#AnotherMeTooSDS100

[CQ]

It's Friday and was bored. Made a call and picked one up. Here's a pic of a stock unit and will be changing those colors. Hoping I can make fonts bigger so I can ID just by glancing.

Screen looks slightly narrower than 436.

Unfortunately the keypad is not "touch" friendly as I suspected. The tactile feel isn't there like "real" buttons. Luckily the Avoid key is in the left corner and can feel my way around the edge to it. The soft keys may be more problematic if I used them as Hold/Resume keys where I have to follow the edge to get to the middle Dept/Site. It takes work to try and feel your way around keys while driving without looking and the stub on 5 key doesn't help as much since it's off center.

The audio appeared a little more tinny than the 436 but will see when I am at a better location to compare.

Jury still out.

 

[ur20v]

I had a feeling you lived nearby.

 

[CanesFan95]

So the speaker grill only exposes half the speaker. Looks like the other half of the speaker is muted behind the keypad which will only hamper the audio volume.

 

[buddrousa]

Not muted on mine CLEARER and LOUDER than my 436 and 346 no echo when next to my TRX-1 as it drowns out the TRX-1 if it hears the same signal

 

[mkt853]

Not muted on mine CLEARER and LOUDER than my 436 and 346 no echo when next to my TRX-1 as it drowns out the TRX-1 if it hears the same signal

Agree. Have mine on right now side by side with a 436 and 536 for testing. SDS100 hands down has cleaner audio and volume gets loud enough that on the 8 setting which is 50% volume I can hear it in the next room.

 

[KR7CQ]

In my testing the SDS100 is a tad quieter, but the audio is more crisp and clean for sure, less of that boomy bass sound typical of the x36 series (536 is much worse).

 

[radio3353]

It takes work to try and feel your way around keys while driving without looking and the stub on 5 key doesn't help as much since it's off center.

But then again, you really shouldn't be doing that should you? :wink:

 

[CQ]

Let's Get Physical

Haven't gotten around to updating firmware, db, configuring or connecting to external antenna yet but for some reason had the urge to take some pictures.

For those that are curious on the physical aspect of the SDS100 vs BCD436HP

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ap2cI4L-9ADXafran4ISm0JgRAE

The SDS100 looked slightly narrower and had to measure them. I haven't seen any specs on screen size so here's what I got.

SDS100
1 1/2" W
2" H

BCD436HP
1 5/8" W
1 7/8" H

It doesn't like my 15' mini USB cable and complains about Low USB Bus Voltage where the 436 was okay with it. So much for using my software program. Guess the 5 meter spec doesn't apply when something is power hungry.

 

[jonwienke]

You just have to find or fabricate a long cable with larger gauge wire so the voltage doesn't drop as much.

 

[buddrousa]

Haven't gotten around to updating firmware, db, configuring or connecting to external antenna yet but for some reason had the urge to take some pictures.

For those that are curious on the physical aspect of the SDS100 vs BCD436HP

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ap2cI4L-9ADXafran4ISm0JgRAE

The SDS100 looked slightly narrower and had to measure them. I haven't seen any specs on screen size so here's what I got.

SDS100
1 1/2" W
2" H

BCD436HP
1 5/8" W
1 7/8" H

It doesn't like my 15' mini USB cable and complains about Low USB Bus Voltage where the 436 was okay with it. So much for using my software program. Guess the 5 meter spec doesn't apply when something is power hungry.

It has been stated by UPMAN and JASON 2.1 AMP adapter also Jon tested his SDS 1.4 amps running and charging at the same time. You may have missed that in the fiasco of post here.

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

Haven't gotten around to updating firmware, db, configuring or connecting to external antenna yet but for some reason had the urge to take some pictures.

For those that are curious on the physical aspect of the SDS100 vs BCD436HP

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ap2cI4L-9ADXafran4ISm0JgRAE

The SDS100 looked slightly narrower and had to measure them. I haven't seen any specs on screen size so here's what I got.

