Uniden BC355N 800 MHz 300-Channel Base/Mobile Scanner, Close Call RF Capture, Pre-programmed Search “Action” Bands to Hear Police, Ambulance, Fire, Amateur Radio, Public Utilities, Weather, and More, Black

It is hard to figure out the search and scan. I read the manual several times and i am still confused. also cant figure out if it has a channel priority and it scans really slow.

Although this scanner is compact and seems senitive, it is poorly designed. It claims to be 300 channels, BUT this is misleading. 100 channels are shared between Marine Band and Aircraft. In order to use these channels you must let it scan through the pre-programmed frequencies first. On aircraft that means it takes 27 seconds before you even get to your frequencies. In my case, all 27 seconds were dead channels. The same is true for Police &Fire except there are many more pre-programmed frequencies to scan through. If you turn these banks off you can only scan 100 channels. Unless you are willing to use this as a 100 channel scanner, the wait time of going through thousands of dead frequencies is ginormus! You better have the patience of a saint.

I purchased this scanner because it has a private bank i.e.; you can program your favorite frequencies into this band, and turn off all other banks. The private bank only holds 100 frequencies. This might be an issue if you live in or near a very large city. Its not an issue for me, and probably not for most people. Programming wasnt all that hard to figure out. Just follow the instructions in the owners manual. It has a weather band and has all 7 NOAA bands. Scanner comes with a telescoping antenna, and uses a standard BNC connector. It has a frequency lock out feature. Permanent and temporary. Turbo search (180 steps per second). 7 banks total. 6 pre-programmed 1 private band. Close call i.e.; checks for strong nearby signals while monitoring other frequencies. This is a great feature when you are monitoring a band that has some activity but not a lot. Im not going to use it as a mobile device, but it comes with everything you would need to go mobile, including a window mount antenna. Scanner does not have internal battery backup. I guess if you loose your house power, you can plug it into your vehicle. Use an external speaker. Ive owned several scanners and all their internal speakers pretty much suck. Ive had this scanner for 2 months, and overall, Im very satisfied.

The product information mentioned battery charging capability but this does not have battery charging capability you have to keep it plugged in the outlet at all times

For 75 dollars, an excellent scanner for the price. Connect an outside rooftop antenna and a external speaker and you have a scanner as good with sensitivity and selectivity as a 500 dollar one. Contrary to what is said, you can monitor 800 MHz trunked radio systems, as long as you lock out the control data frequencies that run 24 hrs a day. Will not be as good as a scanner made for trunking, showing you the names of the talk groups, etc but does enable you to monitor trunked systems as long as they are not digital. The only con with this radio is there is not a keyboard, so you just cannot punch in a frequency. You have to scroll through the frequencies of a particular band and enter them into scanner that way. I wanted a scanner to monitor the marine VHF band during summers, and this scanner fits the bill perfectly for a very low price. Did not try this radio in a vehicle, so cannot comment on its performance. In any case you must plug in an external antenna into the BNC connector on the back of radio if you want decent performance. The little antenna supplied is good only for 5 miles max.

Up front: this is an older model, and does not receive digital transmissions. But with that being known ahead of time, this scanner is simply the best, easiest, and highly usable for my purposes. I wanted something that would be great for use in my travel trailer. I need to go to a new area and pick up whatever local stations are transmitting. I want to hear the cops and fire, but also ham radio repeaters, and aircraft from time to time. And it even gets CB which is something I might need too. The close call feature is great, as expected, for those times when there are mystery stations nearby such as the security guard in the RV park chasing someone, or hams at a hamfest QSYing where they think its a private freq). Big features I like are a) programming searched out channels into a bank, b) storing my own favorite freqs into the private bank, no matter what the service (air, AND fire, AND ham 146.52, AND FRS, AND CB ch. 19 for example), and c) a pretty fast scan rate, and d) a very sensitive receiver. Its small, low power requirements, and can run on 12V or uses the 115 adapter. It also includes a couple of antennas, for flexibility where it is sitting on the bench at home, or in the car. You can scan everything and then cut out band-by-band that you dont want to monitor right now. One tradeoff is that there is no direct frequency entry mode, but that means there are 10 less buttons on the front panel, and for a small radio like this, that is really a plus, not a minus. Ultimately, would I buy another one if this one was broken or stolen or I gave it away? Absolutely. Its exactly what I wanted when I bought it, and Im 100% happy with everything about it (including Amazons price, as usual). If youre thinking of getting this as a gift for someone, check first to see if their local services use digital radios. This varies all over the country.

Worst part of this review is for the shipping. Received it quickly, however the packing was the worst! Scanner itself is in a box protected only by cardboard. That box was placed into a much larger box, along with three outlet surge protectors and almost no packing material. All four items were free to bash into each other every time the box was moved. Amazingly, everything survived! The scanner itself is about what one would expect from a low-price radio. It has very few bells & whistles, but it covers the bands/modes I needed. This replaced a scanner with many more features, however it receives MUCH better than the older one! It lacks a headphone jack and a Priority channel, and its small size and light weight make it a little harder for fat fingers to work the buttons without pushing it off the desk! That said, it was worth the few dollars it costs!

This unit is versatile in that it is easily moved from a desktop installation to a vehicle installation - and it is ALMOST a portable unit except that it needs an external power connection. It is small and light enough to be moved about easily, and compact enough to fit in many cubby holes. Unlike some mobile units, its exterior is clean enough to look fine sitting out in the open on a desktop, yet it can be quickly/easily attached to a (pre-installed) mount in a vehicle, although it does require manual attachment of the power and antenna cables. Of course, the mobile mounting bracket could be used instead to mount the unit, say, under a shelf or whatever. Functionally, it works well in most respects. I was a little surprised that it seems to be a bit less sensitive than the old crystal-controlled scanner that it replaced. The backlit display is readable under most lighting conditions, but some indicators would seem quite small for quick reading in a mobile installation - unless the unit can be located fairly close to the observer. Fortunately, its not necessary to see them clearly during normal scanning mode. I havent yet used my unit in a mobile installation, but Im wondering if the buttons will be easy to see and access under poor lighting conditions. The buttons are small enough and spaced tightly enough that they might be difficult to use in a moving vehicle and/or with a gloved hand. Generally speaking, the unit is easy to use, but some of the functions dont seem to be intuitive - and so I often have to pull out the manual to do the operations that I use only rarely, in order to get all of the necessary steps in the correct sequence. The most tedious aspect is when manually programming (or removing) specific frequencies. While not particularly difficult, the process is time-consuming. It would help a lot if this unit had the ability to be programmed from a computer, because this likely would save a lot of time in the process. Meanwhile, programming frequencies by capturing actual transmissions is straight-forward, quick and easy - so long as the someone cooperates by transmitting on the desired channel when you want to capture it. I am still rather confused by how the channel banks interact with each other - and how to configure them properly. But, Ive been able to get the unit set up to do almost all that I need it to do. (The missing piece is that I dont know how to access the PL channels that are used in this area). The unit does retain its programming when power is removed - although I havent confirmed this over the long-term. The only problem Ive run into is being unable to find any specifications for the necessary impedance of the external speaker, and wasnt even able to find out from Tech Support. This isa rather concerning. Hopefully, they will be more helpful if there are any other support needs. Overall, I do like this unit, and I feel it is a good value.

Good product easy to use compared to my Aor scanner even outside the USA or Canada covered emergency frequencies in my home country no problems shane new zealand

Difficult to program.