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

These things have come a long way over the years. This scanner is definitely high quality and is what I was looking for. The only downside to it, is that there is quite a learning curve, specifically on programing it. There are YouTube videos out there on how to program and operate it; some are more helpful than others. Overall I am pleased with it.

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.)

I like it very much

I basically had to use 3rd party software to program this. I primarily got it to listen to local fire depts. It does have a tone-out feature, but I didnt find that feature particularly impressive or useful since it is basically necessary to sit on the main dispatch frequency (rather than scanning multiple frequencies). So, I was basically forced to either use it on only one frequency, or give up the tone-out feature to make use of the scanner as a scanner. Additionally, my attempts at contacting customer service/tech support were a waste of time. They did respond to my initial email telling me theyd get back to me with an answer, which they never did. Even more than a month later, I still have not received any follow-up from them about my issue. Ultimately, I returned the item for a refund. Its just too pricey and hard to program for its own good.

When I got this I thought it would be hard to program, but with a little reading and trying ..... its pretty easy!!!!

This is an excellent scanner, as you would expect from Uniden Bearcat. Ive been using scanners for 35 years, and this is a good one. It has plenty of options and can store more frequencies than most people will ever use. This scanner is not organized in the traditional way (e.g. banks of frequencies); it is ordered in Systems/Sites/Groups, which handles memory better but that appears to be the only advantage. The major limitation of this unit is the owners manual. It was clearly written by engineers with no editing or useful organization. It looks like about 30 people wrote different sections of the manual, and none of them coordinated with the others. The manual is difficult to follow, and presumes the reader is a tech-head engineer. The manual contains less-then-helpful comments such as if you really want to confuse yourself - no kidding thats actually in there! As you read along, trying to figure out how to program a simple frequency, you will find headings that say refer to Creating Sites and Creating Groups. Finally, refer to Programming Frequencies/IDs. Great, but it doesnt tell you where those sections are in the manual, and to make sure you cant find them, the section headings are repeated over and over and over and over and over again in multiple contexts that are nearly impossible to follow. The manual is and absolute stream-of-consciousness. I was a software engineer for 12 years, so I will get this unit programmed, but I would most definitely not buy it again. If Id known the manual was such a disaster, I would have purchased a different unit.

I love all the whistles and bells on this scanner. Simple to program. Like the option of different display colors for different programmed talk groups. Only thing I dont like is its range. Poor in my opinion. I have a older hd956d its range is twice the distance of this scanner. Overall its a nice add to all my equipment.

You definitely need a programming cable and free program software to get all you want....

no help ,call a few time ... help desk said you need to learn the ferq,,,also need to down loan the site then do the steps ,,,but they would not help me when i had the site and all the step i needed to help me ...i told them i was very new can you do the step with me ,,they said understand what it do frist ,are you be a deer in the head light

Ive had more experience with Whistler/Grecom so I was curious to try a Uniden. This is their flagship mobile/desktop scanner unless you want their dumbed-down Home Patrol version. Im impressed with the RF performance but the digital P25 performance is relatively poor. P25 calls range from mildly garbled to nearly unintelligible. The BCD992P2 also has trouble following P25 communications often truncating or completely muting the audio. For those who think Im just being hard on Uniden, a Whistler 1098 on the same discone antenna has done FAR better delivering intelligible audio on the exact same traffic. There are also multiple YouTube videos documenting the same thing. Im also disappointed in all the missing features and weird user interface of the Uniden. Whos bright idea was it to define everything around Quick Keys apparently just to be different? A Whistler can log hit counts into the scanner memory while you just let it scan for days if you want. You can then easily sort for the most active channels. That seems a bit too advanced for Unidens firmware people as I havent found any equivalent feature. The Freescan software will log hits on your PC but you cant use the resulting list to edit anything directly in the scanner. For analog use this seems to perform similarly to my Whistler scanners and might have somewhat better RF performance (less susceptible to overload/intermod). For digital it seems to really struggle. And, regardless, the user interface, programming, etc. is generally less intuitive and less capable. Uniden vs Whistler each have their advantages and disadvantages. For me, Unidens poor digital performance and arcane user interface make it the inferior choice. Uniden needs to at least match Whistlers digital performance and come up with a user interface that doesnt seem like it was designed by aliens from another planet.