Who Wants a Detachable Faceplate?

[RadioDaze]

I love GRE scanners, and I love Uniden scanners. They each have their strong points, and I think the manufacturers have tried hard to serve our needs.

Uniden already has a remote control head available, but it's not a complete solution, despite great work by Jason, KE4NYV.

The hams among us know how cool it is to have a radio that comes with a detachable, thin-profile faceplate that includes on/off. (Although Jason got the speaker thing going, and I'm not sure any of The Big 4 did that.)

I'd buy a true detachable faceplate scanner faster than you could swipe my Visa.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "Who the #%*! cares" and 10 being "Gimme that sucker yesterday, here's a wad of cash", how much would your purchase decision be influenced by a detachable remote faceplate?

Hopefully this will give us a nice bar chart. Or at least a reason to go to a bar.

 

[commscanaus]

As much as I love my 996T/RH96 combo in the car- I'd kill for a GRE solution.
The P25 audio recovery is vastly superior.
The drive to work for me is at 60mph most of the time and the Uniden can be a little garbled and hard to hear at times- especially in traffic.

The latest Icom offerings are great (IC-R2500) with dual receive and diversity antenna connections.
No P25 trunking rules the Icom out for me.

Given many of todays cars and their all-in-one dash construction- DIN mounting is all but impossible.

A scanner with a head such as that used on the Yaesu FTM-350R transceiver would be a welcome purchase.
Large, bright with easy to read at a glance text display instead of the tiny window on current radios.
The head can be placed where it is easy to read without taking your eyes off the road- which is a serious hazard at 60mph.

The Kenwood TM-D700 display is another nice example.

Although the RH-96 goes a long way toward solving the mobile mounting problem- not being able to power the scanner off from the head is just plain stupid.

Commscanaus.

 

[n1das]

As much as I love my 996T/RH96 combo in the car- I'd kill for a GRE solution.

The Kenwood TM-D700 display is another nice example.

Same here!!!! Hopefully the folks at GRE are reading this. A true remote head solution like ham and commercial 2-way equipment has would make mobile installation soooooo much nicer and open up a lot more possibilities for such installations. I've wanted a good scanner remote head solution for many years.

By far the number one reason why I haven't installed my GRE PSR-600 in my car is I don't have a good place to put it. A slim remote head with a large display would solve all of these issues.

 

[n1das]

I suggest creating an account if you don't already have one on GRE's website and submit a support ticket requesting GRE develop and bring a remote head PSR-600-like scanner to market. Also explain how opportunites for a lot of sales are being missed by not having a remote head solution on the market and you would buy one in a heartbeat if it were available.

By submitting a support ticket to GRE, at least somebody at GRE will see it instead of just hoping they happen to read this thread on RR. If enough market demand and a strong enough business case is demonstrated, they might offer one someday.

 

[RadioDaze]

Actually I was hoping that once this poll gets filled out a bit, it might be something we could use to present to GRE and Uniden, for a little persuasion.

 

[recon20]

Given many of todays cars and their all-in-one dash construction- DIN mounting is all but impossible.

The head can be placed where it is easy to read without taking your eyes off the road- which is a serious hazard at 60mph.

Would love to be able to purchase a product like this for my scanner... Pro 197

 

[fourthhorseman]

As far as control heads,,

Something that would plug into the PC-IF port would be fun..
could clip it to the pocket,or vehicles visor-airvent..Run it off 2 or 3
AABatts,
it would be compatible as the programming cables are from 600-400
and the RS 197-164-97ect..working for handhelds or base units...

would be a lo-cost aftermarket upgrade/accessory,like GREs
Super Amp,or Frequency Converter,maybe 30 to 50 USD

 

[n1das]

As far as control heads,,

Something that would plug into the PC-IF port would be fun..
could clip it to the pocket,or vehicles visor-airvent..Run it off 2 or 3
AABatts,
it would be compatible as the programming cables are from 600-400
and the RS 197-164-97ect..working for handhelds or base units...

would be a lo-cost aftermarket upgrade/accessory,like GREs
Super Amp,or Frequency Converter,maybe 30 to 50 USD

How would you handle remoting the volume and squelch controls if you wanted to or needed to mount the scanner in an out of the way place? Volume and squelch are analog controls inside the PSR-600. You would need to bring at least the audio paths and power switch out to the head to have on/off and volume control there. For the squelch control, you would need to bring that out too but if it were mine I would just set it internally and then forget it.

