Whistler forum, I will concentrate on Whistler.

Oh btw .. a scanner is just a fancy receiver, if it does DMR or NXDN and scans at 280 channels a second, well who cares .. if it is a crappy receiver.

Oh .. before you challenge my background I have been an advanced level (extra class like) ham for over 2 decades and scanner user for almost 4. I do know a bit about how these things actually work as compared to just being able to push the buttons.

But .. I am not going to state that I know everything just cause I have been around the block a few times. One of my friends a former broadcast engineer and advanced level ham for longer than some of you have been alive confirmed my thoughts exactly last night.

At the table .. well over 150 years of rf experience.

I will just state, the scanners we had back in the 1980's perform better than the ones we have now. Done.

Remember the Pro 200x series (I still use one 24/7) and Bill Cheek and how they were just wonderful scanners that 'just worked' doing the one thing first and foremost .. picking up the desired signals. We have lost a lot of that as we moved forward. Am I wrong ?

Like .. what good is a scanner that will not make any noise ?

I experienced exactly that yesterday .. cause my WS-1095 quite simply just caved under the pressure.

As I drove closer towards the city .. nothing. The scanner was silent.

It was a weeping mess of crying rf incompetence.

Oh .. the fix if you do not want to read further, using a 2m / 70 cm (146 / 440 MHz) duckie inside the tin can that is my vehicle .. so likely about 20 dB less rf hell than with the Maxrad below. You should understand that my desired signals are in the 800 MHz band.

I knew the only answer .. to reduce the signals hitting the scanner cause it was screaming out in sheer pain. Actually it was not screaming anything, like a horror movie with no horror.

Oh .. before you say, use the global attenuation .. sorry, you need to fix the problem before the antenna as the radio is already pretty much overwhelmed and that GA did not do a darn thing to fix the problem.

That is why the old school scanners have good shielded metal cases on them btw. Pull out your old school scanner and have a look inside it sometime.

Btw .. do not drop your Uniden .. it will likely break. At least my PSR-800 etc can at least take a hit.

Whistler really needs an updated PSR-500 .. just with all the modern bells and whistles you all want. Me .. I am already in line.

I give my Icom IC-R700 a hug right about now.

For those that are hams .. the above is like using a 1.2 GHz antenna on 2m. I think that you get it.

Just a bit of info .. I was using a Maxrad 800 MHz low profile antenna on a mag mount (I do not want to drill holes in my car in case you care to ask) and nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to my install.

Just power, external speaker (I soldered that long 15 ft cable so that was not the cause of the no audio issue), programmed SD card and antenna etc.

First .. love love the scanner mobile. It is wonderful, as the install was very nice and relatively easy. I live in a bad area of town .. so a discrete and almost invisible install was a requirement. No ram mounts or visible scanner parts was a priority. Everything is hidden.

But .. I am not going to bore you with all the technical crap as to why this is, but if you want to .. read about it here. Just Stuff

So .. I have lost many by now. The thing .. you have to ask yourself, what good are all the wonderful features in a scanner when it will not do its fundamental job well. Yes .. picking up signals. Oh .. and not only any signals, the desired signals. :wink:

But I see on Radio Reference that there are many that get it .. and some that do not. Some come to mind, Boatanchor (who thinks like me btw), Dr Sherman (who you will likely see on the Uniden forum and has returned ALL his Whistler scanners cause they just did not work), and well a few others that are pretty harsh like me on the manufacturers.

You may see I have been here for over a decade, and have owned probably more scanners than many. Yes .. the dreaded scanner disease.

You have to ask why I am so harsh on them ?

Well simple. Cause they do not work and the scanner manufacturers need to get back to the fundamentals and realize that is JOB 1, as all the fancy features are worthless if the radio does not any noise.

I have 2 radios on my desk that put ALL Whistler scanners to shame and yes, they are over 30 years old. Oh .. at the repeater location for my local ham club all the equipment is like a ride down antique row. Why .. cause newer is not always better.

Those radios sitting here .. Pro 2001 from 1978, and Icom IC-R7000 from the 80's. Both are absolutely rock solid receivers.

