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

Does everything Im asking it to do

The BCD996P2 Arrived this morning. It’s a breeze to program with the computer. If you’re a bit of a scanner geek you won’t have much trouble. As for people who don’t program their own scanners or are just starting out and in too much of a hurry to learn the scanner you probably will get frustrated. I really like the quality of the audio coming from this radio. It’s very easy on the ears. I’ve been listening to p25 phase 2 out of three counties all day in my living room with just the stock antenna. The radio has a ton of features and anybody who likes tinkering and experimenting with radios will never get bored of this scanner.

none

This radio works well for both standard and trunked frequencies that don’t use simulcast. Be sure to research the area you live in and the channels you want to scan. More and more of the country is using integrated P25 systems. While this can handle P25 Phase 1 and 2, it doesn’t work well if those are simulcast-same frequency from multiple towers. Simulcast exists in many if not most metro areas that use P25. The SDS100 or 200 are needed to properly listen to those sites.

Ive owned two homepatrols and had reception trouble with both. I thought the home patrol would be easier to program. It is not! The preprogrammed part loads hundreds of unwanted frequencies. The software that comes with it is so confusing to use its crazy! But on to the B996P2. This scanner has great reception with included antenna. Between Radio reference and freescan, programming it was a breeze. Just watch some YouTube videos to get familiar with freescan. And its highly suggested to pay for at least 6 months of radio reference to obtain the correct frequencies in the order and format that the scanner requires its $15. Well well worth the money! The people who give bad reviews of this scanner have no patience or interest in learning a few things. My only gripe is updating the firmware and installing the drivers. I had trouble with it but maybe I was doing something wrong? I dont think so but maybe. It might be a USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 compatibility issue. Once that was completed the rest was easy.

Great scanner, works very well on a P25 simulcast system. The housing is fashioned from metal, making the build very sturdy compared to plastic alternatives. The sound quality is terrific and wont be affected by the metal housing. It has quite a few fancy features though that may not be necessary for the everyday listener, it would be nice to have a stripped down version at a lower price. GPS features are nice but unnecessary for a lot of users. Programming the scanner is also difficult for those unfamiliar with how digital trunking works and the manual doesnt explain the process clearly or walk the consumer through how to program the scanner on a PC. It would be nice to have some sort of programming software included with the scanner, especially with the price tag of the scanner. Overall its a relatively (compared to others on the market) inexpensive P25 phase i & ii scanner that is of outstanding quality. I would recommend purchasing a radioreference membership for about 15 dollars to help with programming.

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.

Have one and bought one as gift. Good radios. Im barely scratching the surface regarding the use of all the features. I programmed both using FREESCAN and buying a short term subscription to RADIOREFERENCE. Just watch some tutorials on youtube and bookmark the ones that help you the most. When you read about these radios and they talk about trunking and other things you may not understand just look it up online to try to become familiar with those terms. Dont worry if you never quite understand those terms, you really dont have to and you can still program it by studying the youtube vids, as i said. Youll need a special cable to hook up to your computer. Dont buy a cheap immitation get the brand name. Poke around on amazon or online it will pop up for you.

Ive been into scanners since I was a kid in college. My first one was a desktop Regency analog scanner. Since then, Ive had 4 other scanners, Uniden and Radio Shack, analog and digital. Unfortunately, my previous digital scanner only picked up P25 Phase I, and most of the PDs in my county have moved to P25 Phase II. These digital scanners arent cheap, which kept me away for many years, but I finally decided to take the plunge again with this Uniden BCD996P2. Ive had no problems manually programming my previous scanners, so I didnt think this one would be too difficult. Programming conventional analog frequencies was fairly easy. But trying to set up a digital trunked system was more difficult than I thought. I think mostly this is because the instruction manual is not very clearly written or logically organized. Watching YouTube videos did little to help. After several hours, and much trial and error, things finally started making sense and I finally did figure it out. But because of how slow and tedious it is to navigate the menus and enter alpha tags etc, it would take me weeks, if not months to manually program everything I want to listen to. In the end, I decided to save myself a lot of time and headache and to avoid needlessly wearing out the buttons, I got the $15 subscription to Radio Reference and used the Freescan software to upload everything I need into my scanner from my computer. In less than an hour, my scanner was all set up. Instead of spending a lot of time toiling over programming the scanner, Im spending my time enjoying it, so I think it was worth it. Aside from the programming aspect and the confusing instruction manual, the scanner itself is great. The digital transmissions come in clear. The analog signals, such as on the air band, will be staticky. It has a lot of other nice features, can change the color of the display backlight, set up weather alerts, pre-programmed searches, such as FM radio, CB radio, FRS channels, and a bunch of features I will probably never use like connecting to a GPS. After many years of missing out, Im glad I can finally hear whats going on again.

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.