Uniden Bearcat BC125AT Handheld Scanner, 500-Alpha-Tagged Channels, Close Call Technology, PC Programable, Aviation, Marine, Railroad, NASCAR, Racing, and Non-Digital Police/Fire/Public Safety.

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 its definitely worth it for someone looking for a few more features. Alpha Tags - so you know what youre listening to, you dont 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 dont 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 havent 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.

It really is a amazing scanner!! The battery life is awesome, along with way its built!! But it does require before hand knowledge...if a person has never used it before!!

I’ve been using the Uniden Bearcat BC125AT 500 channel handheld scanner with Alpha-Tags for five months and I have to say, this is the best handheld scanner I used so far. The BC125AT is equipped with a stronger receiver than the BC75XLT 300 channel conventional scanner, which I also operate. The BC125AT enables me to listen to both airports in our area as well as all of Fire/EMS, Police frequencies, Rail, marine, NOAA Weather/All Hazards and miscellaneous frequencies in our area and also in the surrounding parishes as well. Now, if law enforcement in your are, uses the 800Mhz-900Mhz band, this scanner will not receive those frequencies, but, it will, however, receive low band VHF, UHF and high band VHF, which includes NFM and AM transmissions. If you enjoy listening to (ATC) air traffic control (airport and ARTCC) communications than the Uniden Bearcat BC125AT 500 channel scanner with Alpha-Tags is what you need! The BC125AT also allows one to monitor ham radio communications as well as Auto racing and GRS communications. Also, I’ve discovered that the BC125AT and the BC75XLT both Have greatly improved reception when the RH77CC Diamond Antenna is connected to the BNC jack instead of the supplied duckbill stock antenna. In conclusion, I highly recommend the Uniden Bearcat BC125AT for anyone who enjoys listening to airports or ARTCC communications, police or Fire/EMS as a hobby or an occupation.

Fast scanner. Wideband. Analog only.

Not very user friendly.

The interface is very complicated, but its a good scanner, and works for my needs (monitoring Airband).

The scanner it self is working great. After six hours of confusion getting it programmed. Why cant a large company like Uniden make a decent manual and website for understanding how to use this scanner? Getting the All Channels Locked message was the first challenge. After a few YouTube videos I learned this is normal, that it needs some frequencies entered. I was thinking of returning it as defective after following the instructions in the manual. Newsflash, Uniden: Please put an insert about the Channels Locked welcoming message. The Uniden support videos are just awful. Please get a presenter who understands how to communicate. The scanner is pretty useless without the program to set up channels. Doing it with just the 10-step procedures directly on the scanner is for masochists. I tried the driver install with a Windows 7 computer unsuccessfully. It reminded me of Windows 95. Then I did it on my Windows 10. It worked in spite of the Uniden instructions. Somehow Windows 10 was able to install the driver automatically. The spread sheet is easy. The driver is not. This scanner is not for the technologically timid. I have 35 years of computer experience, a Masters degree in educational computing, and experience doggedly working on computer problems, 50 years of radio experience. I am an aviator used to dealing with radios. Bottom line: Uniden get some better technical writers!

Other then the its not a new scanner and 11 years old, its not bad! It cuts out a lot of the time!

I recommend finding a good you tube video to learn how to program the scanner out of the locked channels mode.. I spent hours trying to figure it out. You need to get on a computer, download a file to your computer, then go to Radioreference.com to program. The channels stay locked until you enter a frequency.... it was very confusing. I have a friend that was only able to figure out putting the police frequency in it... Once you do watch the video and figure it out its quite simple just time consuming. I also had to watch about 4 or 5 videos to find the right one that actually showed me how to program it.... once programmed, its a great scanner... would have given it a 5 star if it hadnt have been so time consuming to find out how to program and get out of the locked mode....

Had this setup after a dozen attempts. Let it scan 2 frequencies i wanted to start with and the low battery lights up and beeps. Seriously had it actually running for MAYBE 2 hours and the NEW batteries supplied were basically dead. Now lets wait 14 hours until they recharge to use the thing again .... not happy with this at all