One of my friends refuses to buy a Whistler .. ever. He always tells me that they suck in the performance area. Sadly .. he is mostly correct on that one.

However .. in a few weeks I am going to try to convince on of my friends to allow me to take his TRX-2 out for a little mobile test. That will tell me if Whister has improved at all lately.

In fact .. Whistler needs to get back to one thing first and foremost (making a scanner that receives well) rather than blowing sunshine up our *****.

So .. are you accepting of mediocre performance in your scanner or do you just want one that looks pretty ?

My broadcast engineer friend said to me something along the lines .. "why I use a duckie on my 1095 in my house". Yes .. when mine was in my house, the same thing. That in itself is pretty sad, as well .. this thing is designed to be mobile if you so choose. Something as I found out yesterday .. it mostly failed at. But .. you would never know it was there, so no one is likely going to steal it.

Oh ... any of you can come ride in my car and we can see if the Whistler actually works or if it is all just fake news.

I sold my BCD-436HP because it works horrible on Airband and 400MHZ especially the 440-450mhz ham band.The display is also hard to read on the BCD-436HP.Another issue that the Uniden had was it couldnt work due to the vehicle computer noise in our Nissan car,so going mobile was impossible.(noises and birdies)What I think is you have no idea what you are talking about,I have had many radios in my life and am also a technician.If I put the scanners head to head in my house,they both perform decent,I'm not going to lie about that.I prefer the Bigger display on the Whistler TRX-1 ,which looks awesome with capital letters!Its louder,clearer and does not require Microsoft .NET framework which is extremely hack-able and makes your PC vunerable to outsiders,thats one program I don't want on my computer.EZ-SCAN is much nicer and simpler to use to me anyway.You have your preference I have mine. I like the look and feel of the TRX-1 case over the cheap plasticy case on the 436HP. Dont get me wrong Uniden has some nice scanners,I like the 996XT.I have not owned a TRX2 as of yet so Im not going to babble about a radio I havent had but at least when Whistler does updates like NXDN decode I dont have to get my wallet out and pay Uniden $50 or $100 dollars to update something that should have came with my scanner!And Whistler listens to its customers on What you as a consumer want on firmware. The TRX1 is louder in my opinion and it has a more radio-like sound to it,like I'm listening to a Motorola or commercial radio.Why you put this on a Whistler forum to me only means you actually want a Whistler.....Whats the thing about 150 years experience ?I didnt get that....By the way a duckie on a base scanner is silly,it comes with a BNC collapsible antenna,but for a base,if you are serious you should use an external antenna Uniden or Whistker.The 536Hp sounded muddy to me,I am not going to touch that right now but what a joke verses my 996XT that I had....

 

[SCPD]

Sounds like you just wanted to bash Uniden. Moving on.

 

[ScannerSK]

However .. in a few weeks I am going to try to convince on of my friends to allow me to take his TRX-2 out for a little mobile test. That will tell me if Whister has improved at all lately....

Oh ... any of you can come ride in my car and we can see if the Whistler actually works or if it is all just fake news.

I tested a TRX-2 in the Denver area only to find the entire VHF band still swamped by up to S5 noise on every frequency from 108 MHz well up to 220 MHz (while using a 2-meter antenna mounted on my vehicle). The squelch on the TRX-2 has been vastly improved over previous models in the sense that it does not open on this wide band noise. However, the TRX-2 receiver on the other hand still appears to suffer just as severely as did the PSR-600 and similar Whistler models in the reception of VHF signals while near RF rich environments. The Uniden scanners I have tried do not exhibit these same issues. The Uniden scanners do not reveal wide band interference being received across the entire VHF band and they are capable of receiving weak signals well in identical locations where the TRX-2 receives nothing (due to the desired signals being entirely swamped by wide band white noise). Personally, I'm not convinced the TRX-2 does any better than previous models in the area of reception (at least in the VHF spectrum). I think some of this may be "perceived" simply due to the fact that the squelch is no longer as sensitive to unwanted interference as it once was.

I agree. Uniden wins when it comes to performance. As for features the GRE/Whistler scanners win in my books as well between the two.

