Whistler Fake News

[ScannerSK]

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

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....

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.

Wow, my thoughts exactly. Recently, I took the time on the PSR-600 to remove the RF shields covering the RF input and band pass filters in an attempt to FIX the PSR-600 so that it would work properly in the VHF band. The short of the story is that no changes I have tried to date in the VHF band pass filter has helped. I did not attempt to turn down the gain of the front-end RF amplifier as all frequencies from 25-512 MHz feed into that amplifier and would be affected however that may be my next and best attempt. The only thing that helped was two variable potentiometers (around 5K or 10K) (one in series with the incoming signal and one in parallel between the scanner input and ground). This is really pathetic when Uniden scanners do not suffer from the same problem in the Denver area. But, I love the features of the GRE model so I keep it despite this issue. I'm also fortunate to live in a more rural setting and do not have to put up with this issue on a daily basis.

The ATT button did not help in my case either.

Shawn

 

[trentbob]

Fake news? No. It's Consumer Fraud.

With regard to phase 2 p25 the radios do not work. Maybe because of fixed location near a Tower it may work for somebody but nobody I know with the dozen-or-so systems in the tri-state area near me. There are those who will say using a paperclip and opening the squelch and standing in the corner of the house with a tinfoil hat on and getting 4 words out of 10 is better than nothing, I don't think so. There are others that say they are P2 capable but don't work because of LSM. If the radio can handle LSM it is not P2 simulcast capable. For people who want to hear those systems and spend their hard-earned money to discover it doesn't work is Consumer Fraud. There should be at least a disclaimer from Whistler that results will vary and it will not work for most locations. It is false advertising to say it does. Bearcat works but it is Muddy and garbled and illegible. A Motorola subscriber radio is the only thing that works but I would be willing to pay the big bucks for a scanner with the convenience of programming and the design like whistlers but works. As more P2 systems come online Whistler will be facing a class action lawsuit for Consumer Fraud.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Well the good news is if your unhappy with the whistler or uniden products Relm makes portables that RX only on trunking and Unication makes a neat little pager G4 or G5 that do the same. (Phase 2 not yet available on Unication but coming soon.)

You get what you pay for.

 

[SCPD]

With regard to phase 2 p25 the radios do not work. Maybe because of fixed location near a Tower it may work for somebody but nobody I know with the dozen-or-so systems in the tri-state area near me. There are those who will say using a paperclip and opening the squelch and standing in the corner of the house with a tinfoil hat on and getting 4 words out of 10 is better than nothing, I don't think so. There are others that say they are P2 capable but don't work because of LSM. If the radio can handle LSM it is not P2 simulcast capable. For people who want to hear those systems and spend their hard-earned money to discover it doesn't work is Consumer Fraud. There should be at least a disclaimer from Whistler that results will vary and it will not work for most locations. It is false advertising to say it does. Bearcat works but it is Muddy and garbled and illegible. A Motorola subscriber radio is the only thing that works but I would be willing to pay the big bucks for a scanner with the convenience of programming and the design like whistlers but works. As more P2 systems come online Whistler will be facing a class action lawsuit for Consumer Fraud.

The interesting thing .. when my install was done I was at the repeater site of my local ham club and it was performing fine. It was not until I started to drive towards the city that I experienced issues. So .. it works fine now using the now famous 'duckie fix', but really I should not have to do it.

Sure my signals are a weaker now .. but at least it works. Oh btw .. paid $800 for my 1095 (I am in Canada), so it is not cheap, and it is not something where I would expect it not to work.

Re 'you get what you pay for' .. sorry, does not wash. Not everyone is made of money.

I can assure you that many here would not pay much more than what they already do for a new scanner. If the prices were much more .. they would lose a ton of sales. However .. there is a number of people that would pay dearly to have a radio that was rock solid. That is why I have my ICOM and looking forward to the new R8600 as well.

This is not about a feature not working .. but a total inability of the radio to deal with the signals it receives. I do not have a schematic, but I am assuming that the attenuation circuit is after the rf amp, and at that point the radio is already doomed.

The fix .. to put the attenuation circuit first thing. Looking at the schematic for my Icom in the RF Unit, the attenuation is before the rf amp as it should be, and likely in this Whistler case .. it would have fixed the problem.

 

[kayn1n32008]

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.

Unwilling, Not unable.

Uniden/Whistler KNOW why there are issues decoding CQPSK and its variants, they just refuse to do anything about it, while releasing firmware "fixes" that can not address the piss poor HARDWARE design.

Those expectations being: analog always worked.

The problem is not the modulation, it is entirely the corners being cut by the scanner manufacturers, and their refusal to listen and let the discriminator tap die the slow and painful death it deserves.

Technology has progressed, yet the scanner manufacturers would rather release new digital modes, rather than fix their garbage 1990's receiver design.