In commercial (and amateur) 2-way gear with detachable control heads, the volume and squelch controls on the head are digital controls. The volume pot in the head simply adjusts a voltage fed into an analog input in the head's microprocessor. Same thing with the squelch control on the head. The digital representation of volume and squelch settings are communicated digitally from the head down to the radio where the radio's microprocessor programs digital potentiometers to control analog circuitry for volume and squelch. The interface between the head and the radio is a 4-wire digital interface (power, GND, serial clock, serial data). Serial interface protocols like I2C (IIC, I "squared" C) and SPI come to mind. From a practical standpoint the control head is simply nothing more than a custom data terminal for the radio.

You could make a simple aftermarket accessory to use the PC I/F port but to have a true remote head solution like amateur and commercial 2-way gear would require a major redesign.

I logged into my account on GRE's website and submitted a support ticket under the sales category and requested GRE bring a remote head version of the PSR-600 to market. I also mentioned opportunties for lots of sales are being missed by not having a remote head model on the market.

 

[JoeyC]

A detachable faceplate would make an excellent accessory for mobile scanner use. However I have to wonder how many they'd sell considering how many tightwads are out there that are already complaining they have to pay extra for a decent software package to program/control the scanner with.

 

[texasemt13]

I'd love to see a P25 capable scanner with a detachable full faceplate. I can see not having much space on the faceplate being an issue, but I'd sacrifice some buttons, as long as the major ones were on there like- power, pause, manual, scan, tune, prgm, search, etc.

Man my next-gen scanner wishlist just grows and grows. Now I wish I was a product developer...

 

[fourthhorseman]

Volume is easy,External speaker,if the radio is under a seat,or in a console,a simple in-line slider would do..
anyone doing their own install should be competent enough to do it,and a pro installer will have one pre made-ready to mount..

Squelch,a bit harder,but only for freqs with no PL-CTCSS or DCS,,trunked systems and toned systems
would not be effected,,and i dont really see the demand for air band or other no-tone TX listining while
driving about,,,while parked you could use a handheld,,in motion,,the control head..

all I see thats needed is a way to control the scan-search-and bank/object selection,,but one could fit the full keypad
And an LCD-and still be pretty compact..

as far as control heads,this ,to me,seems like a logical progression,maybe on the way to a full out remote head unit..

 

[texasemt13]

... but one could fit the full keypad and an LCD and still be pretty compact.

I agree, all the keys wouldn't be too hard, if it's a remote head, it only sends the signal to the unit, where all the "computing" is performed. I like the layout of the Kenwood TS480 (seen below), which has an awesome VFO (something that could be implemented as a useful dial on a faceplate) with selectable jump sizes (1kHz, 5kHz, etc.). This Kenwood has more keys than my GRE PSR-500, and the layout is still fairly spacious, even for my clumsy fingers...

 

[W2GLD]

In my opinion, the best solution would be to design the scanners (Uniden or GRE) with the faceplate mounted to the chassis of the radio as is done currently; however, a kit should either be included or easily available to remove the existing faceplate and make it a remote-mount WITHOUT a huge backplate as was the case with the RC-96 from Uniden. It was a nice attempt, but poor implementation... On the faceplate and chassis of the radio, build in a simple RJ-45 style connector with all functions included in single 6 or 8 pair cable and make it available in various lengths. DO NOT REQUIRE EXTERNAL POWER; instead, the remote-head should be powered through the same interface cable.

Clean, simple, and as for the speaker connections, there already there on the back of the main radio unit.

If a remote-head solution is made available from either manufacturer; I am certain they would sell enough to make the engineering costs worthwhile.

Just my two cents and what a great thread...

 

[texasemt13]

Great points W2GLD,

The power should come from the control cable, and not require to cables to run to the unit. Yaesus are a great example, one little cord (RJ45s) does it all.

