Uniden X36 Phase II TDMA Voice Decoding Performance Thread

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DaveIN

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Please submit your reports on Phase II TDMA voice decoding. It would be helpful to have the System/location also. On topic comments only, please I'd also like reports on X2-TDMA if you have it.
 

gonzalu

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I'd love to help... but I am in NYC... if anyone can suggest a system for me to test here, I'd be glad to post videos of it in the field. I should be getting my 536 soon...
 

gonzalu

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Thanks... looks like I have one choice near me (NYC DoITT 700Mhz, which is still in testing) and Rockland County which is a bit further up north. I will see what I can come up with.

Cheers!
 

gonzalu

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Forgot about NJICS so I have that programmed as well. So far, scanning all three, no locks on anything so I am unable to give a report at this time :(

For full disclosure, my location is ZIP 10463, about 200' above sea level about 1000 feet from Hudson River. Using 1/4 wave dipole indoor antenna. I can pick up Port Authority and most Bergen County systems from here with clear audio and strong signal.
 

DaveIN

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Also, you can still monitor the relative Error counts like you were able to do on the XT models by pressing Func+tap scroll, <squelch>, Func+tap scroll again.
 

SCPD

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Nice decoding on the T mode talkgroups on this Phase II system: Metrolinx - GO Transit Trunking System, Golden Horseshoe Area, Ontario - Scanner Frequencies in Ontario, Canada
Just received the 536 yesterday. Notice the mode switching from PT0 to PT1 during the conversations.
Digitized voice is clear,comparable to P25 Phase I.

Thanks for putting that out there mciupa. Because I WAS NOT going to purchase a 436/536HP unless there was feedback on Phase ll TDMA decoding. It was really smart for Dave to come up with a thread like this!!

Can't wait to pick up a 436 from Durham Radio maybe sometime in the spring.

For now I like my PSR 800 except for the lack of the way the scanner decodes TDMA.....
 

cmdcomm

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Huge improvement over any other scanner!!!

AWESOME!! P-25 Phase I & II (TDMA) Simulcast Reception!!!

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

HUGE IMPROVEMENT OVER ANY OTHER SCANNER!!!

We have tested on the following systems.
City of Houston Phase-II TDMA Simulcast - Perfect everytime while stationary, about 95% of the time while driving.

TxWARN P-25 Phase-I Montgomery Co & Houston Simulcast Sites - Perfect everytime while stationary, about 95% of the time while driving.

Both of these tests done with supplied BNC antenna inside a Suburban. When using a 7/800Mhz digital mobile external antenna, it gets even better!!!!

GREAT PRODUCT!!!!! I will not say these scanners are as good as a real radio yet, but HUGE improvements over any GRE or Uniden scanner...
 

FLANO

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Received my 436 and 536 this morning.

Have been running them against the PCWIN TRS here in Tucson, AZ.

Qualifiers, the PCWIN system is still in testing mode and has issues on its own, and is not fully operational, however, this is what I've observed....

1. Stock antennas on both the 436 and 536, and an 800mhz Radio Shack antenna on a PSR-800.
2. There are three simulcasts in this system, and only those were scanned on all radios.
3. "Harvard Sentences" are the bulk of the transmissions, but are long enough to hear break-up of the transmissions, using all three scanners.
4. Scanners were stationary in my house, out in the boonies of Vail, away from any other possible radio source interference. And to qualify boonies, I have excellent line of site reception of all the tower locations in an around the Tucson area. I sit a little higher in elevation than Tucson.

Running these side by side and simultaneously, each scanner performed slightly different from the other, with many times the radios playing the scanned audio in perfect harmony. But just as many times, one scanner would run with a TG and the other two would not hear a thing. This swapped around between the three scanners, so no one scanner performed better than the other, IMHO.

I also tried the 436 with the 800mhz Radio Shack antenna. It may have made some slight improvement with reception of the signal, but I think it possibly confused the radio a little bit more, due to the stronger reception of the multiple sites in the individual simulcasts. The 800mhz antenna certainly helped the site reception for the non-simulcast sites.

These scanners are fun to play with, but don't seem to have solved the problem of simulcast, even with TDMA, or at least certainly not for our system down in here in Tucson.

Again, I'll qualify that this is my initial observation, without tweaking things, and with a TDMA system that is so plagued with delays due to its own issues.

I will try a little mobile test of these, but I don't expect the results to change.

Sorry, I don't really have the ability to send a video at the moment, but maybe in the near future.
 

redburgundy

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Sorry, three Simulcast "sites" composed of multiple tower locations. Two of the simulcast sites have 8 towers and one has 4 towers.

It's really unfortunate and confusing that the Sentinel software misuses the term "site" to mean a specific group of frequencies, but those frequencies can be in simultaneous use at multiple tower locations (simulcasting).
 

phask

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It's really unfortunate and confusing that the Sentinel software misuses the term "site" to mean a specific group of frequencies, but those frequencies can be in simultaneous use at multiple tower locations (simulcasting).

Site refers to a physical place, same as used in RR - not confusing to me in the least. Site may only be one or several freqs.
 

UPMan

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We use site to mean:
The repeater tower location for non-simulcast.
The coverage area for multi-tower simulcast.

Where it needs to be differentiated, "Simulcast Site" or "Simulcast Zone" would be appropriate in prose, but for programming the scanner, a single-tower site and a multi-tower simulcast site/zone are programmed identically from a frequency standpoint. The only programming difference between the two are how you handle the geographic location settings.

This is the same terminology as RadioReference has used since inception.
 

redburgundy

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Site refers to a physical place, same as used in RR - not confusing to me in the least. Site may only be one or several freqs.
Actually, as UPman indicates, "site" might refer to a single transmitter location, or it might refer to the coverage area of multiple transmitter sites. But so far as I can tell, RR does not contain the actual locations of the transmitter sites for simulcast systems that have multiple transmitter locations.
 
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