Uniden Bearcat BCD160DN Handheld Digital Scanner, Exclusive Features, Band Scope Rapid System/Channel Number Tagging, Narrow-Band Reception, and Search Features to Detect Signals Faster Than Ever

This scanner gets a pretty negative review mostly because people can’t program it. I found this is not that hard to program once you get used to it and I get a tone of channels and I live out in the country and I still get more channels than our base station. I will say the AA battery life does suck. I have some cell phone chargers I plug it into it and it runs fine for hours. when I don’t wanna carry that, I just carry some extra AA rechargeable batteries and it’s fine.

This scanner is a piece of crap. Batteries only last about 2hrs. Difficult to program. Hard to hear. Cannot block certain banks, if you block a freq. then turn off have to go through and block again. Do not buy

This scanner radio does not deserve the harsh negative reviews left by some. My experience with it is very positive. Those that had such negative comments must not have spent even a short amount of time to learn how to use it, or did not read the product details and expected it to do something that was not advertised. The latest firmware update adds P25 reception at no charge. It still cannot trunk track. It cannot follow trunked radio systems. It can monitor P25 conventional systems. It works very well for civilian and military aviation monitoring, as well as railroad. Some railroad transmissions now use NXDN, which this scanner can monitor. It is very easy to operate and program. Audio quality is very good. Reception is excellent. It does not suffer from Intermodulation Distortion or image frequency issues. With the supplied rechargeable batteries, it runs about 4-5 hours on a full charge. There are 2800 mAh rechargeable batteries that increase run time to about 5-6 hours. Batteries can be charged in the scanner, but an external charger with spare sets of batteries works well. Be sure to use a smart charger. I use the EBL 2800 batteries with EBL charger. If you need a good performing scanner to monitor conventional analog, DMR, NXDN and P25, this is one worth considering. If you need something that can follow a trunked system, this is not the right scanner.

Good radio, good reception, but battery life not long.

Came with a coupon to send it in for upgrade to nxdn. I don't know if it needs more done to it, but the ad says it is supposed to be ready out of the box. Unnecessarily, overly complicated to program. Poor reception. Charging/battery state system clunky. No charger included either. Just a cable for an older style USB. Poor to no NDXN implementation and documentation. Could not pick up anything either in search mode or programming with proscan. If it has NDXN capabilities out of the box it did not produce it for me. Reception of standard stations was adequate to inferior to my old radio. I did receive 1... 1 station plus the weather channel. Yet the price was double and did not get me any better capabilities. I am disappointed with the purchase. I don't know how other radio users feel about the price point, but this was a premium price for me for a far less than premium scanner. I'm going back to decades old scanners that simply work better even though they predate ndxn . Not only that, but there will be a huge delay in a refund being issued (nearly a month) because this is secretly a third party seller.

First off, I use commercial grade NXDN radios for my hobby and was quite surprised to see this from Uniden with NXDN capability right out of the box and a decent price. The good news is that "it works". I prefer to use Pro-Scan software rather than Uniden's as it will connect to my PC and do logging, etc. The scanner does have limited functions in that it will not decode incoming Radio ID's (OTAA) but for just listening to the calls it's pretty slick. The product listing on Amazon was pretty accurate. This is the kind of scanner you could program up and hand to a "non-radio user" and let them scan the bands to their heart's content. I haven't tried the base/mobile version yet, but the portable is a keeper.

This is a scanner that is not for everyone but perfect for many. As a scanner hobbies who has owned every scanner made sice crystals, this is one I passed on initially after seeing specs. It is not a digital scanner in the sense that the target is not public service in terms of police, fire, etc, although you can receive limited stuff still conventional and not trunked. I have loads of scanners, all mainly trunk radios like SDS100, SDS200, 325P2 etc. With upgrades, some of which I have, these digital modes are available, at a higher cost in a higher priced radio, that's not really search-friendly. The 125AT (and 325P2) has always been a favorite for me for searching general frequencies. The 125AT is built for searching. I recently pulled out my trusty 125AT, got re-engaged in the search hobby, and even picked up another 125AT to have in a different location. Then I reconsidered the 160DN. Still seemed a little on the high side compared to the 125AT, but other than P25, the main digital mode for police etc, it decodes a pile of other digital modes, automatically. This thing is a giant step up from the 125AT in that you get all the higher 700-900 mz range, as long as it is not P25. The radio even recognizes P25 and resumes without noise. I have way fewer lockout because the radio cuts a lot of that out when you search digital modes only. It saves your finds with all the system mode, type and color code nonsense automatically without you manually setting up a channel, though you can do it if you want. Reconsider this one if you passed on it initially like I did.

I have an old radio shack scanner that programs far easier than this Uniden BCD160DN . The free Uniden software does not function as it should . I have input information into one and two banks but it will only load number one bank and I have tried several times. Also there is the lack of space to input tone information for repeaters. This is a poorly designed scanner and software combination. Very disappointed .

brill radio , highly recommended

Very nice looking radio. Small and compact. Audio is quite good in good reception areas. Sensitivity for airband is very good but gets overloaded way too easily. If you are within several miles of transmitters you will be hearing all of them no matter what frequency you are on when your radio is picking up any of the transmissoins.. DMR sensitivity is not that good. Shame uniden made a very bad radio for airband. £250+ is a big con. Poor radio. Better go back to 125XLT model.

Not impressed there are better ones out there but it is very easy to program

The great thing about this transaction was Amazons service. It arrived from American in 7 days and sadly after a few hours it was back in the box and returned, which Amazon fulfilled with no quibble so another plus for them. The product itself though is poor. Now There are a lot of happy folk who have bought this and I guess it’s possible I could’ve bought a dud but… I have two companies nearby who transmit on DMR. Both within a couple of miles. My Whistler TRX1 picks up no problem and incidentally my friends Uniden 3600 also receives them with the same strength. This was deaf…and I mean deaf! Tried with both my external antenna and a Diamond telescopic back to back with the Whistler. It wasn’t just DMR either. Air band reception was weaker as was HAM. That was enough for me to send it packing.

Like the 125/325P2, good little form factor and pretty easy to use. Good sensitivity and audio. However, like the SDS100 I had (and returned), this suffered a fair bit of intermod/bleedover when scanning the VHF Air band in a fairly strong signal area, and connected to an externally mounted antenna. It was noticeably worse than the 125 and 325P2, and has unfortunately been returned. For use out and about using a decent BNC antenna, and with the capability to receive DMR/NXDN out of the box, it could be a nice addition if you have a 125, and not using it predominantly as a base receiver.