Shawn

 

[garys]

I had a Pro 197 that I used at home. It worked fine because I don't live in a big city and the cell tower a quarter of a mile from my house didn't cause interference.

OTOH, several of the ambulances that I worked in had PSR 600 scanners. I worked in a city and found that the 800Mhz trunk system used by the MA State Police was very often overwhelmed with interference from other 800 users. That was mostly after the Nextel - Public Safety frequency swap, so that wasn't it.

Even with the attenuator turned on, the system sometimes was unlistenable.

That said, I did like the list organization of the OOS more than the Uniden system. That's the one big feature I like about the GRE/RS/Whistler design.

I also liked, the PSR800 I had the loan of for a couple of months. Unfortunately, that was just about the time GRE went belly up, but well before Whistler had bought the scanner line, let alone actually put them into production. If they had got the PSR900 design into production soon enough, I might well have one of those in my truck instead of a 536HP.

The bottom line is that both product lines have nice features and work pretty well. We're fortunate to have two competing companies, because competition often drives new and improved products.

 

[bigcam406]

All due respect but having read many posts concerning your locations RF issues, dont you think its time to maybe move on? We get it. Your area sucks for montoring. You have mentioned many times about the amount of encryption in your area. Why criticize a product manufacturer about their products when your location is the problem. There a lot of satisfied customers on these forums that use both Uniden and Whistler products and yes, each have certain quirks and shortcomings, but overall, the vast majority are satified with their purchase. As you have said previously many times, your location sucks for scanning, so why dont you just leave it at that and move on?

 

[milcom_chaser]

.

Well .. those that know me well, know that I am hard on both Uniden and Whistler at the same time. If that offends you .. stop reading now as you likely cannot handle it. :wink:

I can sum it up in 1.3 sentences .. Uniden wins in performance and Whistler wins in features, definitely customer service, and user interface design (homepatrol excepted). Done. If you wanted a review .. there you have it.

Prove me wrong .. or this is truly fake news.

I am broken .. as who wants to use a scanner that you cannot figure out how to make it work. So Whistler for the win in some regards as who wants to have to remember a ton of favorite list info. Mostly you just want it to work. Btw .. do not comment about LSM here.

But .. both manufacturers need to put their big girl panties on. This is the Whistler forum, I will concentrate on Whistler.

Oh btw .. a scanner is just a fancy receiver, if it does DMR or NXDN and scans at 280 channels a second, well who cares .. if it is a crappy receiver.

Oh .. before you challenge my background I have been an advanced level (extra class like) ham for over 2 decades and scanner user for almost 4. I do know a bit about how these things actually work as compared to just being able to push the buttons.

But .. I am not going to state that I know everything just cause I have been around the block a few times. One of my friends a former broadcast engineer and advanced level ham for longer than some of you have been alive confirmed my thoughts exactly last night.

At the table yesterday discussing this scanner issue .. well over 150 years of rf experience.

I will just state, the scanners we had back in the 1980's perform better than the ones we have now. Done.

Remember the Pro 200x series (I still use one 24/7) and Bill Cheek and how they were just wonderful scanners that 'just worked' doing the one thing first and foremost .. picking up the desired signals. We have lost a lot of that as we moved forward. Am I wrong ?

Like .. what good is a scanner that will not make any noise ?

I experienced exactly that yesterday .. cause my WS-1095 quite simply just caved under the pressure.

As I drove closer towards the city .. nothing. The scanner was silent.

It was a weeping mess of crying rf incompetence.

Oh .. the fix if you do not want to read further, using a 2m / 70 cm (146 / 440 MHz) duckie inside the tin can that is my vehicle .. so likely about 20 dB less rf hell than with the Maxrad below. You should understand that my desired signals are in the 800 MHz band.

I knew the only answer .. to reduce the signals hitting the scanner cause it was screaming out in sheer pain. Actually it was not screaming anything, like a horror movie with no horror.

Oh .. before you say, use the global attenuation .. sorry, you need to fix the problem before the antenna as the radio is already pretty much overwhelmed and that GA did not do a darn thing to fix the problem.

