Railfan Technology > Does Uniden BCT15X need fube-tuning to scan rail?

After hearing positive comments on BCT15X, I ordered one from Uniden.  After struggling to enter the railroad frequencies, I find that with the telescoping antenna (included in the box), that the 15X will not pickup a CSX defector 6 miles
away, nor trains in that area that my 34-yr old BC142XL. would pick up clear as a bell.  I would hear buzzing when I believe a nearby train was transmitting.  When I had the 15X in my car, with a Railcomm PCTel mag mount on the roof,
I was picking up CSX frequencies here in Jacksonville, FL, but many transmissions were raspy, and would have been clear with the 142XL.  This begs the question as to whether the radio needs some factory adjustments to pick up
CSX, FEC and NS clearly.  The manual said the 15X has a .03 V sensativity, which I believe is an improvement over the 142XL, so reception should be alot better.
Two other questions:
1.  If I take the 15X off power. will the frequencies drop out, like they do on the 142XL (after about a week)?
2.  If I locked out a channel (NS Atlanta North DS), do I need to search for that channel to unlock it?  If yes, how would a manually search for it?
Thanks
Andy

 

Don't know the fix but after looking through a manual there may be some ' features' defaulted on. Perhaps it's looking for trunking info or having an issue with GPS location or some of the other add ons. The cloes call feature has been a personal nusance on newer Uniden scanners.

Perhaps someone else has gone down this road before, doing a quick search there seems to a need to simplify some of the settings:

http://new.marksscanners.com/BCT15X/bct15x.shtml