Uniden BCD436HP

[kurisu]

Finally have an update on where the thing is and how it's progressing haha!

Was shipped from the US to UK on Wednesday. Tracking was updated to say it cleared customs on Saturday and was picked up by the courier in the uk at half 5 yesterday. So with a bit of luck, the delivery date is Thursday, so when i get it i can get the DMR key sorted and see what it's like

Fingers crossed all comes through. Looking forward to maybe seeming how the dmr is if you can shove a few vids up

[Brownie2k2001]

Scanner arrived today and i've unpacked it and set it up.

Registered it on the Uniden website, stating where i bought it (Maryland) and who i bought it off (Bearcatscanners) and it registered fine. Went to buy the DMR key and entered the ESN and Checksum to the registered scanner which it accepted straight away. Bought the DMR key saying i was US Forces - Europe. Used my card details, and home address and it approved easily enough. Putting the stupidly long key into the scanner took a while which was a bit annoying, and it took a while to process it on there, but it unlocked it easy enough. Not had much time to play around with it as the batteries were pretty much dead on arrival, so i need to charge it up.

The scanner came with a US USB plug adapter. Can i just use one of our own and plug the USB into it? It wouldn't harm the scanner would it?

EDIT - Just went for it and plugged it into a Samsung USB plug and it's charging fine

[moj]

Glad to hear it finaly arrived here safely mate , can you confirm if it bypasses ras and allows the audio through after the dmr upgrade ?

[Brownie2k2001]

Not tried an ras system yet but I've successfully decoded some TRBO. It gives talkgroup and colour code info and the audio sounds brilliant.

The stock antenna is pretty useless though in my opinion so I'm investing in a supergainer later on today. To be fair, I found the 3500's stock antenna pretty bad too though

[kurisu]

Not tried an ras system yet but I've successfully decoded some TRBO. It gives talkgroup and colour code info and the audio sounds brilliant.

The stock antenna is pretty useless though in my opinion so I'm investing in a supergainer later on today. To be fair, I found the 3500's stock antenna pretty bad too though

If I may ask, what was the process of registering... what site did you use and options etc? There is nothing step by step I could find. When I registered on my.uniden.com it gave nothing about armed forces for location.

Would you say the audio quality is better than that of dsd? Hoping to see a video soon!

[jhampton2000]

can you confirm if it bypasses ras and allows the audio through after the dmr upgrade ?

I can confirm the 436 has no problems decoding RAS-enabled MotoTRBO systems.

>Would you say the audio quality is better than that of dsd?
On DMR repeater signals, I've never had an issue with the audio quality of DSD+ I'd say the 436 audio quality is pretty good...on a good strong signal I;d say it's comparable to a DMR transceiver. However the 436 really does struggle with simplex/repeater input signals. IMHO a good discrim-tapped scanner with DSD+ still performs much better on such signals.

[Brownie2k2001]

Not tried an ras system yet but I've successfully decoded some TRBO. It gives talkgroup and colour code info and the audio sounds brilliant.

The stock antenna is pretty useless though in my opinion so I'm investing in a supergainer later on today. To be fair, I found the 3500's stock antenna pretty bad too though

If I may ask, what was the process of registering... what site did you use and options etc? There is nothing step by step I could find. When I registered on my.uniden.com it gave nothing about armed forces for location.

Would you say the audio quality is better than that of dsd? Hoping to see a video soon!

I'm still working on a video and i'm getting help with some DMR programming soon, which means i'll be able to listen to quite a bit. Upto now, i've had no problems with the quality at all, infact the audio quality has been really really good, clear, crisp and clean.

On the registering front, when you make an account at my.uniden.com, you have to make sure you register it as an american account. Thats what i did, so i just put in any random address and signed up with my e-mail and username. I read you have to do that when creating an account. To register a scanner, i did the following:

1) Logged into my account, clicked on Register a Product, and selected Scanners in Category and BCD436HP on Model Number. Clicked Go

2) I put in any nickname for my scanner, so i just used my TM1 nickname. Serial Number is the one on the back of the scanner, below the barcode on the Uniden information sticker. I got confused with the ESN which is found in the settings menu and tried to enter that, it wouldn't let me finish typing it due to no space so i thought something was wrong. Once i tried the number on the back, it worked fine

3) Where it said date of purchase, i put my DoP in (using american format) 09/05/2016. State of purchase was where it originated from, in my case Maryland. Place of purchase i put who i bought it off.

4) The rest is optional, so you don't need to add it all. Click register and it's registered and added.

If you need a step by step on the DMR key i'll happily help on that too

[kurisu]

Not tried an ras system yet but I've successfully decoded some TRBO. It gives talkgroup and colour code info and the audio sounds brilliant.

The stock antenna is pretty useless though in my opinion so I'm investing in a supergainer later on today. To be fair, I found the 3500's stock antenna pretty bad too though

If I may ask, what was the process of registering... what site did you use and options etc? There is nothing step by step I could find. When I registered on my.uniden.com it gave nothing about armed forces for location.

Would you say the audio quality is better than that of dsd? Hoping to see a video soon!