No, the expectations are that modern scanners be as easy to use as a 1990's 10 channel analogue scanner. Many today can not be bothered to actually learn how to use their shiny new scanner, they would rather be spoon fed the answers, and can do nothing more complicated than connecting the scanner to a computer, download the RR database, then complain when they don't hear anything. There are threads upon threads here on RR of people not bothering to do any work for themselves.

 

[IAmSixNine]

You get what you pay for absolutely does wash as you put it.
You dont have to be made of money to enjoy a quality product.
Your complaining about cheap build quality and poor engineering, so its a cheaper product, is it not? Sure its an apple to oranges comparison. Scanner vs commercial radio / pager. But for listening purposes i have opted to get a product that "works" vs complaining. Which by the way thats what these forums are for. For getting help and trouble shooting and voicing opinions. So please dont think im against what your saying. Im not. Im merely pointing out there are other options.
The Relm KNG2-P800 i just paid a premium for works extremely well.
The Unication G4 i picked up late last year works extremely well.
I also have 2 BCD436HP and 1 Pro668 and 2 HP2 units as well as many XPR units and an APX.
So i do see the value in my scanners but im not going to expect them to live up to the standards as my XPR or APX.
I believe Whistler and Uniden are both trying to make a product that fits into a certain budget, had certain features and works with lots of protocols out there. Its hard to do.
Your hopefully an educated consumer so if you buy a product that doesnt work for you return it or sell it.
I like what you had to say and i too hope the future scanners have better receivers in them but till that happens there are other options out there.

 

[trentbob]

69... I agree you get what you pay for and what we pay approximately $500 for is a radio that works as advertised. As long as it does not handle LSM it does not handle P2 simulcast. It may work for some people in a fixed location but when they get in their car and start moving around between Towers they do not work. I understand about getting what you pay for as I use an apx 7000 for p2 systems in my area so I do not need a Relm... Whistler needs to fix the LSM problem. As long as they cannot handle LSM it cannot handle P2 simulcast and that is unfair to the people who believe the false advertising that it does in all applications fixed or mobile anywhere in the country. It's dishonest not to put a disclaimer in the advertising that it may not work in your area on p2 especially while mobile. Just because Whistler is aware of it and we all know it on this forum doesn't make it fair for those who buy the radio thinking it's going to work for them because the advertising says it will. That is fraud.

 

[Ed6698]

I must be lucky, I receive 2 different simulcast systems just about perfectly. One is a 6 tower 700mhz P25 Phase II, the other is a Phase I system. I get about 95% decode rate on both, ususally if I hear them complain about a issue, I have a issue, other then that, just about perfect. I don't live out in a rural area either. I can have my 1080 and 1095 just about anywhere in the house I want with RS 800mhz antennas, guess I am just in a good location.Do have a couple bad spots in the house, but then also it affects cell phones also in the same spots in the house. Don't know how it is in a vehicle as Indiana is one of the few states where having a scanner in a vehicle is illegal, unless a person is a licensed ham.

 

[trentbob]

I guarantee it wouldn't work in the car.

 

[NC1]

I agree with many things posted in this thread, especially when CycleSycho wrote: "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!"

So, after you spend $800 on the perfect scanner that works perfectly, out comes a new digital format that the local governments simply must have, and your $800 is now useless. What do you do? Keep shelling out $800 every couple years? I know I'm not.

It used to be that you bought a scanner, and you were good to go for 20 or so years. Maybe an upgrade or two along the line, but it was because you wanted to buy it - you were not forced to make a new purchase so you can continue to listen to what you were listening to last week. When does that end? Evidently, as of now, it won't!

Ok, so with all that said, I had a nice chunk of change set aside to buy the latest and greatest scanner, but at what point do I spend the money where I can feel relatively confident that in a month from now it won't be useless. My answer is that there is no GOOD time to buy, I'm sure there is new technology just around the corner that will make your new all mode digital receiver nothing more than a pile of parts to be used in the future. But I digress......

I figured it will be a huge waste of hard earned money in a short time if I buy a scanner. So, I studied to get my Amateur Radio license and passed the first 2 tests, with the 3rd one in my sights in the not too distant future. All that money I saved for a scanner went for a very nice gently used HF Transceiver, 5 band antenna, and quality feed line. My new Amateur radio club thanks all the scanner manufacturers for adding a new member to their club.

At least I know my money went toward something that I can enjoy for the rest of my life without having it outdated on the whim of some company that wants to sell their "new" technology. I have met new friends (with more to come), learned new things that are actually useful to both me and others, and don't need a cellphone to talk to any of them.

When my current scanners go silent, I will retire them to the garage and remember the good old days when scanning was a hobby, not a money spending contest.

 

[radio3353]

... guess I am just in a good location.

Yes, that is what we keep saying. Unfortunately, 99% of everybody else doesn't live in the perfect location.

 

[SCPD]

You get what you pay for .. is relevant to a point. Paying $800 as I did for my 1095 .. there is a bit of an expectation that it will at least work and I should not have to put a duckie on it to prevent it from overloading the front end.

