[TrunkCom] [Reply] New Uniden Digital Scanners

[Roger D. Cravens, Jr.]

At 03:07 PM 04/16/2002, you wrote:
>  I wonder what retail stores that you will be able to find the new Uniden
>digital scanners and the digital card at. I know that Walmart carries Uniden
>scanners, but I don't know if they carry them up to date. Maybe the big
>electronic stores like Best Buy and Circuit City will have them when they
>come out? If anybody knows of any retail stores that will probably have them
>when they come out, let me know?

For the past 10 years or so I've tried (within reason) to keep my scanners up
to date.  I bought the PRO-2067 (two actually) soon after this radio's 
release.  I
wasn't exactly pleased with its performance.

The BC-780XLT is entirely a different game - I assume you will agree with this.

Because this particular radio (digital) will be so new to the market, I've 
decided to
sit on my bill-fold on this particular model.  I may even wait for a year 
or two
while Uniden gets the kinks out, if there are any.  Most of the time there are
a few.

This biggest problem as I see it is that most cities and towns will not be
on digital mainly because it's too expensive.  There is also a small factor
or reliability.  I'm about 30-40 miles north of Kansas City, Missouri and there
have been many, many problems with the radios they purchased.  The city's
first and biggest problem was with them deciding to use EDACS instead of
a Motorola or other system that has a better reputation.

What is going to be the biggest headache is that those new to scanning won't
know a digital scanner from an analog scanner.  The day they purchase the
radio (digital) and they can't pick up anything except noise and God only knows
what else, they are going to take or send the radio back to where ever they
purchased it from because in their eyes it doesn't work.  It can't pick up
anything according to the person.  That's obviously not true, it's doing what
it was designed to do - pick up digital.  If there are no digital 
transmissions in
the area, then their very expensive "digital" radio will be worthless to them.

Here in the metro-Kansas City, Missouri area I'm not sure there are any
digital systems.  Kansas City, Missouri did have digital once, but they
switched for some reason back to analog.  Rumor has it that there were
simply far too many problems with their digital system  I wasn't here when
all those decisions were made - I was living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time.

But regardless of all that, this is one time that I'm going to let my 
newest and
biggest bang toy wait until I see what happens.  If it good-to-go, then in a
year or two I'll buy both the hand-held and base scanners.   For what Uniden
is evidently asking for these new units, I'm going to keep my $money in
my bank until I am convinced that the bugs have been worked out and
there are more than just two or three cities using digital.  Other-wise, it's
a big waste of money to me.

Good Signals you all -

Roger Cravens, KE4YQZ
Kansas City, Missouri