Ok I broke out my old uniden sportcat 150 , because I finally bought a
new battery for it.
Here is the situation...... when I plug in my wall charger into the
sportcat.... the voltage drops down to 1.38 (using the WX and L/O
battery monitoring trick) from 1.58 . Also when i am scanning just
using the battery pack & plug in the wall charger the "Batt" icon pops
up & a beep goes off every minute or so.
I no longer have the manual for the sportcat so I am not sure what
this means.... I assume that the batt icon & beeping means that it is
the low battery indicator.

Also I would like to know IF the sportcat can operate with the battery
pack out of it & the wall chager plugged in? Because it wont for me.

I am trying to figure out if I have a wall charger that is bad or the
female charging jack(on the sportcat) is bad.

any help?

That's a prime indicator that your wall wart (charger/adapter) has died.
Don't ask me why, but it seems to be a common happening with the SC-150. Of
the three I am personally familiar with (mine and two friend's), both of my
friend's wall warts bit the dust. And you aren't the first person to post
this problem on here or alt.radio.scanner. It's been a defective wall wart
every time. There is a "fuse" wire inside the wall wart on the AC side that
breaks if it is overloaded or just gets too hot too many times for too long.
That's the way these Class 2 AC adapters are designed. I'm always careful
to unplug my adapter as soon as I'm done charging the battery, maybe that's
why it's lasted longer than what seems to be the typical lifespan

Not long ago, as a test for a friend, I did power my 150 from the charger
only with the battery unplugged, worked just fine. I wouldn't want to do it
for an extended period of time, not knowing how the power circuit in the
scanner is built, but it can be done.

Take the wall wart to Radio Shack, and match the specs and plug with one of
their universal AC adapters, and you'll be back in business.

Any further questions, ask on here, my return email address isn't valid.


"j" wrote in message
om...
Ok I broke out my old uniden sportcat 150 , because I finally bought a
new battery for it.
Here is the situation...... when I plug in my wall charger into the
sportcat.... the voltage drops down to 1.38 (using the WX and L/O
battery monitoring trick) from 1.58 . Also when i am scanning just
using the battery pack & plug in the wall charger the "Batt" icon pops
up & a beep goes off every minute or so.
I no longer have the manual for the sportcat so I am not sure what
this means.... I assume that the batt icon & beeping means that it is
the low battery indicator.

Also I would like to know IF the sportcat can operate with the battery
pack out of it & the wall chager plugged in? Because it wont for me.

I am trying to figure out if I have a wall charger that is bad or the
female charging jack(on the sportcat) is bad.

any help?

Yep... you were right. POS wall plug! I dug up my old car cigarette
plug power cord for my scanner & used that to check the voltage my
scanner was recieving & it was something like 1.91. I will use it to
charge up my scanner (I have a converter in the house)until i find
another "wall wart" I think i have laying around here(from a bct-7).
Thanks.



"M.S." wrote in message ...
That's a prime indicator that your wall wart (charger/adapter) has died.
Don't ask me why, but it seems to be a common happening with the SC-150. Of
the three I am personally familiar with (mine and two friend's), both of my
friend's wall warts bit the dust. And you aren't the first person to post
this problem on here or alt.radio.scanner. It's been a defective wall wart
every time. There is a "fuse" wire inside the wall wart on the AC side that
breaks if it is overloaded or just gets too hot too many times for too long.
That's the way these Class 2 AC adapters are designed. I'm always careful
to unplug my adapter as soon as I'm done charging the battery, maybe that's
why it's lasted longer than what seems to be the typical lifespan

Not long ago, as a test for a friend, I did power my 150 from the charger
only with the battery unplugged, worked just fine. I wouldn't want to do it
for an extended period of time, not knowing how the power circuit in the
scanner is built, but it can be done.

Take the wall wart to Radio Shack, and match the specs and plug with one of
their universal AC adapters, and you'll be back in business.

Any further questions, ask on here, my return email address isn't valid.

(j) wrote in message . com...

Ok I broke out my old uniden sportcat 150 , because I finally bought a
new battery for it.

I have three (I think) SC180B scanners. (The "B" means that the case
is black.) Because I bought them on closeout at Best Buy, various
parts were not included - sometimes there would be no antenna,
sometimes no owner's manual, and sometimes no wall wart.

It may be the case that the SC180 and SC150 use the same wall wart.
The Bearcat owner's manual, which I have downloaded in .pdf format,
says that the correct AC adapter/charger for the SC180 is the AD-70U.
The wall wart I am using is made for an AT&T device, probably an
answering machine. The model number is 350902002COA, and the part
number is MA14L-2001-0012#A. It can supply 200 mA at 9VDC, with the
tip having positive polarity. I am using a homemade battery pack, as
one of the cells in the original battery pack was defective. I think
each NiCd AA cell in my homemade pack is rated at 600 mAh.

