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

First of all I’ve only owned one scanner in my life and it was the old style non-trunking Type scanner.. Also like other reviewers have said I would be playing it safe and if you plan to order this make sure you order it from Amazon.com directly that way you know you will definitely get the model you paid for BCT 15 X.. There is a difference between the BCT 15 and the BCT 15 X!! And it’s funny that the BCT 15 X is cheaper then the other model.. Okay on with the scanner absolutely love this thing.. I had no idea on how to do trunking or what it was or how to program it nothing!! I did my research.. If you go to YouTube and type in Uniden BCT 15 X there is a handful of videos that show you how to program this manually enough to get you started with basic trunking. I live in Portland Oregon where here we use Motorola type II trunking Systems. I watch the videos off and on for about a week and did my research for the Frequencies and talk group IDs in my area in Portland. And just watch the videos on YouTube also the bcd996xt scanner Programs basically exactly the same way as the BCT 15 X .. I learned that from the videos to. Finally I went ahead and ordered it When I got it the first thing I had to do was go into the system make my System for what I was going to scan in Oregon. Again just watch the videos for a few times off and on and it’s not hard at all! Apparently most places now in bigger cities use 800 MHz trunking. So I had to re-band the scanner for 800 MHz. Keep in mind I have no computer to hook this thing up to For doing software updates or programming it. The re-banding took me literally maybe a minute and a half. Again YouTube video shows you exactly how to do it. Then I typed in my 4 control channel frequencies. Then I typed in a few talk group IDs that I want to try out first to listen to. And hit the scan button.. and there you have it I was receiving my Portland trucking system PD..fire Departments.. it works great and it wasn’t hard to do.. As for the sound quality of this thing is absolutely unbelievably clear. It comes of all the accessories and wires and cables to use it in your car. or use it as a home base unit which is what I’m doing with it.. I’ve read some of the reviews here and Some people say that they weren’t sure on how the sound quality would be if you used it as a base unit because yes the speaker is on the bottom of the unit!! But they Forget to mention that it comes with a bracket that is used for mounting in your car or truck and it just so happens that same bracket works for your base unit sitting on your table. It props up the unit at an angle that is adjustable. It works great on any surface I keep mine on my nightstand next to my bed. And I can angle the unit how I wish. Sound quality?? you can’t even tell the speaker is on the bottom!! And the unit looks good to.. One of the best toys I’ve ever bought for $180.00 I like the fact that you can put names pretty much for everything. In the system. Name it how you want to name it whether it be the system name the scanner frequency name what you’re listening to it’s very easy to use the Alpha tag naming on this!! It does take a little while to get used to how everything works like pressing the buttons and where everything is at. If you go online there’s a very cool free user manual that you can download in PDF format or just look it up on the Internet and bookmark it. Type in easier to read BCT 15 X user manual. The way that the manual is laid out is very cool because when it talks about something you can hit the highlighted area and it takes you right to that section on the how-to and back again to where you left off reading. Because this thing does not come with pretty much any type of user manual. Like I said I’ve owned one scanner in my life and it was the old-style and I was up and listening to this scanner in about less than 15 minutes!! YouTube YouTube YouTube that’s all you have to do!! And you can get the frequencies for your area and the talk group IDs off the Internet I went to radio reference.com.. This is Definitely the best scanner out there that I can imagine on the market!! Don’t be intimidated by the scanner and the people saying that it’s a nightmare to manually program..those people chances are they didn’t do any type of research or even bother to try and find online How to videos YouTube!!!!! Anyways great scanner easy to MANUALLY!! Program If you just take some time while you’re waiting for it to show up on your doorstep to Watch some videos and do some research About what’s used in your area. You’ll absolutely love this thing once you get used to working it.. All this from somebody who has only owned one Low end old-style scanner in his lifetime Short life I’m only 36.. Just make sure you buy it from Amazon only!!! That way you know you’re getting what you paid for!! UPDATE DAME THIS THING IS AMAZING!!!! It really upsets me that people I’m not going to mention names just scroll to the bottom of the screen towards the last one star review. Complaining That it can’t pick up anything even if you’re sitting in front of the station. Well newsflash it’s Not going to pick up anything even if you’re inside the freaking police station If you don’t have it Programmed right!!!! This is only my First high-end trunking scanner. And like I said earlier I don’t even own a computer to Program this thing I did all manually.. Anyway I can’t believe how great this scanner is. Law-enforcement I get to hear every thing and then some! I hear Stakeouts .swat team. Police pursuits.. Undercover operations.. A lot of stuff that’s pretty crazy. And in my town . listening to the scanner is almost more entertaining than Watching my TV!!! I’ve owned this scanner now for about a month. And I feel like A pro scanner enthusiast.. You simply have to buy this Scanner!!! There is a little bit of a learning curve.. But if you’re willing to Just take the time To do a little research.. Believe me you will be rewarded greatly For your efforts.. I am just sorry that I waited so long to pull the trigger on buying This scanner…

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.

