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 work in the digital LMR industry for first responders. I didnt have too much trouble figuring this radio out, but nothing about this radio is what you may be familiar with if youre used to working with analog scanners. All of the knobs and buttons are dual and triple use. For example, there is no designated volume or squelch knob. There is a single knob which serves several purposes, including volume or squelch. This is sort of a nuisance to me. However, I will live with its awkwardness for now. As far as a radio is concerned, it has good sensitivity and noise rejection.

Like all cheap electronics this scanner has convoluted cryptic programming. It has those annoying multiple function keys that force you to do all manner of key pressing. You know the routine, press 1 then 4, then 5 which turns the 8 key into enter, but if you press 1 then 5, then 4, the 8 key becomes a delete key. In this case, you have to press and hold the HOLD key, enter a channel number, then press E (for enter). There is no acknowledgement of your entry. If you make a mistake entering any data, your only option is to clear the entire entry and start over, so you had better get it right the first time. If you are lucky enough to program your channel, you cannot simply go on to the next, you have to exit, then start all over from scratch. By the way, the instruction manual does not tell you that the volume key is used to scroll through the menu, as well as scroll through the alphabet when you enter labels for the channels. Speaking of the volume knob, it serves three separate functions depending on how many times you press it, and as usual there is no indication of what mode it is in, you just have to rotate it and see what happens. I programmed a few channels to scan interesting frequencies at Fort Lauderdale Airport. When I was finished, I pushed the scan button, and nothing happened except for a message that said all channels were locked out. I returned to the set-up menu and scrolled down to the unlock all channels and selected it. Still nothing. In other words, I now have a $115 chunk of useless plastic cluttering my house. This is definitely not a user-friendly device, so you had better keep the user manual within easy reach if you expect to use this scanner in the future. The only problem with that plan is that the user manual really sucks. It explains how to do the basic set up (sort of) But it offers no help if you want to change any settings once programmed, for that you are on our own using trial and error. As for me, it is winging its way back to Amazon as I write this review. I am not looking to learn a whole new programming language just to use what should be a simple scanner.

Only picks up frequencies that are well below the usual ranges used by first responders. Frequencies need to be manually entered into scanner. If you know which frequencies you want to listen to, makes sure the scanner can pick it up. Otherwise, the unit isnt very useful.

Son says this unit is just as good as the high-priced units that the RRs use.

This radio has been great. I have been studying for my FAA 107 Certification and purchased this radio so I can get used to monitoring flight traffic in the area. I have a private airport near by and this radio helps me know when aircraft are coming in and when there are ski divers close by. So useful. The setup is not hard but yo do need to read the manual. We are actually about 20 miles from the private airport and I can listen to the tower from here. I also have our community security programmed in so I can catch anything of concern here. The only upgrade i hope to see in future models is a usbc charging port. I will have to carry an extra cable to charge this radio. If this review helped you in any way please let me know below. If you would like to see more of my Tech product reviews, click my logo to check my account. Really want to see more? - Search for AlTone Tech on Youtube! Thank You

Directions are confusing cant program it Im not tech savvy so I cant usebut its good quality and works fine so far.