It's also a good point that the faceplate should mount to the scanner chassis (also a Yaesu feature) similar to the way a CD players faceplate is detachable (though the Yaesus do require a 2 inch cord, with RJ45s terminating, whereas CD players just fit the connectors together snugly).

What about the backlight though? My Yaesu is constantly on (which is fine with me), but some others would prefer to turn the light off (selectably, like the scanners themselves). I for one, don't care either way, but I'm sure others would prefer to have the option to use the light or not.

 

[n1das]

I suggest creating an account if you don't already have one on GRE's website and submit a support ticket requesting GRE develop and bring a remote head PSR-600-like scanner to market. Also explain how opportunites for a lot of sales are being missed by not having a remote head solution on the market and you would buy one in a heartbeat if it were available.

By submitting a support ticket to GRE, at least somebody at GRE will see it instead of just hoping they happen to read this thread on RR. If enough market demand and a strong enough business case is demonstrated, they might offer one someday.

Here's the email reply I received from GRE today in response to the ticket I submitted......
---------------------------------------------------

from GRE Support Team <no-reply@greamerica.com>
reply-to no-reply@greamerica.com

to ******@*********.****

dateTue, Oct 19, 2010 at 7:55 PM
subject[#*****]: PSR-600 or future equivalent model with remote head?


Hi David,

We certainly agree that having separate control heads would help facilitate installation in today's cramped vehicles. We will definitely keep your suggestion in mind as we plan future mobile radio models.

Best regards,

Jack
GRE Support Team
GRE America, Inc. - Powered By Kayako SupportSuite

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: *****
Department: Scanner Receivers
Priority: Low
Status: Open

------------------------------------------------------

It's the kind of standard answer I expected but at least somebody inside GRE actually read it and responded!

Send in those support tickets folks, requesting GRE bring a remote head version of the PSR-600 scanner to market. The scanner manufacturers keep striking out in this area and I think they need to be beaten over the head about this. A remote head mobile solution is a no-brainer in my book.

There's definitely a market for a true remote head solution....I've wanted one for years with plenty of other scanners I've owned over the years. This is why I voted "I'd kill for this!" in the poll.

 

[n1iic]

I agree that remote heads are the way to go. This could be the next best feature as long as they don't use a proprietary cable that is outrageously priced. Sell the cable, but make it DIY too and they will come.

 

[BamaScan]

Uniden Remote Head is here:

Uniden | A World Without Wires - BC-RH96 Safety

From Uniden Web Site:

Backlit Keypad and Display

Compact Size

Includes 10 foot data cord and power cable

Controls most functions - including volume and squelch - (power controlled seperately)

Remote Control - Remote Control for the BCD996T, BCD996XT, BCT15, BCT15X, BCD396T, BCD396XT, BC346XT and the BR330T

 

[GrumpyGuard]

In most of the new cars there just is not enough room to mount a full size radio. I for one will not buy a radio without the detachable face plate for this reason. I have my Yeasu FT7800 mounted in the trunk. I was able to run all of my wires into the car without them being seen and I have the faceplate attached to a Panavise vehicle specific mount. No holes drilled, which makes the wife happy, and no wires seen which makes me happy.

This is just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Tom_G]

Been asking for this for a while...

I agree...
I am waiting for a "real" remote head solution, not some afterthought kit...
Yaesu, Icom, and Kenwood have been doing these for years.

Its one simple wire connected to the remote head via an RJ type connector that feeds back to the radio chassis thats mounted in the trunk or elsewhere.
Power, speaker, and antenna connections are only needed at the radio chassis.

I was hoping the HomePatrol would resolve this issue but the audio power is not really enough for mobile use and the headphone jack is the only option for external speakers. With the high impedance headphone jack it makes it difficult to amplify.

If GRE came out with a true mobile radio with a nice detachable faceplate with a good sized display, they would have a real winner. (Like a PSR-601...

 

[N8IAA]

I have been waiting years for GRE to make a detatchable head mobile scanner. Loved my IC-2720 for that reason. The top ham radio manufacturers have been doing it for years. Would I pay extra for the radio--YES.
Larry