joerobb23
Member
with the sds100 scanner besides better reception on p25 phase 2 will there be any improvement in distance reception?
SDS100 Distance Improvement?
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As Jon stated it was said that weak Digital signals work better Analog signals are still the same.
Picking up distant signals is more dependent on the type of antenna you are using rather than what scanner you are using. One bad thing about a handheld scanner model like this is that it's a little more cumbersome to connect an outdoor antenna.
Signal reception should be comparable. SDS100 might be slightly better or worse than the BCD436HP depending on the band. It is a 100% different RF design, so there will definitely be differences.
Digital recovery (i.e. the ability to produce audio from a digital signal) in weak areas is significantly improved on the SDS100. See the post I just made comparing SDS100 to the BCD436HP on a long drive with a mix of weak, strong, simulcast areas. SDS100 clearly outperforms.
Digital recovery (i.e. the ability to produce audio from a digital signal) in weak areas is significantly improved on the SDS100. See the post I just made comparing SDS100 to the BCD436HP on a long drive with a mix of weak, strong, simulcast areas. SDS100 clearly outperforms.
Really, receivers have been about "as good as they will get" for many decades.
There was a strong drop in sensitivity back in the 90s when the ECPA mandated image rejection of the Cellular frequencies, but that has improved some time after that (although perhaps never recovered 100%).
There may be minor increases and decreases in sensitivity, but there will never be a dramatic increase in sensitivity.
There is also the sensitivity/overload issue to balance. The more sensitivity you have in a wideband receiver, the more it will tend to overload.
The improvements described above are primarily better decoding algorithms. The LSM improvement is due to better waveform recovery.
There was a strong drop in sensitivity back in the 90s when the ECPA mandated image rejection of the Cellular frequencies, but that has improved some time after that (although perhaps never recovered 100%).
There may be minor increases and decreases in sensitivity, but there will never be a dramatic increase in sensitivity.
There is also the sensitivity/overload issue to balance. The more sensitivity you have in a wideband receiver, the more it will tend to overload.
The improvements described above are primarily better decoding algorithms. The LSM improvement is due to better waveform recovery.
Valeriy
Member
Recently I realized, with dismay, that a little BaoFeng UV-B6 transceiver is far more sensitive than the 436 in analog UHF.
I was monitoring volunteers of the italian Civil Defense, and heard their comms most of the time with the BaoFeng rather than with the 436...
Face it, the 436 is highly appreciable regarding programmability, but as a receiver it never excelled, and any new model should be improved, first of all, from that point of view.
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Does anyone know if the SDS100 will have improved reception of simulcast on analog conventional frequencies? The reason I ask is that in my area the FDNY uses simulcast on their UHF band and reception is often scratchy because of this.
My x36 scanners perform as good or better than all my other Uniden and RS scanners including my all analog and analog/digital scanners in side by side comparisons. I have never understood all these complaints about the x36 sensitivity with conventional signals. Can't wait to try the SDS-100 on digital systems while traveling around the Southeast area.
Some units (not all) have an issue with UHF noise. In those cases sensitivity will not be affected. There are people who say all units are affected, bu that is simply not true. I too have a unit that is not affected. It's one of the first ones made. I have a second unit which was affected.
To this day I am called a liar by some because they say my unaffected unit cannot be unaffected since their unit was affected. Interesting logic, huh?
I solved the problem with my scanner by installing C1 myself. On my scanner, the noise was only an issue if using the factory antenna--something I rarely do. The part is only a few pennies, the challenge is holding on to a tiny ceramic speck while applying solder to each end.
True that. Tiny chip components were not made for soldering irons. In fact, you stand a good chance of cracking the ceramic body of a chip cap with a soldering iron (too steep of a thermal excursion unless the cap is preheated.) Solder paste and a hot air pencil that can be ramped up is a much better method.
Tim-B
Member
Hey Up Man, do you have any beta testers in Southeast Texas that can test it in two areas for me? When I drove Hwy 36 from Sealy to Rosenberg my 436 and 396 were both deaf about 50% of the time on the TXWARN system. It seemed to correspond with proximity to those tall rural cell sites. Also Hwy 71 from Columbus all the way down to the Palacios and El Maton area was the same situation. It seems counter intuitive but in a dense urban area, namely all the way across Houston on I-10, the reception was great on both types of scanners. My guess is that those rural cell sites have older more RF leaky equipment. I would like to know if the SDS100 makes a difference in being able to resist cell site interference in those areas. With what I have read so far I am betting that it will work just fine.
I am still amazed at the transformation of a paste into solder.
That you know of! It is not something you can usually see with out strong magnification. These are microscopic cracks. It reduces MTBF. It is a long-term reliability problem over multiple thermal excursions. Your customers are the ones to have the the failures over the years, not you. Good work instructions don't allow hand soldering of chip caps without at least preheating the cap first. Best practices is to just don't do it (I can tell you from experience that it is prohibited in most all high-reliability work like military and aerospace.)
Really? Simplified, it is just the melting of a solid into a liquid and cooling it back again into a solid. What happens when you take an ice cube from the freezer and place it on the kitchen counter at room temperature and then put the water back into the freezer?
I do have to agree though that physics is amazing.
Getting off-topic at this point ;-)
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