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I'm a little stunned by the bad reviews. I couldn't disagree more. This is a great scanner. For the roughly 100 bucks, you really get a lot.
It's handheld, which means it travels nicely. It's great for road trips and can keep you in the loop on weather, accidents, and umm, "other" police activities. It scans CB, FRS/GMRS/MURS and HAM bands which covers pretty much all of the individual use bands. The first two (CB, FRS/GMRS/MURS) are pretty useful on trips too.
It's rechargeable, and uses standard AA Ni-MH batteries (included) and you can recharge the batteries right in the scanner from a USB port. You can charge while it's on. Also, just in case it matters, you can run it directly from the USB port without any batteries installed at all! Of course, in a pinch you can always use regular non-rechargeable AA batteries which are pretty much the most common batteries in America. There's a switch inside the battery compartment to tell the scanner what kind of batteries you have so that it won't try to recharge regular batteries. (I know, too much time on batteries but I can't help it. A scanner's no good if you can't turn it on!)
There are some nice storage features for storing "found" stations and you can program them in manually too, if you know the frequency. You can name all the stations as well. Additionally, there's are banks of per-programmed frequencies for different uses (fire, police, CB, etc.) to allow you to get started right away. (If you're looking for frequencies just google "scanner frequencies" and the city or area you live in. Pretty simple...)
But really, it's connecting to the PC that has me won over. *All* of the settings can be accessed through the PC software available from the website. (The website also includes the *manual* , drivers, and firmware updates. The software isn't all that sexy to be sure, but it's plenty functional! It's a lot easier to use than typing into the scanner itself. It allows you to save different configurations in separate files so you can have, for instance, a file for Topeka, and another one for Miami. Again, a really nice feature if you're on the road and have a laptop.
Cons:
You can't actually control the scanning itself from the computer. Not a big deal but the function might be kinda cool. My biggest complaint is that there is not a standing battery indicator. You only get notification when the batteries get low, but you have no idea when that might be. It's just a minor annoyance... maybe it'll get fixed in a firmware update?
Overall, totally useful.
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I have a GRE PSR-310 scanner that I like, a lot. However this Bearcat came with a programming cable and free programming software is available from Uniden, Sure it's missing the 800MHZ band, trunking and stores fewer channels, but for the price this thing can't be beat, sensitivity is on par with the GRE and volume and sound quality is ALMOST as good, however this Uniden is less than half the size, and much, much lighter, yet feels a tad more solid than the GRE.
I know I'm comparing apples and oranges here, but again, for the price, you'll be hard pressed to find a better scanner. I slightly prefer GRE's "Object Oriented Scanning" due to the flexibility it affords frequency setups, but I'll find myself using this Uniden a lot more because of the form factor and the included programming software/cable.
Now I have to go spend another $60 on a cable and software on the GRE so I can program the thing via my PC.
Uniden, you have spoiled me.
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Well so far so good! this is my first scanner and i think it's going well. I read the instructions jumped on radio reference and loaded it up. It seems to work great and i'm having alot of fun being nosy. Very easy to program and the scanner is picking up towns that are about 17 miles away. thanks!
Honest reviews on Uniden Bearcat 500 Channel Alpha Numeric Hand Held Radio Scanner
This is my first radio scanner and I'm very satisfied. Living at about 80 meters above sea level near the South Coast of the island of Curacao I'm receiving loud and clear communication from the North coast (Punto Fijo and Coro and enviroment)of Venezuela. Distance is approximately 120 km.
The only thing I have is that I would be very glad if someone would be so kind to send me the unzipped files of BC125AT_USB_driver.zip so that I will be able to install the drivers and update my scanner. I've been trying for hours but did not succeed and I have nobody who can help me with this problem. I'll send my email address to the one who can help me really. Thanks in advance.
This morning I was receiving air traffic communication from the airport of Caracas (Maiquetia). Distance to Maiquetia is about 300 km.!!
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I got a BC72XLT a couple years ago, and never regretted that purchase. I saw the features of this radio and decided it was worth the upgrade. I think it's definitely worth it for someone looking for a few more features.
Alpha Tags so you know what you're listening to, you don't have to memorize what frequencies are
USB programming MUCH easier to program new frequencies. You can also back up everything to a file, so you can change the entire setup of the banks really quickly. Nice if you go on vacation, because you can enter all the new frequencies on the computer, back up the old setup and apply the new setup. When you get back, it takes less than a minute to put the old setup back on.
USB charging you don't need a special AC charger for the radio, it can charge from a computer or USB charger. If you plan on using it at home or in one place a lot, I would definitely suggest getting a USB charger (maybe with a mini USB plug already on it). This helps to get it away from the computer, which can cause interference. It comes with 2 rechargeable AA batteries, which seem to last maybe 8 hours on a charge. Backlight and frequent transmissions could reduce this, but I have been very happy with battery life.
Military Frequencies one of the main things that convinced me to get this radio. I have to admit I haven't heard anything except the UHF from airport towers, but I will be around more UHF traffic soon and I expect to get a lot more from this.
Better Programming you can set delay specifically to each channel. You can also set a temporary lockout, which only locks a channel out until you turn off the radio. Useful for localized interference.
Backlight Options you can set the backlight to come on only with squelch, so it is off until it picks up a signal.
DND Mode this stands for "do not disturb." This means that the "close call" or priority modes will only do their checks when scanning. Once it picks up a channel, it will not interrupt the channel to do those checks. This is really nice, because even the short pauses to do those checks can make you miss key information in a transmission.
Close Call memory you can store the frequencies found in close call mode to a small bank for later review or scanning.
Large banks 50 channels in each bank. Sometimes I have to combine smaller categories into one bank, but overall it is good to have plenty of space in a bank. Also good to have more frequencies overall.
Dedicated Weather Function Fn-3 accesses weather radio modes, nice to have when there is bad weather. There is also a weather function to scan weather radio in the background for alerts.
Easier service search When in service search mode, each service is treated like a bank and can be turned on or off. This is much more intuitive and lets you only choose the ones you are interested in. These are: Police, Fire/Emergency, Ham, Marine, Railroad, Civil Air, Military Air, CB Radio, FRS/GMRS/MURS (handheld civil radios), and Racing. You can also set custom ranges.
There are other features, but these are the ones I found most useful.