SDS100
1 1/2" W
2" H

BCD436HP
1 5/8" W
1 7/8" H

It doesn't like my 15' mini USB cable and complains about Low USB Bus Voltage where the 436 was okay with it. So much for using my software program. Guess the 5 meter spec doesn't apply when something is power hungry.

That's a nice series of pictures. I've been wondering how it looked underneath the rubber flap, what with the mini and micro USB connections.

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[CQ]

Thanks for feedback NWI_Scanner_Guy. I was going to do the headphones cover but there was nothing sexy about that one.

Had to remove the previous pic since we're limited to 1990s 5MB limits and decreased resolution even more just to add a second one.

I added some more pics showing the antenna and some of my input on the situation.
https://forums.radioreference.com/u...371377-sds100-what-antenna-2.html#post2945666

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ap2cI4L-9ADXafran4ISm0JgRAE

I definitely like the black with white much better.

Need to put it on an external antenna and find a temporary USB cabling solution so I can log from both the 436 and 100 to see how they perform against each other.

Had to add that at least with the 436 with no light on you could see see the display (maybe with some work depending on ambient lighting) but the 100 is either on or OFF. No way to see what it's doing as it scans. Is it stuck on a system that you should avoid? It's happened to me.

 

[CQ]

Did some audio comparisons and the 100 has less bass to it (emptiness) and annoyingly loud at near and max volume 15, especially with female voices. I mentioned tinny in my first post, but it's not like awful mp3 streaming hollowness.

I don't think the 436 is bass heavy but more natural sounding to my ears. I can crank it to 15 and not irritating like the 100. If you go by the numbers, the 100 sounds louder and been keeping it about two notches lower than the 436. Level 7 or less is comfortable for me but depends on the source; it's about 3.5 ft from my desk chair.

These aren't the only sources I have on simultaneously of course and sometimes a lot of them get muted to focus on something specific.

 

[CQ]

SDS100/BCD436HP Display Testing

Had a little time to test display settings between the 100 and 436. Writing this up took much longer.

Bottom line: If you use reading glasses and don't have them, the 100 will be a good upgrade for that reason. The caveat is to use simple display mode (436 version layout) with white background and black letters which makes it easier to quickly lock onto text; at least for me it does.

The black background with white lettering looks cool, but takes time for your eyes to focus on text. I even had some young eyes choose which colors allowed them to quickly see the smallest text in detail mode and the white background won out.

The trendy black-faced watches came out a few years ago but that was the first thing that stood out for me and opted out of them. I wanted to SEE the time with a quick glance without any reading glasses. I have a Garmin GPS watch I use for biking with one of the modifiable screens but the text is too small to bother with while riding. I really don't care to look at the data until I sync at home when I have time. I don't bother with mobile sync since I like kicking back and looking at route data on my desktop setup.

I also compared brightness. If you want your retinas radiated, the 100 is the winner.

Not sure if my 436 has a brightness problem but my 536 was fixed for it and didn't know I had the issue since I sent it in for the RTC issue. I like running at low brightness and also don't have the display trigger if logging; would rather watch one of the big screens for data hits.

The 100/436 pics were taken with 30%/Low brightness and torch mode. Unfortunately pictures/videos don't do justice and have to be experienced to see the real differences between them.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ap2cI4L-9ADXafran4ISm0JgRAE

 

[CQ]

Boot Times

Almost forgot to add boot times. From first press of power button and holding until start of scan.

+/- partial second.

SDS100 w/screen pic
22 seconds

BCD436HP
19 seconds

Whistler need not apply since I've measured them in minutes with the same favorites list.

 

[seth21w]

I have a question to you sds100 owners, since we are compairing with 436 can you see the display at all with the backlight off or is it completely black on the sds100?

 

[jonwienke]

Backlight off = completely black.

 

[IAmSixNine]

In the pic the key pad backlight of the SDS100 looks dim in the lower left corner.
Is that normal to all of them?
Just doesnt seem even to me. Like its missing an LED or its out or something.

 

[UPMan]

Yes, there is an LED out on that unit. We're working with him to take care of it.

 

[Nasby]

Yes, there is an LED out on that unit. We're working with him to take care of it.

Mine looks the exact same. Very dim in the left corner.