But .. I get it, and I know why it is, and how to fix it. So .. all good, for now.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Attenuators are not the correct fix for receiver overload. Motorola tried this as a work around for the NEXTEL interference problem. Receiver overload is a near/far problem. The interference is local and strong, while the desired is distant and weak. Putting attenuation in line only exacerbates the weaker signal problem.

Proper receiver design requires selective filtering between the antenna and RF preamp. Proper filters are bulky and expensive and reduce sensitivity, so shortcuts are taken. Proper design dictates linearity in all receiver stages. Linearity requires the RF and IF stages to have the ability to process high signal levels and numerous signals. This requires power handling. To do this requires proper DC biasing of the amplifier stages. This biasing requires additional quiescent current of each stage. For battery operated gear this becomes a problem so compromises are made which make the receiver perform poorly.

Proper receiver design requires attention to the gain of each stage to make sure Linearity is carried through from antenna to the speaker. Attention must be taken to make sure the design is stable under all operating conditions. Often the design is simply generated from computer modeling with little attention to design modifications following a pilot run. How do you think China can dump all those $35 handheld radios into the market?

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[SCPD]

Nah

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

I love the 996XT,The Home Patrol and the 396XT so I doubt that. The 436hp and the 536Hp are not my favorite Unidens....Also they are made in VIETNAM?!!!

 

[SCPD]

Attenuators are not the correct fix for receiver overload. Motorola tried this as a work around for the NEXTEL interference problem. Receiver overload is a near/far problem. The interference is local and strong, while the desired is distant and weak. Putting attenuation in line only exacerbates the weaker signal problem.

Proper receiver design requires selective filtering between the antenna and RF preamp. Proper filters are bulky and expensive and reduce sensitivity, so shortcuts are taken. Proper design dictates linearity in all receiver stages. Linearity requires the RF and IF stages to have the ability to process high signal levels and numerous signals. This requires power handling. To do this requires proper DC biasing of the amplifier stages. This biasing requires additional quiescent current of each stage. For battery operated gear this becomes a problem so compromises are made which make the receiver perform poorly.

Proper receiver design requires attention to the gain of each stage to make sure Linearity is carried through from antenna to the speaker. Attention must be taken to make sure the design is stable under all operating conditions. Often the design is simply generated from computer modeling with little attention to design modifications following a pilot run. How do you think China can dump all those $35 handheld radios into the market?

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

Agreed .. and Whistler if they want to be serious about the scanner market need to fix this problem. It is no secret to many of us, that later GRE models / Whistler models have pretty severe issues in this regard.

I still maintain the review on my first post of this thread. However, my 536HP is also a ****, as it totally caves at my home location. This is due to 3 VHF frequencies 3 blocks from here. I have a notch filter .. to make it behave.

 

[pro92b]

The attached block diagram shows the front end of the PRO-106. The attenuator is the first circuit connected to the antenna. With proper shielding it should be effective in reducing overload problems.

The next stage is switched front end filtering. There are five filters and one of them is broad enough to cover the civilian air band and VHF-HI. This allows FM broadcast to overload the VHF-HI band and the civilian air band. My PSR-500 needs an FM filter in the antenna feed to receive VHF-HI band signals of moderate and weak strength. I thought Whistler had added separate filters for the air band and VHF-HI to improve performance in their newer models, but maybe not.

The RF amp and mixer stages need to handle large signals with linearity as a previous poster said. Battery life trade-offs may explain some of the poor performance in handheld scanners, but the base/mobile models do not perform any better. The same circuitry seems to be reused in both handheld and base/mobile radios which unnecessarily degrades performance of the base/mobile scanners.

GRE scanners from 30 years ago have much better RF performance than today's scanners.

 

[SCPD]

Absolutely ... my Pro-2001 and Pro-2006 GRE made scanners are rock solid. Interestingly .. these are from the 1978/1991 time frame.

Both of these scanners run 24/7 and perform flawlessly. This is how receivers should be built.

 

[Machria]

Does your scanner pick up CNN?

 

[milcom_chaser]

Does your scanner pick up CNN?

CNN? better get a VPN...

 

[ScannerSK]

The RF amp and mixer stages need to handle large signals with linearity as a previous poster said....
GRE scanners from 30 years ago have much better RF performance than today's scanners.

Some additional testing yesterday on a PRO-197 did indicate the VHF overload is occurring at either Q7 (2SC4094) or in the mixing stages as noted above. Possibly, a different transistor other than the 2SC4094 would correct the issue? In areas with strong RF overload, the PRO-197 can actually work better with Q7 (25-512 MHz) and Q3 (2SC4094)/Q4 (2SC4226) (764-1300 MHz) disabled. I figure it's an issue either with the transistors or cheap ceramic filters presently.

The results by edmscan of the mobile test of the TRX-2 should be interesting.

Shawn