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

I had a 25 year old Radio Shack Scanner 10 channel (not ten bank) scanner and it was time to update. Living in the rural area of Northern California, and being an ex-volunteer firefighter, my wife and I depend on our scanner to keep alerted to local emergency events. I decided on the Uniden BC125AT after helping a friend program his. There were a number of things I found that helped me decide: THE GOOD • Good sound. The filtering in this scanner was able to filter out the static noise from the various electronics in our home. • Compact size and comfortable in the hand. • Alpha Numeric channel programming and labeling. The ability to add labels to each channel as it appears on the screen during a transmission makes it easier to know what is actually happening. I can instantly know what dispatch center is transmitting. • The free Windows software available from the Uniden website (link in the owners manual) allowed me to quickly and easily enter the frequencies I wanted along with a name for each channel, save it to a file on my computer, then upload the file to the scanner. With ten separate banks of 505 channels each, it was a simple matter to create separate banks for Fire, Police, Air Firefighting Resources, and even separate banks for local city emergency resources. After I programmed the friends unit I received mine about two days later and it took just a few seconds to upload the data into my BC125AT. • The ability to lock out banks. It is very easy to lock out any of the banks so, for example, you can lock all out except one bank where you program local fire resources. • Scan all banks, scan one bank, or pick on channel to scan. In an emergency it is nice to be able to just listen to the main fire dispatch channel and it is easy to select that function. • The multi-function volume knob. The rotary knob has many functions including setting the volume, adjusting the squelch, scrolling through the channels saved in banks. • Adjustable screen brightness and contract THE BAD (or at least, not as good) • The included rechargeable batteries are decent but the charger in the Uniden is set by time only in hours. Insert a fully-charged pair of cells and plug the Uniden in and if the charger is set to charge for six hours, it will charge for that period of time. This overheats the batteries which can shorten their life. Thy get quite warm to the touch, but so far not dangerously so. I suggest keeping a spare set of batteries charged and switch them out as needed. • It charges through the USB cable, and only charges the batteries when the unit is turned off. If the BC125AT is on, the batteries will not receive a charge. When turned off the charge restarts and will run the full length of time you selected in the menu system. • When I purchased this, the Amazon link to the warranty information was to an old PDF page from 2010 from Uniden that stated the unit had a three (3) year warranty. THAT IS INCORRECT. The printed manual that came with the scanner (©2012) states it has a one (1) year warranty. I called Uniden today (8/6/2018) and that information was confirmed. • The owners manual could be better. This is a powerful unit and can do a lot of things. To access much of the menu system takes multiple button presses. The manual describes these is somewhat more complicated text than is necessary. Flow charts for each functions would have been MUCH better. I know- I have written owners manuals and created flow charts for similar programming and function systems. CONCLUSION I give this unit 4 stars instead of 5 only because of the outdated battery charging system. Other than that, this is a very nice scanner for under $100. I do suggest purchasing the extended warranty so that you have more than one years protection. NOTE: The linked PDF warranty file on the Amazon sales page when I purchased this scanner stated that the warranty was three (3) years. IT IS NOT! That PDF file was from 2010. The ©2012 owners manual that comes with the scanner states that the warranty period is one (1) year. I verified this with Uniden Customer Service.

Great sensitivity, even with the supplied antenna. (Better still with a better antenna.) The user interface is clumsy, especially to adjust the squelch, but its not too hard to learn in a day or two of using it. Sound quality is good. Its a really good basic analog scanner, especially considering its small enough to easily take just about anywhere. I do have a couple complaints... it takes 7 or 8 seconds to turn on and boot up before received audio starts coming from the speaker. I think thats too long. And, there isnt much useful info on the display while its scanning your programmed frequencies. It only says Bank 1 or Bank 2 etc. while its scanning. You cant change the name of the bank to something more helpful, like HAM or Aviation for instance. So you have to remember what youve programmed into each bank. I hope your memory is better than mine. It has to stop on an active frequency before the display will show the channel, the frequency, and whatever label youve assigned. Otherwise just the word SCAN scrolls across the display. These complains are minor, but still a bit annoying. BTW, one reason I bought it was to see if having a CB radio in the car would be helpful for long trips. After a weeks driving on the interstate while scanning the CB channels, the answer seems to be no.

This a great basic radio for the price. For a little over 100 dollars you get all the bells and whistles of a more sophisticated model. Ill call this a basic radio because its not digital, non-trunking and goes up only to 512MHz. But its all I needed for now, and it does the job I want. I work at my local airport so I use it to listen to VHF-Air and the UHF airline terminal operations channels just to keep up on whats happening. I listen at home and at work. The feature I most like is being able to name your frequencies with alpha tagging. No more guessing. Another good feature is being able to charge and/or use your radio through the supplied USB cable. Dead rechargeable batteries arent a reason anymore not to listen, at least when youre near a computer. So yes, I recommend this radio to anyone who likes to listen to VHF air, VHF Lo-Hi and UHF up to 512MHz. Theres a lot of non digital frequencies out there to be heard. Dont let some of the low ratings here deceive you, theyre all because some people had some trouble programming the radio. Ill admit its not the easiest thing in the world (even for a scanner buff like me) but read the manual, keep calm and within the first hour out of the box with some dedication, you should be able to start listening and even program your favorite frequencies. Dont let the All channels locked warning scare you. It just means you havent programmed anything yet. Use the Search button to start listening right out of the box. It took me about 30 min to an hour to get acquainted with how this radio works. After a week I mastered it.