I'm still working on a video and i'm getting help with some DMR programming soon, which means i'll be able to listen to quite a bit. Upto now, i've had no problems with the quality at all, infact the audio quality has been really really good, clear, crisp and clean.

On the registering front, when you make an account at my.uniden.com, you have to make sure you register it as an american account. Thats what i did, so i just put in any random address and signed up with my e-mail and username. I read you have to do that when creating an account. To register a scanner, i did the following:

1) Logged into my account, clicked on Register a Product, and selected Scanners in Category and BCD436HP on Model Number. Clicked Go

2) I put in any nickname for my scanner, so i just used my TM1 nickname. Serial Number is the one on the back of the scanner, below the barcode on the Uniden information sticker. I got confused with the ESN which is found in the settings menu and tried to enter that, it wouldn't let me finish typing it due to no space so i thought something was wrong. Once i tried the number on the back, it worked fine

3) Where it said date of purchase, i put my DoP in (using american format) 09/05/2016. State of purchase was where it originated from, in my case Maryland. Place of purchase i put who i bought it off.

4) The rest is optional, so you don't need to add it all. Click register and it's registered and added.

If you need a step by step on the DMR key i'll happily help on that too

A step by step of the DMR key would be highy appridated, than I am good to go on ordering one of my own!.. I am also very much looking forward to the video too!

[Brownie2k2001]

Getting the DMR key is really easy too.

1) Log into your my Uniden account and click on All my Scanners on the right hand side. This will bring up another page saying My Account with a list of your registered scanners telling your their nickname, model number and serial number. Underneath this list will be two links. They'll say "Purchase ProVoice upgrade" on the left and "Purchase DMR upgrade" on the right

2) Click on the Purchase DMR upgrade link and it'll open it in a new window. In this window you'll see everything you need to purchase the DMR upgrade.

3) On your scanner, press Menu ---> Settings ---> See scanner information ---> Firmware version (Note: Before purchasing the DMR upgrade, you'll most likely have to upgrade your scanners firmware via Sentinel, this is really easy to do through a computer). Once in firmware version, write down the long number which starts with SN this is your ESN. Also write down the 3 characters after where it says SUM= this is your checksum.

4) Once you have this info, go back to the window that opened on my.uniden.com. It'll ask you to enter your ESN and your Checksum at the top of the page. Once you've done that you enter your NORMAL address registered with your credit/debit card, name on card etc. Where it says state, you select Armed Forces - Europe, and where it says Billing Zip, you enter your normal post code. Where it says Country, you have the option of USA, CAN and Other. Select Other. Then put your normal e-mail address in (your key will be e-mailed to you). You fill in the rest of the form as you normally would, using your card number, expiry date and security number (3 numbers back of card)

5) Press Continue only once and it'll say purchase confirmed and it'll present you your key saying write it down carefully etc but you get it e-mailed to you and it also appears on the All my scanners page where it used to say Purchase DMR upgrade. Your key will look something like this:

Key: 51D553-595D3841-713603-2FB6

6) On your scanner, press Menu ---> Settings ---> Upgrade ---> Enter DMR/MotoTRBO Key. Use your knob at the top to enter the key by turning it left and right to the required letter/number/dash. Once you've done that, you press yes on the keypad and it'll stay "Processing please wait" or something to that effect. It may take a while, so just wait and evntually it'll say "Upgrade compete" or again something like that, i can't quite remember. After that you're done. A good way to test it is to do a custom search between 440.000 and 460.000 and once it stops on a DMR signal, it'll decode it and show your CC, TG and Unit ID.

It's really not difficult at all, and it sounds a lot harder to do tha it actually is. The real fun comes when it's time to start programming MotoTRBO trunk systems and Single DMR frequencies. Me and Scott_93 spent a few hours yesterday trying it out and discovered quite a bit about the scanner. We managed to program some stuff and we found that the scanner can automatically find the Talkgroup ID's which is good.

[moj]

how did you go on with that local frequency , did you have any joy with the audio coming through

[kurisu]

Getting the DMR key is really easy too.
.

Thank you so much Brownie! How much was the upgrade?

[thelad]

Would like lots of feedback on the 436 as its on my maybe next list.

[Brownie2k2001]

The upgrade isn't super cheap, it's $60 but once you learn how to program it, then you're sorted. It's really really easy when you get into it. Myself and Scott spent a few more hours on it today and have found out that you don't need to know the talkgroup ID's as it'll automatically find them for you. Once set up correctly, it tracks absolutley fine too.

The only gripe i have is that it doesn't decode DMR simplex at the moment, but thats a firmware issue and one that DSD had at some point too, so hopefully Uniden will be sorting a fix out for it sooner or later.

[jhampton2000]

only gripe i have is that it doesn't decode DMR simplex at the moment

Technically it does but its a bit unreliable. For best results I suggest you go to MENU > Srch/CloCal Opt > Digital Wait time set to 400ms, Digital Threshold set to Manual, Digital Threshold Level set to 5. Also, check that modulation = FM. I think the heart of the problem lies in the sensitivity of the receiver. VHF performance is better than on UHF (both on analogue and the various digital modes), and the short time pulse duration on DMR simplex needs good sensitivity/selectivity.

[Metradio]

What and how are you gents using to test the receiving of DMR in simplex ??

Mike