May want to checkout this event if you're in the area...
Uniden Open House 2010 - The RadioReference.com Forums
I'm also curious what the new release is going to be (I'm betting it'll be their answer to the RS iScan)
May want to checkout this event if you're in the area...
Uniden Open House 2010 - The RadioReference.com Forums
I'm also curious what the new release is going to be (I'm betting it'll be their answer to the RS iScan)
Yeah, I was the first to RSVP for that deal! Should be good times! Pretty sure the new release is indeed going to be a handheld though, which is of no interest to me. But hey, free food is always good!
Hey bring a camera, I wish I could go but A I'll be nowhere near there on the 26th and B It's feild day and I'm going to be transmitting! (so they'll definitely have some stuff to tune into come 1pm)
Heh... as soon as they announced this, people brought up about it being Field Day and asked them to reschedule it. A lot of us were glad they didn't. More food for us! Plus, to be honest, sometimes the Ham geeks are just embarrassing to be around!
Well it guarantees something to listen to on the airwaves. I've got offers to go hang out with several groups and one is offering free dinner, and one group invited me for setup Friday night with bonfires and lots of drinking (but nooo radio we know drinks and radio don't mix).
I've been into several homebrew projects an my goal is just to work 3 grid boxes on VHF FM, with a 75watt radio (I'm going kind of nuts right now cause I got it yesterday but don't have a power supply for it yet, probably a going to be a homebrew project for this weekend). Anything else is a bonus for me IMO.
Scannists have their fair share of geeks too But I'm still betting this is going to be the anti-geek easy for all just plug it in and it'll DL from Radio Reference anything that you need "scanner" which is cool that it's opening the hobby, and if it's P25 capable I might be really interested in picking up 2 of them, one for the GF and one for headache free monitoring.
Seriously! When I first got licensed, back in the early 80's, I went to a few HAM club meetings, and was amused at all the polyester jumpsuit wearing old men there, all talking about their computers, back when nobody even had a computer! A few years later I went to my first Ham-Com, back when they had them in Arlington (TX), and could hardly contain my laughter at all the same old dudes walking around wearing metal construction hard hats with Rubber Duckie antennae mounted on top of them.
I went to this shindig at Uniden yesterday. Dude, the new product is going to be very cool! It's not so much for scanner enthusiasts. It's more for the person who wants a plug-and-play device with a very short learning curve and intuitive controls. It fits that bill very well. I thought it was going to be a handheld, but it's more of a compact mobile base. Bout twice the size of a 396 handheld, actually. All LCD touch-screen controls, except for power and volume. The entire Radioreference database is pre-loaded and updatable. To choose what you're going to scan, you just enter a zip code and range you want to receive in half mile increments, and it automatically loads everything in that range. Then you just manually lock out what you don't want. You can do a lot of customising of the parameters. I would like one for taking on vacations and trips, where I don't normally have my scanners programmed for. Easy to set up on the nightstand in a hotel room and monitor the locals. Likewise for listening to towns as you travel. A GPS kit is being planned for adding soon, so it will auto tune as you travel, like the 96 series does.
It is completely software/firmware controlled, so updates will be constantly adding new features. Updates planned so far are to be able to manually add frequencies (can't do that now, which only matters to serious enthusiasts), GPS, and freqeuncy search ranges, including CB, which it doesn't have yet. I specifically asked about the "Bear Tracker" function, since for some bizarre reason, a lot of people here at this forum still want that useless crap. Uniden said it would be added down the line, but not anytime soon.
It's a very cool device for the entry level user who wants to listen at home, especially the older crowd who sits at home all day and is nosey about why they're hearing sirens, but aren't technologically savvy enough to really get into the complicated scanners of today. Those that like it and really get into the hobby will probably eventually graduate to a 996 for more advanced functionality.
It's going to make scanning a LOT more user friendly to both the non techno savvy crowd, as well as to the tech savvy younger iPod generation, expanding the scanning customer base, which is good for the hobby! The downside is that it'll cost more than a 996 or 396, and that's a hefty price tag for an entry level.
Sounds pretty interesting. Any idea when it might be coming out?
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