BDK wrote:

In article , junkman18
@hotmail.com says...
I've almost had it with this 396. I expected quality from Uniden,
having purchased the 785D a couple of years ago and being extremely
****ed off with the performance...

Many of you guys seem to say your units work fine. I beg to differ!
Since 2002, I've been using multiple Motorola ASTRO radios to
monitor my public safety agencies--I also used these radios for an
unrelated project, so they served a dual purpose.

There has never been a problem with "machine gun noises" or "late
unmuting" with my ASTRO radios. This 396 is a POS when it comes to
decoding P25 transmissions. But I think it's only fair that I allow
Uniden to correct the defects via firmware updates, so I will be
patient.

Let me give a little background on the system I'm monitoring. It's a
Motorola SmartZone Omnilink 4.1, 3600bps mixed-mode 800 MHz trunk. I
monitor analog/digital comms on my other radios no problem. I use
the 396, and I frequently get machine gun noises at the
beginning/end of each transmission.

I have "fine tuned" (Funny, since you don't have to "fine tune" a
Motorola radio) the 396 so the error number is around 2, which is
more than acceptable.

The firmware version is 1.07.01. The other day, I downloaded and
applied the 1.08.07 update--and just as everyone says on here, it
makes the scanner perform worse when monitoring P25 signals. I
reverted back to 1.07.01, which isn't much better than 1.08.07, but
there are less machine gun noises.

OK, so by now you're saying, "What's your point". Here's my point:

- Uniden, why can you not let us strap analog/digital on a per
talkgroup basis, so the silly scanner doesn't try to "sample and
guess" when it's receiving, to determine whether or not the P25 IMBE
decoder should be applied? This is easy, and solves a lot of
problems. This is what the machine gun issue is... The machine gun
noise is NOT IMBE, it's just a hang-time/carrier from a quantar that
keeps the channel open, and that's why the scanner unmutes to analog
and blasts it out of the speaker. It's easy to fix, and I'm not sure
why you've had this problem in all of your digital scanners since
the 250D?

- Firmware testing. Why can't you test it first, or at least let the
396 yahoogroup "beta test" it for you, before releasing it on your
website? That way we can report bugs, in a documented way. We use
our scanners more than your in-house engineers do.

- What's with the cheesy AGC control? It doesn't do anything. It's a
useless feature. Why don't you fix it, to make it work similar to
the PRO-96?

- What' with the HORRIBLE P25 AUDIO?!?!? The audio sounds like a guy
talking to me from 20,000 leagues under the sea. I'm sure you can do
something (hopefully your firmware update allows you to update the
DSP codec?) about this? My Motorola ASTRO radios are all equipped
with DSP8, which makes P25 sound superior to anything else out
there. I realize this is just a scanner, but man.. if you guys could
hear the DSP8 audio from a REAL ASTRO radio, you'd be complaining
too. This "warble" effect from the 396 is really bad. The PRO-96
sounds 10x better.

I guess I'm just sour after spending $519 on this thing. I hated the
250 and the 785, but thought after 2 years that you'd get your act
together before releasing another scanner with poor P25
performance...

The other features in the scanner are very nice. I'm impressed with
the Close Call feature, and WFM performance on the 88-108 band
actually works not too bad. Overall a good scanner, but P25 sucks on
this thing.

My intent isn't to slam anyone else who bought one. I just want it
to work satisfactory in P25 mode. Right now it's really




Your results are similar to what a friend of mine is having with his
396. His Pro 96 works well on digital, and he's probably going to dump
the 396 on ebay soon. Too bad, it has a lot of great features, but the
negatives outweigh the positive.

I haven't kept a Uniden made scanner since I bought my BC9000, and it
just barely made the "cut", RF performance wise. It's going to be moved
down to "back up" very soon.

BDK

Uniden has a "fix" for this noise you are hearing. You can
download the updated firmware (V. 1.7?) (I believe) at their website.

In article ,
says...
BDK wrote:

In article , junkman18
@hotmail.com says...
I've almost had it with this 396. I expected quality from Uniden,
having purchased the 785D a couple of years ago and being extremely
****ed off with the performance...

Many of you guys seem to say your units work fine. I beg to differ!
Since 2002, I've been using multiple Motorola ASTRO radios to
monitor my public safety agencies--I also used these radios for an
unrelated project, so they served a dual purpose.

