Uniden BCD996P2 Digital Mobile TrunkTracker V Scanner, 25,000 Dynamically Allocated Channels, Close Call RF Capture Technology, 4-Line Alpha display, Base/Mobile Design, Phase 2, Location-Based Scanning

Nice radio but too difficult to program. Actually had to contact third party to purchase software to program the radio. I will probably get it programmed but if asked. I wouldn’t purchase this again.

This radio works great! This was an upgrade for me from a 396T. I still use the 996T, but I got this to prepare for when Michigan switches to APCO 25 phase 2, currently the U.P. is still in Phase 1 as I write this now in 2016. 2017 looks like phase 2 will come here. Do yourself a favor, get freescan. Very easy to program with that free software. Also, subscribe to radio reference premium. With premium you can import the frequencies using the freescan software, its cheep enough, and well worth it. Depending on what system you are monitoring, I suggest getting an 800Mhz yagi antenna. That will only work for your area if you monitor 800 Mhz in simulcast. Otherwise you are only going to pick up whatever comes off of the tower you are aiming at. Use radio reference as a guide to help you, it can tell you in the forums, or in their database, what type of system is in your area. The scanner even comes with a programming cable, house adapter, and a car adapter.

Bought for the Schenectady NY area because Fire/EMS moved to the new P25 Phase II system. This thing is terrible to program, and just doesnt work consistently with the simulcast system in the Schenectady area.

Would not recommend for a beginner

Got for father in law to keep up

Replaced my BCT15X with it, programming is much the same, however programming trunked systems is a major pain, even with the software. It helps to a ton to have a subscription to radioreference dot com. Dont even try without it. My only problem is Ive not found a good way to program talk groups, so i get everything, Police, Fire, EMS.... Sometimes all i want is Fire, i get tired of listening to the cops writing speeding tickets. If anyone knows how to do that, please leave a comment.

This is a review of the Uniden BCD996P2 system. I am a US licensed amateur extra radio operator,, so I have some experience with radios and their operation. I am also a software developer, avid linux user and advocate. The programming aspects of the system did live up to what many of the reviews stated, it is not for the feint of heart. To get any P25 systems into this system you will be well advised to use some programming software. I had to create a windows system on a spare laptop in order to get the firmware update software package to work with the device (strike one) Once updated I attempted to setup my countys government P25 system (phase 1), specifically for the fire department (no, they were not encrypted channels). I programmed the device by hand with no joy. I downloaded multiple software packages that worked with the scanner to try to automatically load the configuration into the system. I even subscribed to radio reference to take advantage of their configuration file downloads. Still no Joy. (strike two). I spent an entire weekend trying various methods to program this scanner. I tried just about every permutation of options that I could find. For some reason there is something that the local P25 system is doing that this scanner appears to be incapable of decoding. I was able to get multiple other P25 (phase 1 and 2) systems working, every other system that I tried and was with in listening distance in fact worked. (strike three) There is next to no online documentation, and it would appear that Uniden is abandoning support of this product. After all of this, I returned the product, totally disappointed. (gave it 2 stars, because it worked for some sites well enough, but the not for the system I intended to use it with) I looked at the next higher cost option, but at $700, and with such a miserable experience with this $400 scanner I opted to buy an $30 USB SDR device and try my hand at open source, which worked perfectly (on linux!). I can put up with windows only options for programming the system, and complex programming requirements. But for $400 the device should just work out of the box.

While the product itself its top notch, it desperately needs to come with an available programming software. While there are free options this scanner will take hours to program even the simplest database without a bulk import. Very good for APCO but if you are looking to receive a simulcast system, buy a directional antenna or look elsewhere because it struggles with it. I am happy with the purchase but wanted to be blown away.

