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

10 reviews for 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

1. 

   5 out of 5

   John N. Tragesser – March 25, 2020

   Haven’t bought a new scanner for since the analog days (Over 20 years ago). I’m super happy with this scanner. With the old analog scanners, you bought a frequency book and spent hours working the keys plugging in all the frequencies. That wasn’t very easy. Although trunking systems are more complex, using RadioReference.com and Freescan software make it much easier to program these scanners. If you don’t own and operate a PC and think you can program these scanners through the buttons on the front, I say good luck and God bless. I did a little reading, and actually downloaded the Freescan software and programmed my channels before the scanner arrived. You have to get comfortable with the Uniden way of creating “Systems”, then “Sites” and finally “Talkgroups”. Multi-site trunking scanning: read about it, learn it, it’s not that friggin hard.When my scanner arrived, I unboxed it, installed the driver on the PC and loaded my data; within 15 minutes and I was up and running.

2. 

   5 out of 5

   general user – April 15, 2020

   Have one and bought one as gift. Good radios. I’m 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. Don’t worry if you never quite understand those terms, you really don’t have to and you can still program it by studying the youtube vids, as i said. You’ll need a special cable to hook up to your computer. Don’t buy a cheap immitation get the brand name. Poke around on amazon or online it will pop up for you.

3. 

   5 out of 5

   Steve E. – May 17, 2020

   Just got my new scanner today and it’s everything I expected it to be. Had to get a digital scanner as they switched from analog. Have had analog scanners for years and always programmed them myself. This was somewhat kind of new to me. Did alot of reading and watching videos of digital scanners and chose this one. I suggest downloading Freescan on Radio Reference. The cost is $15.00 for 180 days or $30.00 for a yearly subscription. I chose the $15.00 one and it is well worth it. Had my new scanner downloaded and working in minutes. Now I can hear everything in my city again. It’s working great. You can’t go wrong with this scanner. Just read up and watch videos on this scanner or go to Radio Reference if you need help on the programming. That’s what I did and it made it alot simpler. This is the best scanner I’ve ever owned.

4. 

   5 out of 5

   Sean C. – June 26, 2020

   I wanted a scanner to be able to pick up local police and fire broadcasts, and I got one that does that plus so much more. Very easy to program using FreeScan software, and I typically keep it mounted in my vehicle or bring it in some nights to listen. No reception problems and clear transmission have been great, and I’m getting 3 counties in from the stock antenna on P25 phase 1. Highly recommended if it works in your area, and for most it should. I’ve listened to CB, Railroad, FRS/GMRS, Air Traffic, and so much more. Close Call is nice but I haven’t used it a ton as of yet since it seems to pick up smart meter transmits all over my area.

5. 

   5 out of 5

   ShirleyC117 – August 1, 2020

   I’ve 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 it’s 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 it’s 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 it’s $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 don’t 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.

6. 

   5 out of 5

   Michael – August 22, 2020

   If this is your first digital, pray for patience.I thought I was prepared. Had watched a lot of videos on programming but it still took a while.First just go ahead and pay the subscription for radio reference.Before you receive it, find free scan and the driver for the scanner.If after you install the driver the computer won’t recognize the the scanner. Turn the scanner off and back on. It’s funny how those few words took so long to to learn.The reason I gave it 5 stars for ease of use is because any frustration I was having was just because of inexperience. Now I love it. Now the filing system makes sense.When you first import from radio reference use your username and not your email.No when you import from the p25 system, to me it was messy. But it was working. So I took time and learned how to put together a more organized system.I like being able to record the feeds, and this past weekend while running the sound through the computer I was able to listen through Bluetooth.Hope this helps and hope y’all have a blessed day.

7. 