That is why the old school scanners have good shielded metal cases on them btw. Pull out your old school scanner and have a look inside it sometime.

Btw .. do not drop your Uniden .. it will likely break. At least my PSR-800 etc can at least take a hit.

Whistler really needs an updated PSR-500 .. just with all the modern bells and whistles you all want. Me .. I am already in line.

I give my Icom IC-R7000 a hug right about now.

For those that are hams .. the above is like using a 1.2 GHz antenna on 2m. I think that you get it.

Just a bit of info .. I was using a Maxrad 800 MHz low profile antenna on a mag mount (I do not want to drill holes in my car in case you care to ask) and nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to my install.

Just power, external speaker (I soldered that long 15 ft cable so that was not the cause of the no audio issue), programmed SD card and antenna etc.

First .. love love the scanner mobile. It is wonderful, as the install was very nice and relatively easy. I live in a bad area of town .. so a discrete and almost invisible install was a requirement. No ram mounts or visible scanner parts was a priority. Everything is hidden.

But .. I am not going to bore you with all the technical crap as to why this is, but if you want to .. read about it here. Just Stuff

So .. I have lost many by now. The thing .. you have to ask yourself, what good are all the wonderful features in a scanner when it will not do its fundamental job well. Yes .. picking up signals. Oh .. and not only any signals, the desired signals. :wink:

But I see on Radio Reference that there are many that get it .. and some that do not. Some come to mind, Boatanchor (who thinks like me btw), Dr Sherman (who you will likely see on the Uniden forum and has returned ALL his Whistler scanners cause they just did not work), and well a few others that are pretty harsh like me on the manufacturers.

You may see I have been here for over a decade, and have owned probably more scanners than many. Yes .. the dreaded scanner disease.

You have to ask why I am so harsh on them ?

Well simple. Cause they do not work and the scanner manufacturers need to get back to the fundamentals and realize what is JOB 1, as all the fancy features are worthless if the radio does not any noise.

Edit .. depending on your needs, you can sometimes filter things .. but it is a scanner and most of us want to use several bands making filtering a tough thing to do. But where I live at home .. some VHF frequencies cause me issues, and as a result .. a nice notch filter to take care of them.

I have 2 radios on my desk that put ALL Whistler scanners to shame and yes, they are over 30 years old. Oh .. at the repeater location for my local ham club all the equipment is like a ride down antique row. Why .. cause newer is not always better.

Those radios sitting here .. Pro 2001 from 1978, and Icom IC-R7000 from the 80's. Both are absolutely rock solid receivers.

One of my friends refuses to buy a Whistler .. ever. He always tells me that they suck in the performance area. Sadly .. he is mostly correct on that one.

However .. in a few weeks I am going to try to convince on of my friends to allow me to take his TRX-2 out for a little mobile test. That will tell me if Whister has improved at all lately.

In fact .. Whistler needs to get back to one thing first and foremost (making a scanner that receives well) rather than blowing sunshine up our *****.

So .. are you accepting of mediocre performance in your scanner or do you just want one that looks pretty ?

My broadcast engineer friend said to me something along the lines .. "why I use a duckie on my 1095 in my house". Yes .. when mine was in my house, the same thing. That in itself is pretty sad, as well .. this thing is designed to be mobile if you so choose. Something as I found out yesterday .. it mostly failed at. But .. you would never know it was there, so no one is likely going to steal it.

Oh ... any of you can come ride in my car and we can see if the Whistler actually works or if it is all just fake news.

...

 

[CycleSycho]

Well .. those that know me well, know that I am hard on both Uniden and Whistler at the same time. If that offends you .. stop reading now as you likely cannot handle it. :wink:

Oh ... any of you can come ride in my car and we can see if the Whistler actually works or if it is all just fake news.

:wink: Most descript and WELL said! :wink:

One of the best posts of (my) recent history! I agree with all your frustrating experiences generally experienced/disclosed.

When will the FCC stop changing everything associated with a hobby that has been around since the ability to receive? I suspect NEVER. Allowing complicated formats to be implemented based on the availability of capability (or not), or to be convinced this or that system is better (or more secure), this even more so lately, is why this hobby is now so expensive/complicated. There are too many systems/formats across the country, period!

