Uniden BCD536HP HomePatrol Series Digital Phase 2 Base/Mobile Scanner with HPDB and Wi-Fi. Simple Programming, TrunkTracker V, S.A.M.E. Emergency/Weather Alert. Covers USA and Canada.

The BCD536HP is a good radio that could be better. It does a great job on P25 systems and is decent on DMR and NXDN IF you buy the upgrades for them, which boost the price by $50 per mode. The Whistler TRX-2, which is about the same price, does DMR and NXDN with no extra charges. If youll primarily be monitoring DMR or NXDN radio systems, Id suggest going with a Whistler, if youll be listening to P25 (especially simulcast systems) this is the radio for you. If it werent for the extra cost of the upgrades, Id probably have given it five starts.

Date of manufacturer was 2013, guess they did not move off the shelves. Did not operate on power up, could not find any stations at all. Figured due to date of manufacture, it was obvious to me that it was out of date because the local police and fire frequencies were not correct. Tried to do database update, but the new database required a firmware update before it would load the DB. Did the FW and then the DB and all was well. Set my zip code and we were off to the races. As for the remote SW for my iOS iPad. It works but they really put no effort into doing a great remote app. As for the Sentinal SW for the PC, it uses dated methods of organizing the various functions. This app is in search of a well organized GUI..... Electricly it is a very good scanner, good sensitivity but could use bit more selectivity. Only negative is that when using an external speaker, the plug for external speaker does not turn off the internal speaker. This causes audio level problems and reduces the ability to control the audio in graceful way. Once you get past the growing pains it is a fine performing scanner, but I can’t justify 5 stars.

This is probably my sixth scanner, and covers all of the analog and digital channels that I was interested in receiving. After several months of using this scanner, it would still be the first choice for purchase. It receives all of our local un-encrypted police and fire channels. Even though I had experience with older generation Uniden scanners, there are a lot of differences that required some education. By far the best source of information was the many YouTube videos available on programming this scanner. A major improvement with these latter scanners is the inclusion of the complete RadioReference US and Canada database. The database is updated weekly with all of the new information. The Uniden Sentinel software works very well, and the scanner accepts MicroSD cards up to 32GB which can be programmed in the scanner using the included USB cable or by inserting the card into a computer. Very easy to back up the programming information. You can have one or more backup MicroSD cards. This scanner also covers P25 Phase II channels which are being used by many police and fire departments. This scanner is a big improvement from my old BCD996T. Much easier to program once I got through most of the learning curve.

It was time to upgrade a couple of my scanners so I done some research and chose the Uniden bcd536hp. my previous scanners were all radio shacks and were a pain in the neck to program them, even with third party programs. The 536hp is the simplest scanner I ever owned to get up and running. From updating the firmware to frequency database it is a breeze. Having the wifi and gps capability is a plus as well. Although unidens siren app is not as well thought out or implemented as it could be, there are other features that can make use of the wifi ability. I currently have this on my nightstand but will probably buy a second for my vehicle. Im a ham radio operator and a volunteer with local public safety entities. Unfortunately they use three different bands depending on the agency. My single band issued radio just doesnt give all the information I need. This new scanner so far has done a bang-up job of filling the gaps just by simply entering in my zip code. Would definitely (and most likely) by again

Ive owned other scanners for over 25 years and all were simple to program. Ive had this one now for over a month and still havent been able to program in the frequencies that I really want. They do have YouTube videos but they arent in any particular order so you have to keep jumping from video to video trying to find the continuation of the video you were just watching. You do have the option to have them program what you want to listen to but they charge too much and if you want it changed you have to pay again and they send you a new micro-sd card. They could do a better job of explaining the spreadsheet of information you need and how to use their programming software. You can select the preprogrammed frequencies but then you have to use what they want you to listen to.

This unit is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, its got fantastic build-quality. It works as it should, scans channels and lets you listen. The buttons and knobs work well. Its a quality unit. Or is it? It might be me, perhaps Im old and stupid, but I cannot, for the life of me, understand how to use the favorites system. In a web browser, youre on a page you like, and you hit a button and save it as a favorite. Later, you can go back to it. But this thing has no such button. Instead, it has an elaborate and over-complicated favorite-list system which is impossible for me to understand even after watching countless YouTube videos. The problem is you cant just say Hey, this is interesting, fave it! For goodness sake, Im a computer programmer and I *still* cant understand how to operate the user interface of this thing. Why cant I, for example, just quickly set a frequency / operation mode of my choice like I can on a regular radio? So now it sits here gathering dust instead of being used because the UI is so annoying.