   5 out of 5

   RF Guy – August 24, 2020

   This scanner is capable of receiving the majority of everything (not encrypted) in the Police/Fire/Public Service/Military Air/Gov/Misc bands in either analog or digital modes. It receives APCO P-25 digital (both Phase I & II) signals great for me with a stock antenna but I am in a good location to receive two actual P-25 trunk radio “system site” towers with good signal levels. With digital 800 Mhz signals though, you may need less antenna. About 6.5 inches in length is a good 800 Mhz antenna. With an attic mount ST-2 antenna on a tv antenna booster, I can receive analog signals 60 plus miles away cleanly but that’s flat terrain to the top of the Willis Tower.If you have marginal (P-25) 800 Mhz signal levels you won’t get many signal bars lit up, it won’t trunk track right and you may see talkgroups show up on the display but no audio is heard/garbled/breaks up because it can’t decode the digital modulation, or it just might be encrypted. When you get trunking lock on a control channel in APCO P-25 mode, the actual frequency will show up (small) on the display, otherwise you just get “NFM” on the display which means you’re not tracking the system and it will not work. But once you get lock on a control channel, if it all works correctly, it grabs talkgroups at will and you will have to label them or sort out what you wish to really listen to as there will be plenty of (channels=talkgroups) at busy times.With digital trunking systems, it depends on the tower near you having the talkgroup channels you want to hear available on that tower. As far as digital trunking signals go with any digital scanner, all bets are off. The signals fade out at times, some of these RF tower signals get more/less power alloted to them on each tower. In order to fully monitor one P-25 system, the scanner may have to “listen to” 6 or more towers (in one system) that are all directions from you with varying RF power levels on each frequency, in order to properly receive ALL of your chosen channel (talkgroups) in that Police system you want to hear. If this seems too complicated, well it is. There is a Computer Control channel on P25 digital trunking systems that tells the police system computer what frequency to use or “hop to” (each split second) and you may get that individual frequency’s (talkgroup) good/bad/gone off various towers (and all at nearly the same time yet!) This is called simulcasting distortion and makes listening to any APCO P-25 digital Police trunking radio system extremely hard for any new digital scanner. And the nasty winds, rain, leaf foliage too all mess havoc with these signals. No getting around this. You may be in a good/bad location, it all depends. You may have missed details in your programming, yes I did too many times. Could be your location, your antenna, your programming, proximity to too many other “site” towers, winds, (high winds or hot/humid air seem nasty on narrow P-25 signals), or the big TV/Radio/Cell Towers nearby with mega kw watts etc. It is a huge complicated mess even for an expert radio engineer to deal with. A lot of it is…trial and error with P-25 digital. Does it track control signal? No. Move antenna/radio a few inches, try again. But the BCD996P2 (once setup right) excels at receiving everything great!This scanner works Great for me in my location even on the factory antenna. And the bandscope mode is fabulous too. I love it. It is up to you to sort out the critical-channel-programming first before you use it. Study the Radio Reference website, it might take time. I would advise to use a computer to program this scanner, otherwise you’ll just pull your hair out. You can’t program this scanner by using zip codes like some others. Freescan (sixspotsoftware) is a great Free program to use, I use it, others exist too. You can plug the scanner into your PC via the included USB cable. My Win 7 PCs found it right away (You setup Control Scanner, Set com port to auto find in Freescan and it should find your scanner on a com port. Then you upload your channels/lineups to the scanner) But first you need to find the frequencies in the Radio Reference website. Freescan also has a Cut ‘N’ Paste frequency import method which works fine as you select from database info.An outside scanner antenna used with at least an RG-6 cable is optimal for the best reception with this extended coverage scanner to hear everything. I also use a cheap (75 ohm) TV antenna signal booster with 18 db gain, on 50ft RG-6 and a 4 port ant splitter. I have a lot of RF signal levels (using bandscope mode) but no overload that I can see or hear. But for local signals (20 miles or less) you probably will do just as well with the back of set stock antenna, for both analog channels and digital systems. For 800 Mhz specific signals, use a 800 Mhz antenna like a Remtronix.The scanner can be used in the car, it comes with 2 DC power cords, one with a lighter plug, it has a nice bracket and includes the AC adapter. This unit is the base model of the portable BCD325P2 hand held scanner. They are the same to operate/use and program. This 996P2 model has a bottom fire speaker with a “deep bass audio sound” on digital systems and it sounds like a loudness circuit in a stereo, compared to my RS-652 desktop scanner which has a tinnier sound. You can choose one of 7 colors for the display and it has many signal adjustments for each channel/system, which is why you need patience. You can upgrade this scanner now to receive ProVoice, Mototrbo and DMR but Uniden charges an extra fee for each one. I do not have these upgrades and may not get.These new digital scanners are frustration devices to many people. For the expert, yes, this scanner is marvelous, you can “hear” everything except Encrypted signals. Be sure you have days/weeks of time and patience to spend with this thing first though. The learning curve is very steep. It is not plug it in, put in a few channels and listen like in the old days. Every channel has about a dozen parameters to setup first, a P-25 digital system may have 2 dozen parameters to setup first, then one dozen items per channel on top of this. This scanner does Not use an SD memory card to store channels/data to. These can be problematic and cause odd errors of all kinds. But the BCD996P2 scanner is a techs dream to use (once programmed properly) and a upgraded cousin to my all time favorite pal the Uniden BCD396XT portable scanner. But this scanner is still quite a challenge for anyone to setup/operate/use. Five stars because it is simply a phenomenal scanner (with exceptional abilities) targeted to mostly expert scanner junkies.

8. 

   5 out of 5

   OffWorldEngineer – September 5, 2020

   This is a great desk top scanner. It does have a “learning curve”, which means you can expect to do some learning! My experience with software called “FreeSCAN” and RadioReference.com made set-up SO much easier. A 1-yr subscription to RadioReference is $60 at this time, well worth it as it does make set-up using FreeSCAN much easier! All in all, No Regrets, as the scanner price on Amazon is VERY good. I’m in a low spot, still reception has not been an issue. The sound quality is good, but there is always room for improvement. Otherwise, no complaints. It is complex, yet doable with some patience and flexibility.

9. 

   5 out of 5

   L. E. Bradley – September 18, 2020

   It’s been many years since I’ve had a scanner, and this one is all I hoped it’d be and more! FIRST, I’d suggest the ‘Premium’ subscription to ‘Radioreference’ and the FreeScan program. Using Freescan makes programming the BCD996P2 easy, HOWEVER, if you’re a ‘beginner’, there’s a pretty big ‘learning curve’, but tough thru it! You’ll be rewarded. Currently scanning digital channels, such as the ‘rebanded’ Raleigh PD/Fire/Wake County Sheriff, and NCSHP, along with others. Also have many ‘conventional channels programmed in, and reception is good, using the OEM antenna. (May purchase another indoor antenna just to see how much more I can pull in.My only ‘complaint’ is that I had to wait almost a month to get it! (Ordered 12/19/2018 and received on 01/11/2019)Highly recommend this scanner!

10. 

    5 out of 5

    Neil Smith – January 11, 2021

    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.