That combination works for me.

(j) wrote in message . com...

Ok I broke out my old uniden sportcat 150....

I no longer have the manual for the sportcat


Second answer: try downloading the owner's manual for the SC180B,
which surely must be quite similar to the SC150

http://www.uniden.com/productsupport...product=SC180B

http://www.uniden.com/pdf/SC180Bom.pdf

The AD70U is a pretty common adapter for Uniden, and is the one used by the
SC-150. I assumed he had the adapter already, so I didn't supply the info.
FYI, it is a 12 volt, 200ma supply, 9 volt is a little low, if you operate
the scanner at the same time you are attempting to charge the battery.



"Beloved Leader" wrote in message
om...
(j) wrote in message
. com...

Ok I broke out my old uniden sportcat 150 , because I finally bought a
new battery for it.

I have three (I think) SC180B scanners. (The "B" means that the case
is black.) Because I bought them on closeout at Best Buy, various
parts were not included - sometimes there would be no antenna,
sometimes no owner's manual, and sometimes no wall wart.

It may be the case that the SC180 and SC150 use the same wall wart.
The Bearcat owner's manual, which I have downloaded in .pdf format,
says that the correct AC adapter/charger for the SC180 is the AD-70U.
The wall wart I am using is made for an AT&T device, probably an
answering machine. The model number is 350902002COA, and the part
number is MA14L-2001-0012#A. It can supply 200 mA at 9VDC, with the
tip having positive polarity. I am using a homemade battery pack, as
one of the cells in the original battery pack was defective. I think
each NiCd AA cell in my homemade pack is rated at 600 mAh.

That combination works for me.

"M.S." wrote in message ...

FYI, it is a 12 volt, 200ma supply, 9 volt is a little low, if you operate
the scanner at the same time you are attempting to charge the battery.

Thanks. I hadn't known that. I haven't noticed any problems along
those lines, but since I've never tried using the correct adapter, I
have no way of knowing how much better the performance would be with
the right part in place.

I assume (yeah, dangerous) that there is an internal regulator in the
SC180B to drop the wall wart's output voltage to the correct voltage
for charging the cells in the battery pack. Whether Vcc for the
scanner is that lower, regulated voltage, I have no way of knowing.
Anybody have an online schematic for that scanner?

BTW, I like the SC180B a lot. I think it's my favorite handheld. I'm
kind of surprised I feel that way, as I been wary of the idea of
Uniden's proprietary battery pack. I have learned that they are easily
disassembled for replacing bad individual cells as they fail, so it's
not the issue I had thought it woud be. I have made a few spare
battery packs by now. The plugs are commonly found in cordless phones,
as are spare cells. I have a whole bunch of cordless phones that I
have liberated from the trash piles.

The manual for my 150 states (somewhere, I don't have it handy right now)
that when the battery is discharged and you operate the scanner while
charging the battery, it will take longer to recharge the battery. I would
think that feeding it 9 volts instead of the 12 volts it's expecting would
have some effect. Further than that I do not know.

My SC-150 is a favorite. Even though it lacks the bells and whistles of
some of my newer scanners, I can't bring myself to part with it. Still on
the original battery pack, BTW.

M

"Beloved Leader" wrote in message
om...
"M.S." wrote in message
...

FYI, it is a 12 volt, 200ma supply, 9 volt is a little low, if you
operate
the scanner at the same time you are attempting to charge the battery.

Thanks. I hadn't known that. I haven't noticed any problems along
those lines, but since I've never tried using the correct adapter, I
have no way of knowing how much better the performance would be with
the right part in place.

I assume (yeah, dangerous) that there is an internal regulator in the
SC180B to drop the wall wart's output voltage to the correct voltage
for charging the cells in the battery pack. Whether Vcc for the
scanner is that lower, regulated voltage, I have no way of knowing.
Anybody have an online schematic for that scanner?

BTW, I like the SC180B a lot. I think it's my favorite handheld. I'm
kind of surprised I feel that way, as I been wary of the idea of
Uniden's proprietary battery pack. I have learned that they are easily
disassembled for replacing bad individual cells as they fail, so it's
not the issue I had thought it woud be. I have made a few spare
battery packs by now. The plugs are commonly found in cordless phones,
as are spare cells. I have a whole bunch of cordless phones that I
have liberated from the trash piles.