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I'm *finally* getting my 396XT tomorrow. Life happens and I wasn't able to get one immediately after I sold my 396T. Damn, it's at the UPS warehouse in Redmond already. Think they mind if I snuck over and rumaged thru their packages!? :lol: 8)

I'll give a little review when I get it home. I'm looking forward to the new features, e.g. discriminator data thru the standard computer interface

If you were unable to go get it, I'd be more than happy to run over and retrieve it for you!.. :P

Let us know how it works!!

Regards...

P.S. Whom did you order it from?

I purchased it from HRO Portland. Can't beat free shipping and 1-day delivery! 8) (It was a tad more expensive than other places but they're east coast locations.)

UPS delivered it this morning. I came home from lunch.

So far, I'm surprised at how different it is than the 396T. The keypad is more rubbery - it's not hard like the 396T. The various colored lights are neat. I like the green moreso than blue.

I just flashed it to the latest firmware. It works great. I'm getting the radio ID from the transmitting unit about 90% of the time. Audio sounds good. I noticed the volume number is slightly lower than before. So, on the 396T, the Volume could be on 7 and it was quite loud. It seems to be more of a 10 on the 396XT. Overall reception seems great, but I'm only listening to EPSCA which is virtually LOS to my house.

PS. I'm not a fan of the silver faceplate, as it kind of stands out. Black would have been sweet. :D


-Nick

SO what is the difference between the two? I understand the XT will have better sensitivity, and i have looked over the bolded list so it loks like there are more channels to tag and more frequencey coverage, but what else is there? I have looked on the net but looking for a more dumbed down answer :)

I'll put together a detailed report with pictures soon. I'm too tired to do this after work. :)

There are two main reasons I wanted to upgrade: more TGIDs (up to 500 now from 250) and the "improved" P25 decoding and audio quality (...more on this later.)

Two really neat features:

1. The XT has the multi-colored LED now. So for all of those fun interop TGIDs that King County uses... I set it to the "white" LED light - so when the TGID shows up, the radio lights up. Very handy. The only downside is that you must do this ahead of time (in the software) - major pain to do it manually.

2. The XT has a cool built-in bandscope. You can punch in a freq and set the limit up to 500mhz wide. So, if I punch in 450 mhz, i can see 200-700mhz in whatever steps I choose. If you see a signal, you can lock on to it and press HOLD - it'll come up with audio. Works well with small ranges... obviously, you need a big step with a larger range - to make it practical.

I'll send a complete review later this weekend...