Uniden BearTracker Scanner (BCT15X) with 9,000 Channels, TrunkTracker III Technology, Base/Mobile Design, Close Call RF Capture Technology with Location-Based Scanning, - Black Color

Couldn't be more pleased with this excellent radio! Programming though time consuming at first to perform using the front panel controls, (We are a Macintosh Family and NO Mac Software Included) but literally in less than 5 minutes spent with the "Online Owners Manual" I was blazing through my laundry list of Cal Fire and National Forest Service frequency lists and adding them into the radio's handy groups and sub-groups sections.Child's play is how I would describe the programming process, so I find it strange to read complaints about the programming process being too difficult. (I picture a VCR nearby flashing 12:00 as these folks pen their misleading commentaries about this product being too difficult to use!)Like I said... Once you learn the process and the scanner's user interface/controls, it all makes perfectly good sense and although it would have been nice to have a computer to type in all the scanner frequencies and flash them over to the unit with one command, you DO NOT NEED a computer to program this radio!Regarding the design and layout of the frequency entry... Being able to place CUSTOM NAMES onto every frequency you add to the radio, and being able to group them together based on the agency (s) that use those frequencies is great too! This, unlike using an internet based re-broadcaster, allows us to SEE who is transmitting at any given time. And in addition to the user programmable frequency sections, you also have the "Pre-Set" buttons for Police/CHP/Municipal Agencies etc. as well.Living up here in the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, now better known as Wildfire Central, it has become almost mandatory to own a scanner like this in order to receive REAL TIME Wildfire related news and information as it happens. And coming directly to our ears via the actual fire crews and dispatchers working on the latest Wildfire in our area.We actually purchased this radio two days before "The Willow Fire" broke out less than 8 miles from our house, and our new radio proved its worth 100 times over in what became a literal trial by fire product review period! :o)Reception Impressive Considering Our Location But a Loaded Whip and/or Discone Mast Mounted Antenna is Even Better!The included WHIP antenna works reasonably well in our location, but we also purchased a RadioShack® Indoor Telescopic Scanner Antenna for use in the backyard when we take the radio out onto the patio to listen outside as we watch the air tankers do their thing! And for base station type use indoors and the best reception performance possible, we purchased and installed a Super Discone Outdoor Antenna on a 20 foot mast.This commercial grade antenna installation allows us to pull in BOTH sides of the conversation between Cal Fire, the Forest Service Local Dispatchers, air to ground commands, fire suppression aircraft, and the battalion crews actually on the fire line in rugged and remote areas where their transmitting ability is limited. Having a quality Super Discone Antenna makes a HUGE difference in listening in to the ENTIRE Wildfire suppression effort. Which for us isn't simply a form of entertainment, but could quickly turn into a life and death drama for ourselves and our friends and neighbors!Our only regret is that we waited this long to finally buy one of these! But we are VERY GLAD that the brand and model we chose proved itself to be the perfect choice for us!

First of all features of the scanner is 5 star, it's built like a tank, it's pretty heavy. When you first turn it on, everything is set on. It's very annoying, with alerts going off very loudly. The first thing press the large silver knob on the right. It's your basic function setting knob. Press the vol knob, small lower left black knob. Then turn the silver function knob to your state. Then press the E button below the 9 button, it's the yes selection button. Now your scanner is set to some local settings. Then press the silver function knob again, scroll by turning the silver knob to "set bear tracker" then press the silver knob to go into that setting. It will show new menu items, scroll down with the silver knob again by rotating it to "set alert tone" and press the function knob again to select it. The first item says off, hit the "E yes" button in the keypad area. Now just hit "menu" button 3 times, to get back to main screen. That will turn off those loud alerts. Also you might want to go into settings and turn down the alert volume and change the tone as well. This is the basic operation of setting items in the scanner.There are 5 buttons next to the display Pol (police), HP (highway patrol), gps, menu, l/o lockout. To turn off scanning temporarily for police, tap the police button and you'll see the PL icon, then PL, DT, then blank on the display, meaning it's off. Same with HP, HP/BT, then off. To lockout air, military air, FRS, CB, Marine, and it's in scan mode. Push the scan button on the upper right next just next to the func silver knob, to make sure you're in scan mode. It will scan through all the bands that aren't locked out. CB, FRS, etc.. So to lock those out, just press the func knob, scroll to CB and press the l/o button to lock out that band from scans, same with the other bands. Now i'm able to scan police, air, ham, military, whatever I want and just the ones i want. It's not that hard. You just press L/O to temporary lock out bands you don't want to scan, do this again to remove the lockout. So basic operation is easy to figure out. I think i'd have a harder time actually programming certain channels into groups. But so far, i'm enjoying just listening to air. Or just police in my neighborhood. Not sure how to set permanent l/o because when i turn it off and back on, i have to lock out all the band i dont want to hear again, which isn't hard, but i'd prefer to keep just a few bands on scan always. If you know leave me a msg.One thing I think would be nicer is a better antenna, the one provided works, and I can hear most local things but some transmissions could be clearer I think with a better antenna. Other then that, for the price i'm satisfied. Oh and if you are going to program it via pc/usb the trendnet TU-S9 usb to serial converter fits perfectly to the supplied cable and comes with a driver, it's 9 bucks here on amazon. I got that just in case i have to upgrade firmware, but my unit had the latest installed. I'm using this for home and it does come with AC adapter, but I guess most people would get this for their car, and does come supplied with a car bracket and red/black power wires to hook into the car, but i'm using this to enjoy at home and the built in speaker is loud enough for me. Other then that, it comes with a disk with all the different uniden scanner manuals in html format.If you're really into scanning, i'd recommend going a step up to the digital scanner 996 i think. I do get most of the local police and air but i'm sure i'm missing a lot by not having the digital channels as well.Update: For those who can't program it, I found a youtube video on freescan, a program that runs on windows and it was easy to get frequencies online and I just typed them into freescan. Freescan uses the cable I mentioned above and connected to my scanner at 115k baud, and you just click upload to upload your groups with your frequencies. It took like all of 1 minute to upload. The sw lets you control all the settings of the scanner as well as the frequency groups you just created. So whoever said these were hard to program, it's far from the truth. It's hard if you try to program through the buttons, it's super simple with the free program called freescan. What I like about the freescan sw too, is you type in the name of each of the frequencies and it pops up on the display. So now i'm just scanning between the frequencies I've loaded, works so much better now. It's great.