 

[SCPD]

All due respect but having read many posts concerning your locations RF issues, dont you think its time to maybe move on? We get it. Your area sucks for montoring. You have mentioned many times about the amount of encryption in your area. Why criticize a product manufacturer about their products when your location is the problem. There a lot of satisfied customers on these forums that use both Uniden and Whistler products and yes, each have certain quirks and shortcomings, but overall, the vast majority are satified with their purchase. As you have said previously many times, your location sucks for scanning, so why dont you just leave it at that and move on?

I live in Canada, just like you .. so remember you could be next. If you think that Ontario is not going to be hit with the encryption issue .. it is likely coming to you too.

Sure I may be critical .. but wait til someone moves in next to your house and none of your scanners work due to their poor design. Then maybe .. you will be just like me. Besides .. if you are so upset with my posts, there is the ignore list.

Oh .. btw, a mobile environment is hardly my location, that is the scanner at work. Unless you live in the country .. it is just how it is in the city. Btw .. I am not the only one .. just most of the others have dumped their Whistler / GRE scanners and moved on to Uniden.

 

[bigcam406]

As you have duly noted, yes, i do live in Canada. The area is called the Golden Horseshoe, which basically considered the area around the western tip of Lake Ontario. All the municipalities have swtched to p25 systems and all law enforcement is encrypted. My region ( Durham) has had law enforcement encrypted since Nov 1999. So yes, i do know about encryption. Even our regions fire dept is encrypted. I have a cell tower across the street from my residence, approx 100 meters away. Does it cause problems? Yes. Am i going to blame the scanner manufacturer for the issues? Nope. Just keep on scanning to the best of my numerous scanners abilities. I have read numerous posts of yours, and while i agree with what you say 99 percent of the time, i have to say this time that i cant really agree with your original post.

 

[Forts]

Agreed on the PSR-500 point! I have a Pro-106 semi-permanently mounted in my work vehicle that I use 5 days a week for at least the last 7/8 years now and it's a rock star. I've tried to replace it (twice) with a Uniden 436 and just couldn't do it... I can practically run the PSR without any need to look at the keypad, and other than a few really dense RF areas it works great. I also have a WS-1088 that is mainly used for DMR because (a) not a super big fan of the interface and (b) it and the 106 both suck with anything simulcast (which thankfully I don't have much of in my immediate area).

For me it's become the norm to carry 2, 3 or even 4 radios with me on any sort of trip... a scanner for searching and dedicated radios for what I might want to listen to (IE Moto/Hytera gear for DMR and Moto/Harris gear for P25). It's a pain... but it provides the best results. Oh how I long for the day when a scanner would perform well across all modes. But, as you mentioned it seems the manufactures went cheap-o on the construction (shielding/RF etc) and are slow to adopt to better technology (IQ decoding for LSM, etc). Surely one of the two will take the plunge and make a receiver that actually performs with simulcast. If they do, customers will come in droves... assuming everything isn't encrypted by then.

 

[SCPD]

Ok .. do I need to buy you a double double and some timbits so we can talk without words.

But how is driving down the freeway yesterday in my perfectly installed Whistler scanner .. and it not making a PEEP not relevant to this forum ?

This thread is not about my home QTH, my past posts, encryption or anything else. Time to move past that ... this is about whether the scanners work with what could be considered a normal install in a vehicle. Period.

That in itself makes this relevant. I did not have a high gain antenna or something that would lay the blame on my install .. just a couple of typical antennas.

I do not consider my situation to be that out of the ordinary as to what some may face in many cities.

I will be honest, there is a reason why I prefer and mostly use commercial radio gear. Something about it just working. But a commercial radio is not a scanner .. thus this conversation.

If you do not want to read my posts .. fine, I have 0 issues with that. I already posted the solution above, feel free to use it and I encourage it.

But some do want to read about the scanners, and this is the correct place. Btw over my 14 years here I have helped dozens and dozens of scanner listeners with their technical issues in many different cities across the continent and most often off of the forums.

