Whistler vs. Uniden on milair.

[GROL]

Who are you asking about COTS? You're the only one that mentioned COTS.

A little quiz about materiel.

 

[scannersnstuff]

Somehow I think this discussion derailed ? .

 

[buddrousa]

To me it depends on the environment the receiver is going to be in.
High RF Uniden Analog Scanners due to them not suffering from desense.
Low RF Whistler/GRE older scanners not having to deal with desense

 

[R0am3r]

A little quiz about materiel.

Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS)
GOTS Government Off-The-Shelf (GOTS)

Back on topic... I find very little difference in sensitivity between the BCT15X and the SDS200 when listening to Commercial Air or MILAIR. My comparisons use the same antenna and feedline. I routinely monitor the range at Fort Drum on my SDS200 with great success. If I am hunting for new MILAIR frequencies, I typically use SDR# with the Frequency Scanner plug-in and a RTL-SDR to sweep across the band as this configuration is much faster than my Uniden scanners.

 

[GROL]

Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS)
GOTS Government Off-The-Shelf (GOTS)

Back on topic... I find very little difference in sensitivity between the BCT15X and the SDS200 when listening to Commercial Air or MILAIR. My comparisons use the same antenna and feedline. I routinely monitor the range at Fort Drum on my SDS200 with great success. If I am hunting for new MILAIR frequencies, I typically use SDR# with the Frequency Scanner plug-in and a RTL-SDR to sweep across the band as this configuration is much faster than my Uniden scanners.

For some reason, many people seem to think everything the military uses is Mil Spec. Mil Spec is a broad description of a very large set of specifications for anything contracted to be purchased for the military. There are many Mil Specs. But generally it does mean something is of a more rigid standard. Most of the test equipment I used was not Mil Spec. It was common commercial test equipment. Mil Spec is an item that needs to be durable and have broad interoperability, and generally the stuff survives lots of abuse and seems to last forever.

I do not have a SDS200 and have no idea how it compares to the SDS100, but the SDS100 cannot come anywhere close to the performance of the BCT15X. What is annoying about the SDS100 receiving AM mode, is that you will hear anything within the 10 MHz IF bandpass. If tuned to say 128.325 to hear aircraft on approach to Charlotte, I hear other aircraft on many adjacent channels. They are weaker, but easy to hear. Never have such a problem with the BCT15X which is very selective.