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!

I finally decided I should get a trunking radio, and that having one for a base station would be good. Hardly any digital stuff in my area, and decided it was not worth paying more than twice as much for the capability.As others have said, it could use a better manual. You want to look for “Easier to Read BCT15-X Scanner Manual” online, it makes it much easier to figure out all the settings and menus.It’s definitely a lot different from my handheld scanners, even though they are all Unidens. Pretty much everything could be programmed by hand, but it takes a lot of scrolling and pressing to do it. I use FreeScan to program it from a computer.The dynamic memory is a huge improvement. I get to set up almost as many groups and channels as I want! The only limit I am anywhere near is the 500 channels/talkgroups per group. I haven’t reached it or had any issues, but that is what is in the documentation.You have three levels: systems, groups, and channels. A system would define a trunked system, or could be some collection of conventional frequencies. The groups reside within the systems, and each group contains channels. This really helps organize many channels, especially when you have a ton of talkgroups on a trunked system.The quick keys are also way better than the traditional system. Instead of a number corresponding to only one group of channels, you can set it up with many groups. You can assign multiple groups the same number, so that they are all activated at the same time. This makes it much easier to divide the groups logically so you can activate the ones you want to hear.Radio IDs are also something new for me. You have to go into the settings and enable this (haven’t gotten it to work from FreeScan yet), and it will alternate the talkgroup ID and then “UID:ixxxxx” of who is transmitting. The radio has to catch the beginning of a transmission to pick this up. Also, if the conversation continues without the squelch activating, it will keep the ID of the radio that initiated it. You can label these in FreeScan by just putting an “i” in front of the number, as it appears on the radio. Give it a name as you would a talkgroup, and it will show the name on the display.I have also had the chance to use it in the car a bit. A GPS receiver would be really nice to have, because you can set up your groups to only be scanned when you are within a certain area, as well as other things. It costs more than it is worth to me, though.Speaking of cost, you don’t have to shell out for the USB-1 cable from Uniden. I got the TRENDnet USB to RS-232 cable and it works great.

This IS the New BCT15X with 9000 Channels as the other reviewer, H. French’s “Amazon Surfer” said, not an older model. By the ways thanks for the review, I too, almost didn’t purchase this scanner from Amazon for fear that this was an older stock model but now I’m glad that I did. Thanks again H. French for the info. It was shipped quickly and well packaged by Amazon, although Uniden also packages the unit in its own box pretty good too. No damage!This thing is a brick! Very Heavy! I’m just using it in my Office/ Computer Room, so the heavier the better for me. I also purchased the TRENDnet USB to Serial Converter TU-S9 (Blue) to hook up the scanner to the computer in order to program it. I would NEVER EVER try to program this thing without a computer. If you don’t plan on hooking this Scanner up to a computer, I wouldn’t get it if I were you.I also downloaded and installed the FreeScan Software to Control and Program the BCT15X, this is a free program and does pretty much everything the average user could need, and the best part is it’s FREE! the Website is ScanNow.org Did I mention it’s Free!I then went to the Radio Reference Website, went to their database and found the Motorola Trunked Frequencies and Talkgroups for my City/County and Copy/Pasted those into the FreeScan Software, Uploaded it to the Scanner via the USB to Serial Cable and Shazaam I’m listening to my local PD/Sheriff/Fire Dept. and others. You can also Register for their pay service and easily download a data file, but I chose to do it the hard way(copy/paste it into FreeScan), which really wasn’t that hard.I opened the box at 6pm, hooked up the power, antenna, Installed the Driver for the USB to Serial Cable. Downloaded and Installed the FreeScan software, Went to the Radio Reference website, copy pasted the Freq/Talkgroups into Freescan and was listening by 8pm.This Scanner sounds great too, so much better than my Old handheld Radio Shack Pro-92, which since FCC Rebanding the trunking hasn’t worked. The BCT15X Audio is loud and clear, scanning is quick, display looks great.The only thing I don’t like about this scanner is that there is not a printed manual with it, just the PDF file on the CD. I didn’t think this would be a big deal, and thought the other reviewers were just being cry babies for bringing up this issue. But now I see their point, it would be very helpful to have at least some basic printed manual for quick reference.I will Update this Review later as I just received it less than 3 hours ago.