This scanner is capable of receiving the majority of everything (not encrypted) in the Police/Fire/Public Service/Military Air/Gov/Misc bands in either analog or digital modes. It receives APCO P-25 digital (both Phase I & II) signals great for me with a stock antenna but I am in a good location to receive two actual P-25 trunk radio system site towers with good signal levels. With digital 800 Mhz signals though, you may need less antenna. About 6.5 inches in length is a good 800 Mhz antenna. With an attic mount ST-2 antenna on a tv antenna booster, I can receive analog signals 60 plus miles away cleanly but thats flat terrain to the top of the Willis Tower. If you have marginal (P-25) 800 Mhz signal levels you wont get many signal bars lit up, it wont trunk track right and you may see talkgroups show up on the display but no audio is heard/garbled/breaks up because it cant decode the digital modulation, or it just might be encrypted. When you get trunking lock on a control channel in APCO P-25 mode, the actual frequency will show up (small) on the display, otherwise you just get NFM on the display which means youre not tracking the system and it will not work. But once you get lock on a control channel, if it all works correctly, it grabs talkgroups at will and you will have to label them or sort out what you wish to really listen to as there will be plenty of (channels=talkgroups) at busy times. With digital trunking systems, it depends on the tower near you having the talkgroup channels you want to hear available on that tower. As far as digital trunking signals go with any digital scanner, all bets are off. The signals fade out at times, some of these RF tower signals get more/less power alloted to them on each tower. In order to fully monitor one P-25 system, the scanner may have to listen to 6 or more towers (in one system) that are all directions from you with varying RF power levels on each frequency, in order to properly receive ALL of your chosen channel (talkgroups) in that Police system you want to hear. If this seems too complicated, well it is. There is a Computer Control channel on P25 digital trunking systems that tells the police system computer what frequency to use or hop to (each split second) and you may get that individual frequencys (talkgroup) good/bad/gone off various towers (and all at nearly the same time yet!) This is called simulcasting distortion and makes listening to any APCO P-25 digital Police trunking radio system extremely hard for any new digital scanner. And the nasty winds, rain, leaf foliage too all mess havoc with these signals. No getting around this. You may be in a good/bad location, it all depends. You may have missed details in your programming, yes I did too many times. Could be your location, your antenna, your programming, proximity to too many other site towers, winds, (high winds or hot/humid air seem nasty on narrow P-25 signals), or the big TV/Radio/Cell Towers nearby with mega kw watts etc. It is a huge complicated mess even for an expert radio engineer to deal with. A lot of it is...trial and error with P-25 digital. Does it track control signal? No. Move antenna/radio a few inches, try again. But the BCD996P2 (once setup right) excels at receiving everything great! This scanner works Great for me in my location even on the factory antenna. And the bandscope mode is fabulous too. I love it. It is up to you to sort out the critical-channel-programming first before you use it. Study the Radio Reference website, it might take time. I would advise to use a computer to program this scanner, otherwise youll just pull your hair out. You cant program this scanner by using zip codes like some others. Freescan (sixspotsoftware) is a great Free program to use, I use it, others exist too. You can plug the scanner into your PC via the included USB cable. My Win 7 PCs found it right away (You setup Control Scanner, Set com port to auto find in Freescan and it should find your scanner on a com port. Then you upload your channels/lineups to the scanner) But first you need to find the frequencies in the Radio Reference website. Freescan also has a Cut N Paste frequency import method which works fine as you select from database info. An outside scanner antenna used with at least an RG-6 cable is optimal for the best reception with this extended coverage scanner to hear everything. I also use a cheap (75 ohm) TV antenna signal booster with 18 db gain, on 50ft RG-6 and a 4 port ant splitter. I have a lot of RF signal levels (using bandscope mode) but no overload that I can see or hear. But for local signals (20 miles or less) you probably will do just as well with the back of set stock antenna, for both analog channels and digital systems. For 800 Mhz specific signals, use a 800 Mhz antenna like a Remtronix. The scanner can be used in the car, it comes with 2 DC power cords, one with a lighter plug, it has a nice bracket and includes the AC adapter. This unit is the base model of the portable BCD325P2 hand held scanner. They are the same to operate/use and program. This 996P2 model has a bottom fire speaker with a deep bass audio sound on digital systems and it sounds like a loudness circuit in a stereo, compared to my RS-652 desktop scanner which has a tinnier sound. You can choose one of 7 colors for the display and it has many signal adjustments for each channel/system, which is why you need patience. You can upgrade this scanner now to receive ProVoice, Mototrbo and DMR but Uniden charges an extra fee for each one. I do not have these upgrades and may not get. These new digital scanners are frustration devices to many people. For the expert, yes, this scanner is marvelous, you can hear everything except Encrypted signals. Be sure you have days/weeks of time and patience to spend with this thing first though. The learning curve is very steep. It is not plug it in, put in a few channels and listen like in the old days. Every channel has about a dozen parameters to setup first, a P-25 digital system may have 2 dozen parameters to setup first, then one dozen items per channel on top of this. This scanner does Not use an SD memory card to store channels/data to. These can be problematic and cause odd errors of all kinds. But the BCD996P2 scanner is a techs dream to use (once programmed properly) and a upgraded cousin to my all time favorite pal the Uniden BCD396XT portable scanner. But this scanner is still quite a challenge for anyone to setup/operate/use. Five stars because it is simply a phenomenal scanner (with exceptional abilities) targeted to mostly expert scanner junkies.

While this scanner is not the most complex thing ever designed it does take time to understand and learn. Uniden has made a poor job trying to make sense of the terminology that this scanner uses, but once you trial and error you’ll understand it. My recommendation is to use RadioReference for information about scanners as well as this one. My last point is to avoid Priority Mode unless you actually know what it’s purpose is, and colour code your frequencies if you use a lot.