There has never been a problem with "machine gun noises" or "late
unmuting" with my ASTRO radios. This 396 is a POS when it comes to
decoding P25 transmissions. But I think it's only fair that I allow
Uniden to correct the defects via firmware updates, so I will be
patient.

Let me give a little background on the system I'm monitoring. It's a
Motorola SmartZone Omnilink 4.1, 3600bps mixed-mode 800 MHz trunk. I
monitor analog/digital comms on my other radios no problem. I use
the 396, and I frequently get machine gun noises at the
beginning/end of each transmission.

I have "fine tuned" (Funny, since you don't have to "fine tune" a
Motorola radio) the 396 so the error number is around 2, which is
more than acceptable.

The firmware version is 1.07.01. The other day, I downloaded and
applied the 1.08.07 update--and just as everyone says on here, it
makes the scanner perform worse when monitoring P25 signals. I
reverted back to 1.07.01, which isn't much better than 1.08.07, but
there are less machine gun noises.

OK, so by now you're saying, "What's your point". Here's my point:

- Uniden, why can you not let us strap analog/digital on a per
talkgroup basis, so the silly scanner doesn't try to "sample and
guess" when it's receiving, to determine whether or not the P25 IMBE
decoder should be applied? This is easy, and solves a lot of
problems. This is what the machine gun issue is... The machine gun
noise is NOT IMBE, it's just a hang-time/carrier from a quantar that
keeps the channel open, and that's why the scanner unmutes to analog
and blasts it out of the speaker. It's easy to fix, and I'm not sure
why you've had this problem in all of your digital scanners since
the 250D?

- Firmware testing. Why can't you test it first, or at least let the
396 yahoogroup "beta test" it for you, before releasing it on your
website? That way we can report bugs, in a documented way. We use
our scanners more than your in-house engineers do.

- What's with the cheesy AGC control? It doesn't do anything. It's a
useless feature. Why don't you fix it, to make it work similar to
the PRO-96?

- What' with the HORRIBLE P25 AUDIO?!?!? The audio sounds like a guy
talking to me from 20,000 leagues under the sea. I'm sure you can do
something (hopefully your firmware update allows you to update the
DSP codec?) about this? My Motorola ASTRO radios are all equipped
with DSP8, which makes P25 sound superior to anything else out
there. I realize this is just a scanner, but man.. if you guys could
hear the DSP8 audio from a REAL ASTRO radio, you'd be complaining
too. This "warble" effect from the 396 is really bad. The PRO-96
sounds 10x better.

I guess I'm just sour after spending $519 on this thing. I hated the
250 and the 785, but thought after 2 years that you'd get your act
together before releasing another scanner with poor P25
performance...

The other features in the scanner are very nice. I'm impressed with
the Close Call feature, and WFM performance on the 88-108 band
actually works not too bad. Overall a good scanner, but P25 sucks on
this thing.

My intent isn't to slam anyone else who bought one. I just want it
to work satisfactory in P25 mode. Right now it's really




Your results are similar to what a friend of mine is having with his
396. His Pro 96 works well on digital, and he's probably going to dump
the 396 on ebay soon. Too bad, it has a lot of great features, but the
negatives outweigh the positive.

I haven't kept a Uniden made scanner since I bought my BC9000, and it
just barely made the "cut", RF performance wise. It's going to be moved
down to "back up" very soon.

BDK

Uniden has a "fix" for this noise you are hearing. You can
download the updated firmware (V. 1.7?) (I believe) at their website.


He already did it, it's better, but still bad.

Thanks for the reply.

BDK

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 18:41:47 -0400, said in
alt.radio.scanner:

Uniden has a "fix" for this noise you are hearing. You can
download the updated firmware (V. 1.7?) (I believe) at their website.

The new firmware, released 9/26, is 1.09.00.
http://www.uniden.com/rn_productsupport_downloads.cfm?product=BCD396T

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 18:41:47 -0400, said in
alt.radio.scanner:

Uniden has a "fix" for this noise you are hearing. You can
download the updated firmware (V. 1.7?) (I believe) at their website.

The new firmware, released 9/26, is 1.09.00.
http://www.uniden.com/rn_productsupport_downloads.cfm?product=BCD396T


Does it fix the "down in the well" sound?

I guess my friend is about to find out..

BDK