The BCD536HP has all the the makings of the top of the line scanner...except inexplicably Uniden fell asleep at the wheel. The units build quality is top of the line...sturdy and rich feeling. The advertised features...who could ask for more?! The problem is they dont deliver on some of the features (at least not as of yet...as I am hoping a few firmware updates down the road they will). No App and no Analyze Mode feature even though those are two of the selling points . Worst of all if you buy this unit and are not located near the hub of what you are trying to receive...you absolutely will need to buy a better antenna. This is unforgivable. How is it possible that my 1980 Bearcat 210 can pull in clear stations that just show up as noisy scratchy inaudible transmissions on the 536???! Not sure if this is a bad antenna or worse poor sensitivity internal to the scanner. Either way...think external antenna unless your transmission source is close by. One would think that shelling $600 for this would get you a decent antenna. I want to love this unit...it has the makings of a great scanner...I just cant understand why Uniden skimped on the antenna / reception sensitivity and did not deliver a product that has the advertised features working ...unbelievable! For now I just like it and hope that firmware updates will deliver what was promised and then may be I will love this after all.

If youre familiar with the menu system on Uniden/Bearcat scanners over the past 10 years, you will not have to relearn everything from scratch with this unit. I love the extra long lines of text that can be used for naming Systems, Sites, Departments, and individual channels/talkgroups. There is an extra layer of complexity introduced with the Favorites feature which can make enabling/disabling groups of channels with just the numpad+.+E keys a tricky mess, but the Favorites feature itself is cool. A Favorite is like an entire set of systems/groups/channels in a scanner grouped into a bucket, where you can now have multiple of those named buckets to enable/disable at will, like Local Only, Vacation Spot, Imported from RadioRef, I Love Railroads!, etc. Having those Favorites saved to the included SD card is cool, as well as the HomePatrol feature of preloaded sets of systems across the entire US and Canada, scannable and selectable by Lat/Long. The USB dongle is included, and the Uniden Sentinel software is free for updating the firmware and the SD Cards national database. I have been using BuTels ARC software with prior Uniden scanners, and there is a version for this scanner too. There is a useful multi-color ring LED that can be lit for specific types of services or individual channels; note that youll never see it light up if you only ever scan with the built-in national database. When I programmed channels I set it to light up blue for Police, red for Fire/EMS, green for Public Works, and more for other services. I set it to flash for my hometowns channels, which is easily visible from across a room. I also tried out Unidens Siren app on Android to listen to the scanner remotely within my house through WiFi, which is a cool concept but a bit buggy right now; occasionally the app gets stuck or stops streaming audio even though the system/site/channel continues to follow along in realtime. The app cannot handle higher-latency network connections, so if you connect to your scanner from outside your home through a VPN, the app will show system/site/channel but will not stream any audio. There is a purchasable, third-party Windows desktop app that can do this called ProScan; there may be others. For a relatively small receiver this thing is heavy! I like that it has a 13.8VDC input for the AC Adapter, and a 3-pin 13.8VDC jack commonly used for mobile receivers.

I have listing to a police scanner for many of years and when my county went digital then i went a bought a bran new radio shack digital police scanner gave close to 500 hundred dollars for it but unfortunately Once again my county made some more changes where they went to the Tenn Advance system and you had to have a phase one and phase two scanner to be able to pick up my frequencys so once again i had to pay big bucks for another police scanner and i bought the BCD536HP off Amazon i have got to say with out a doubt this is a very nice and up to date police scanner very easy to learn that the radio shack pro 197 I had .but the down side of it all is i have put in to close to 1000 dollars in two scanners in the last 4 years so hopefully that my county want change anything else around because what they did the last time costed them over 20 million dollars what i herd and also herd that before it is all over and done with everybody will eventually have to have a phase 1 and phase 2 scanner because they are suppose to upgrade all counties to that in the near future but like i said this is a very nice scanner i love it have not learned ever thing on it yet but i am getting there Good Luck Scanner World

This is an awesome Scanner. If your area PD uses DMR you cannot be without this scanner if you want to know what is going on in your area. I am planning on getting another one for the other end of the house, and possibly a portable one.