I often do not want to help everyone cause of people that have nothing polite to say. However .. am I am going to stop riding the manufacturers to improve their products .. not likely. Or else I will just dump all the scanners and use commercial gear exclusively.

I think that if you think that the dead scanner scenario could not happen to any of us .. that is just plain being in denial.

If someone reads this post and says .. hmm, my scanner is dead and receiving nothing and this is how I could fix it, then my typing is not in vain.
For some ... that att button may work, and some .. as in my case, it will not.

I get that many are happy .. but the manufacturers need to understand that unless they improve their designs, they are going to have many more problems going forward as things are not going to get any better.

Or do we just all need to move to rural areas .. ? But the trend is the opposite.

So 20 or 30 dB of attenuation on the antenna jack would fix the problem too but I do not want to have to spend more money on something that fundamentally is a design issue.

If it was me .. I would have a custom made variable attenuation circuit on my scanner and that is likely how I will do things going forward. But not for today.

The final thought .. just like Jerry Springer, is that my scanner today works almost perfectly. So .. unlike those that said above that I do not know what I am talking about, somehow I think I do or else I would be contacting Amazon or someone else and returning the scanner as we speak. I will let that speak for itself.

edmscan

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Well .. those that know me well, know that I am hard on both Uniden and Whistler at the same time. If that offends you .. stop reading now as you likely cannot handle it. :wink:

I can sum it up in 1.3 sentences .. Uniden wins in performance and Whistler wins in features, definitely customer service, and user interface design (homepatrol excepted). Done. If you wanted a review .. there you have it.

Prove me wrong .. or this is truly fake news.

I am broken .. as who wants to use a scanner that you cannot figure out how to make it work. So Whistler for the win in some regards as who wants to have to remember a ton of favorite list info. Mostly you just want it to work. Btw .. do not comment about LSM here.

But .. both manufacturers need to put their big girl panties on. This is the Whistler forum, I will concentrate on Whistler.

Oh btw .. a scanner is just a fancy receiver, if it does DMR or NXDN and scans at 280 channels a second, well who cares .. if it is a crappy receiver.

Oh .. before you challenge my background I have been an advanced level (extra class like) ham for over 2 decades and scanner user for almost 4. I do know a bit about how these things actually work as compared to just being able to push the buttons.

But .. I am not going to state that I know everything just cause I have been around the block a few times. One of my friends a former broadcast engineer and advanced level ham for longer than some of you have been alive confirmed my thoughts exactly last night.

At the table yesterday discussing this scanner issue .. well over 150 years of rf experience.

I will just state, the scanners we had back in the 1980's perform better than the ones we have now. Done.

Remember the Pro 200x series (I still use one 24/7) and Bill Cheek and how they were just wonderful scanners that 'just worked' doing the one thing first and foremost .. picking up the desired signals. We have lost a lot of that as we moved forward. Am I wrong ?

Like .. what good is a scanner that will not make any noise ?

I experienced exactly that yesterday .. cause my WS-1095 quite simply just caved under the pressure.

As I drove closer towards the city .. nothing. The scanner was silent.

It was a weeping mess of crying rf incompetence.

Oh .. the fix if you do not want to read further, using a 2m / 70 cm (146 / 440 MHz) duckie inside the tin can that is my vehicle .. so likely about 20 dB less rf hell than with the Maxrad below. You should understand that my desired signals are in the 800 MHz band.

I knew the only answer .. to reduce the signals hitting the scanner cause it was screaming out in sheer pain. Actually it was not screaming anything, like a horror movie with no horror.

Oh .. before you say, use the global attenuation .. sorry, you need to fix the problem before the antenna as the radio is already pretty much overwhelmed and that GA did not do a darn thing to fix the problem.

That is why the old school scanners have good shielded metal cases on them btw. Pull out your old school scanner and have a look inside it sometime.

Btw .. do not drop your Uniden .. it will likely break. At least my PSR-800 etc can at least take a hit.

Whistler really needs an updated PSR-500 .. just with all the modern bells and whistles you all want. Me .. I am already in line.

I give my Icom IC-R7000 a hug right about now.

