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

The scanner hobby has been a part of my life since I built a SuperRegen Receiver at age 13. I an now 65. For scanners/receivers I have, and have owned Patrolman PRO-2 & 3, Patrolman 9 &10, PRO-2006, PRO-95, AOR1500, AOR2500, AOR3000A, AOR8200, IC-R1, BC200, BC780XLT, URR35C, and many more I cant recall. I have owned the BCD996P2 for three years now. I purchased it to receive P25 Phase II, which my older BC780XLT would not. Yes, it has wide frequency coverage and lots of cool features. But here in a metropolitan area, it overloads with tons of Mixing Products causing a desensing. This masks the weaker signals from farther away. I could barely receive the local NOAA Weather Broadcast at 162.55 mhz, and could not hear either 162.475 mhz or 162.525 mhz on the BCD996P2. This is with an Outdoor Antenna connected. The Front End in this scanner is very sensitive and overloads if you live in a major metro area and you connect it to an outside antenna. I solved the problem by using a Splitter/Attenuator between the antenna and the scanner. I use a -20db port on the Splitter and it works like magic. As soon as I added the Attenuator I could receive signals from stations up to 70 miles distant! I am delighted with the BCD996P2. KG7M

While the unit works very well, with band searches finding almost everything; transferring what it finds to memory functions is rather more complicated than earlier scanners. It is well worth it to have it programmed by a service that does this in most cases, especially with the trunked systems; unless the system users themselves will supply the information to you. Finding ALL the information yourself can be time consuming. Personally, I politely ASK for the needed information from municipalities, in writing, and supply easily filled out forms FOR the information; and I find that some are helpful while others give you a bunch of BS, assuming you know nothing about FCC rules and regulations and/or the fact that licenses are required for their communications equipment; (which makes the needed information readily available to them, IF they would supply it on the provided forms.)

Havent bought a new scanner for since the analog days (Over 20 years ago). Im super happy with this scanner. With the old analog scanners, you bought a frequency book and spent hours working the keys plugging in all the frequencies. That wasnt very easy. Although trunking systems are more complex, using RadioReference.com and Freescan software make it much easier to program these scanners. If you dont own and operate a PC and think you can program these scanners through the buttons on the front, I say good luck and God bless. I did a little reading, and actually downloaded the Freescan software and programmed my channels before the scanner arrived. You have to get comfortable with the Uniden way of creating Systems, then Sites and finally Talkgroups. Multi-site trunking scanning: read about it, learn it, its not that friggin hard. When my scanner arrived, I unboxed it, installed the driver on the PC and loaded my data; within 15 minutes and I was up and running.

While this is truly a pain to program, (and I’m a computer programmer), the customer support is top-notch and was patient with me and walked me through the stations I needed added. I would recommend spending more money to get the auto-programming ones based on your location.

Overall, this was a really good radio, but two areas were not up to my expectations: First, there are two agencies near me that use conventional digital, and while this was my first experience having a digital scanner, all voice sounded computer-generated, and not realistic at all. These were US Govt and Texas DPS agencies. I dont think I could pick out someone I knew with this digital voice quality; Second, and more importantly, this radio had trouble eliminating bleed over. One channel, a Sheriff repeater (159MHz), would constantly bleed over onto a county fire channel (158MHz), and occasionally over city police (151MHz), and two US Govt channels (169MHz and 173MHz), until I put in tone or DCS, but since the county fire channel used the same tone as the Sheriff channel, it never eliminated that bleed over, even though they were over 400KHz apart. The only way I stopped this was to disconnect the external house antenna and just use the telescoping antenna, or to attenuate the county fire channel, but neither of those were alternatives I wanted to use. My three other radios, a Uniden BC125AT, Uniden BC560XLT, and Kenwood TM-281A did not exhibit this bleed over behavior at all, even without using tone squelch. I could live with the poor digital voice quality if the bleed over wasnt such an issue.

The scanner is great, hard to program but with time can be figured out. Shipping was slow because when it got to my town it came thru the post office. they dont move fast even if they are on fire.

This is a great scanner. I would highly recommending downloading freescan software and a premium membership to radioreference.com. Once I download the software and learned how to use it, programming was quite easy

I was looking at the most expensive model and compared to that. This is certainly a bargain! Fully adjustable priority scan modes and delays. Different colors and audible alerts for each frequency. Actually, theres too many bells and whistles to list. Its a feature packed receiver. Freescan software on line works fantastic. This is not a beginner scanner, and setting up the banks and sub banks takes some thought. Fun though setting it up! Over all a great value paired with my home brew Dipole!

awesome scanner pain to set up and understand as a beginner but loads of fun you will want to throw this thing if you are new to scanners it takes patience to learn its a awesome scanner indeed it wasnt super hard to use freescan to program it ... the software makes it faster to program then the crazy menu but it can be programed either way side note youtube videos helpped me solve some of the hair pulling stress of it ... freescan is easy to use its the scanner controls that are a pain so far but takes time some stuff honestly isnt in the 100 or so page manual of the silly thing its ok though this is my first scanner and i managed to program trunked analog so far it took me 20minutes to do but im used to tinkering with hand held radios if your completely new to this just stick to the home patrol series of radios very simpler to program or pay to get it programed cause its complex comes with edacs free from uniden now i did a firmware update and it came free i read some were its free now so thats cool

I’m sure this is really a great product, but it’s defiantly NOT easy to set up. Lots of add-in’s to pay for. Apparently so difficult to set up, they offer an option to send your new scanner into the service shop to have it programmed by the experts. I don’t see that as a plus.