On Jun 12, 1:51 pm, Jesse wrote:
wrote in news:1181578745.407049.267610
@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com:





Hi,

Bought a bcd396t last weekend and was really excited about scanning.
Never owned one or new anything about it. I turned it on and cleared
all memory first, since my area didn't seem to be pre-programmed. I
live in Bay Point CA, 94565. Sat outside my house to see what was
going on on a Saturday night. I did an automatic search for police
activity and had one or two frequencies that gave me some messages
every once in a while. Was hard to understand too by the way

Is this all there is to it, or should it be more exciting? I expected
more action on a Saturday night, especially in my area, but all I got
was a message every once in a while. Or should I not use the automatic
search, because it doesn't work properly?

Is the automatic search able to find all different frequencies, like
trunking, conventional, etc...?

I guess I'm confused because it didn't give me the action I was hoping
for.

I returned the unit on sunday...very disappointed, but maybe someone
could tell me I'm wrong and I need to do certain things to get this
unit to work.

thanks

Well duh for you.
You are supposed to figure out how to operate a high tech unit before taking
it back.
If you are the type that can't even program a VCR timer then yeah, I'd say
you made the right move.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

As a matter of fact, I do know how to program. I program in more than
10 languages, I speak 4 languages, I have AS, BS, MS degrees in
computer science and AI, and I don't consider myself a novice when it
comes to technology. In addition, I also program everything that comes
with a good manual. How would I know the unit I bought operates as it
should if the manual cannot describe a basic test to perform to see
the unit is working properly. I expected to hear some basic
frequencies when I did a search, but I could not hear anything. That's
my problem. The documentation assumes one knows all the tweaks of the
unit. I just didn't want to get in knee-deep before I know the basics
are working. I think I do understand the basics, but somehow cannot
make it work.

So here's what I did:
1) First I scanned the preprogrammed frequencies, but scanner didn't
stop at any frequency.
2) Then I played with the squelch (didn't know what it was for,
neither wasn't explained anywhere, neither wasn't pointed out what
level to sit it to), so I put is in the middle
3) then did scan again, didn't matter. No conversations anywhere.
4) Then I reset the scanner.
5) then I did a search for frequencies. Found 1 or 2 frequencys, one
was probably a PD, which only tracked a dispatch every few minutes, no
real conversations going on. The other one I found during a search was
a boater or so.
6) I live in the middle of the action, but wasn't able to find
anything
7) I drove around, tried close calls, etc...nothing ...
8) I did try the FM radio, that seemed to work
9) I assumed either the unit was not working properly or the whole
scanning thing must be really boring since I only here a dispatcher
once every 5 minutes talking for 2 seconds,
10) I also entered some of my area's frequencies found on
radioreference.com, but they were dead as well.

So, obviously I am missing something

Maybe the squelch wasn't set correctly. Still don't know what it does
exactly. I read most people set it to either 1 or 2. If there's 15
settings for it, why would most people set it to either 1 or 2?
shouldn't be somehwere average around 7, so one can go both ways?

Thanks