For those that are hams .. the above is like using a 1.2 GHz antenna on 2m. I think that you get it.

Just a bit of info .. I was using a Maxrad 800 MHz low profile antenna on a mag mount (I do not want to drill holes in my car in case you care to ask) and nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to my install.

Just power, external speaker (I soldered that long 15 ft cable so that was not the cause of the no audio issue), programmed SD card and antenna etc.

First .. love love the scanner mobile. It is wonderful, as the install was very nice and relatively easy. I live in a bad area of town .. so a discrete and almost invisible install was a requirement. No ram mounts or visible scanner parts was a priority. Everything is hidden.

But .. I am not going to bore you with all the technical crap as to why this is, but if you want to .. read about it here. Just Stuff

So .. I have lost many by now. The thing .. you have to ask yourself, what good are all the wonderful features in a scanner when it will not do its fundamental job well. Yes .. picking up signals. Oh .. and not only any signals, the desired signals. :wink:

But I see on Radio Reference that there are many that get it .. and some that do not. Some come to mind, Boatanchor (who thinks like me btw), Dr Sherman (who you will likely see on the Uniden forum and has returned ALL his Whistler scanners cause they just did not work), and well a few others that are pretty harsh like me on the manufacturers.

You may see I have been here for over a decade, and have owned probably more scanners than many. Yes .. the dreaded scanner disease.

You have to ask why I am so harsh on them ?

Well simple. Cause they do not work and the scanner manufacturers need to get back to the fundamentals and realize what is JOB 1, as all the fancy features are worthless if the radio does not any noise.

Edit .. depending on your needs, you can sometimes filter things .. but it is a scanner and most of us want to use several bands making filtering a tough thing to do. But where I live at home .. some VHF frequencies cause me issues, and as a result .. a nice notch filter to take care of them.

I have 2 radios on my desk that put ALL Whistler scanners to shame and yes, they are over 30 years old. Oh .. at the repeater location for my local ham club all the equipment is like a ride down antique row. Why .. cause newer is not always better.

Those radios sitting here .. Pro 2001 from 1978, and Icom IC-R7000 from the 80's. Both are absolutely rock solid receivers.

One of my friends refuses to buy a Whistler .. ever. He always tells me that they suck in the performance area. Sadly .. he is mostly correct on that one.

However .. in a few weeks I am going to try to convince on of my friends to allow me to take his TRX-2 out for a little mobile test. That will tell me if Whister has improved at all lately.

In fact .. Whistler needs to get back to one thing first and foremost (making a scanner that receives well) rather than blowing sunshine up our *****.

So .. are you accepting of mediocre performance in your scanner or do you just want one that looks pretty ?

My broadcast engineer friend said to me something along the lines .. "why I use a duckie on my 1095 in my house". Yes .. when mine was in my house, the same thing. That in itself is pretty sad, as well .. this thing is designed to be mobile if you so choose. Something as I found out yesterday .. it mostly failed at. But .. you would never know it was there, so no one is likely going to steal it.

Oh ... any of you can come ride in my car and we can see if the Whistler actually works or if it is all just fake news.

I am in agreement about receiver performance. Having owned an ICR-7000 and now an ICR-9000, I know those radios have varactor tuned front ends. Although they receive "DC to light", ICOM set out to manufacture the best wide coverage receiver they could.

Unfortunately with this sophistication on hand, I could not monitor the 800 Smart net systems in my localities (3 cities in Florida). So my monitoring was done with Motorola STX and Spectra (I have special skills). Both great radios built for single band performance.

Now more recently my County left me by the wayside and turned on P25 phase 2. So the Spectra is now spare parts for another project.

I had to get a Uniden BCD 536HP. I chose that model because it is built in a nice metal box. It is very sensitive and tolerates the LSM pretty well, but not perfectly. But I also know that to meet a price point, the RF front end is built to "modern standards". It is sad because the additional parts count to build an ICR-9000 grade receiver cannot be that great. Heck a DSP IF demodulator wouldn't be too difficult.

But that is what we are stuck with today.

I would suggest that mobile users going into urban areas might want to invest in a 700/800 MHZ bandpass filter and a second ICOM or similar scanner for VHF and UHF conventional scanning.



Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[scosgt]

I have to agree about Whistler scanners.
They don't work for beans in a car.
Have been down the NJ Turnpike with a PRO-668 and a 996T side by side, both in the back and run via remote.
996T chatters away, PSR-668 silent with some occasional static.

 

[n4jri]

Overall, I'd say give these folks a chance. I think that the Uniden 436 is a nightmare to operate, but its development does indicate a willingness on Uniden's part to listen to the minority of their customers who can't be satisfied with a Home Patrol and want a real radio that they can use to make their own discoveries.

Ditto for Whistler, who have made a pretty serviceable unit in the TRX-1 from the grossly inflexible PSR-800 platform. It was GRE's attempt at a Home Patrol, and Whistler's updates represent a turn back towards the desires of more advanced scanner users. No, it's not as flexible with some of its trunking options, and it doesn't give us search ranges as scannable objects, but it's progress compared to the PSR800 and the Home Patrol.

But they are sensitive radios with very wide front ends and some wacky stuff is to be expected. I don't think that we can expect too much more from this particular platform.

I agree that we need to return to the thinking that produced the PSR-500 and restore some of the features that made it so powerful, and that Whistler is taking note of this very thing--otherwise wouldn't have the TRX-1...which isn't perfect, but which does represent a decent radio to use until a better model is produced.

I would like to see the PSR-500's feature set returned completely, and it's interface returned as much as possible--given that we're not going to return to the days of Win500 and it's superior organizing power. Put that in the TRX-1's compact package with the current audio recording capability, and you have one powerful radio.

The feature I miss the most is having Search and Sweeper ranges programmed as scannable objects, which can be stacked up to do surgical searches while also scanning some of the findings, not to mention saving the squelch data with one button push.

Whistler seems poised to listen, and I hope they're listening now. Recent updates have been terrific improvements. I am hopeful for better receiver performance on the next model.

73/Allen (N4JRI)

 

[Machria]

Reading that post is similar to reading many of the internet jokes online regarding 3rd graders school papers teachers found funny. Most of it, doesn't even have a meaning or make any sense?

Interesting enough, you jumped all over me for complaining about the current user interfaces, as if I had committed a crime. And now you post this?? LOL!!

Btw .. I am not the only one .. just most of the others have dumped their Whistler / GRE scanners and moved on to Uniden.

Funny, I just dumped my Uniden piece of JUNK, and got a Whistler and I'm absolutely thrilled with that decision. FYI, I love in close proximity to NYC and often transit the city. Wanna talk RF activity? I have not had any issues at all in the city. I find the receiver about the same as the uniden.

 

[SCPD]

If there .. is one thing to take away from this 'the fake news channel' is that no one is being a hater. Though there are always some that will say things and tell me to ******.

Most of all, I will still listen to my scanners tomorrow no matter what anyone says and we will hopefully all have a bit of fun doing it. I think that is what Lindsay intended when he created this place.

The real deal would be if Donald J would tweet about his wonderful new Whistler scanner. I think Whistler Wendy should send him a free one (just not a 1095) so we get him into the hobby and we can make a thread about it.

Until then .. this is as fake as it gets.

Please pass the Timbits boys ..

 

[Redneck0410]

I picked up a WS1040 and a Uniden BCD996P2 both within the last week. I am happy to report both work just as they should. Although, the Uniden has far superior audio quality (meaning it pretty much sounds like what an actual P25 radio sounds like). Im not a "fanboy" of any of the scanner manufacturers, as there are features from one manufacturer that another may not have. I just want equipment that functions. Another advantage Uniden has over the Whistler is it mutes any encrypted transmissions. Anyhow, enough of this horse crap. Pass me the coffee.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[eorange]

Well .. those that know me well, know that I am hard on both Uniden and Whistler at the same time. If that offends you .. stop reading now as you likely cannot handle it. :wink:

I empathize with you. This hobby has become complicated and frustrating as more systems move away from analog, and as scanner manufacturers are unable to keep up with our expectations.

Those expectations being: analog always worked.