Uniden BC350C 800 MHz Mobile Scanner
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend UNIDEN BC350C 800 MHZ SCANNER WITH 50 USER-PROGRAMMABLE CHANNELS 6-PREPROGRAMMED SERVICE BANDS;13-PRESET SEARCH BANDS;TURBO SEARCH; ILLUMINATED LCD DISPLAY; CHANNEL LOCKOUT;AC ADAPTER; DC POWER CABLE;AUTOMOTIVE POWER OUTLET PLUG;COVERAGE: 2554, 108174, 406512, 806956 MHZ, EXCLUDING CELLULAR Product details and pricing info |
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15 Customer Reviews Posted
- Excellent Scanner for the Beginner
- Does not support TrunkTracking, however I was unaware of what that was until I read about it in the manual.
Scanning larger bands takes time...I don't know if there's a faster scanner.
Deleting a saved channel is rather cumbersome, but doable if you're not on the road.
Antenna works well with home.
Would be nice if I could group my saved channels, but unfortunately, there is only one "Private" memory bank for the user. - 2007-02-28, 7 of 7 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A good scanner.
- I love this scanner! Amazing results using a outdoor antenna. It's very easy to listen the frequency of the policy, airports and even cordless phones. Funny, good for who does not want to spend much money.
- 2007-02-15, 1 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Low on features, mediocre performance.
- This little scanner is not worth the price. It's got a very limited user interface making it very slow and aggravating to use. There is no possible way to directly input a specific frequency, large gaps in between the frequency ranges it's programmed to receive, and very limited memory capabilities. The small display is hard to read unless you are directly in front of the device, looking from any angle and the backlit LCD display is unreadable.
Reception of this scanner is poor on all of it's (very limited) bands, though can be improved with the use of an aftermarket antenna. The scanner is very prone to intermod from paging systems and other sources. The squelch is practically useless on this thing, it's either on or off, it seems that any setting in between full and open are pretty close to full, as it takes fairly strong signals to break the squelch even when it's set just above the static level on any empty frequency. The sound quality from the built-in speaker is tinny and shallow sounding, but at least there is a jack for an external speaker.
On the bright side, the chassis is well built and strong, the buttons have a decent feel, not to light nor too stiff. The knobs turn with ease, but will not change their settings due to road vibration, they stay put where you set them at. The fit and finish of the scanner is actually quite good overall, but it's not enough to make up for it's lacking feature set and poor performance. - 2006-07-24, 11 of 15 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Odd Scanner
- This is a very odd scanner. You can only program frequencies as you hear them. You cannot program frequencies using the keyboard. This scanner is virtually useless to most people. It is not a trunking scanner and you can't program favorite channels except via a very convoluted method. I own one that someone gave to me. It sits scanning marine channels. Not much use otherwise.
- 2005-12-25, 12 of 18 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Fun and interesting toy for an amateur like me
- I bought my first scanner from a local Church sale about two years ago. It was a crystal based Regency brand, that luckily had all of the correct crystals for the St. Louis area. I was hooked.
To this day I would never consider myself an afficionado or an expert, but I dabble around a bit, so take this review in that context.
I bought this Bearcat BC350C scanner as a birthday present to myself just a few days ago and it's a blast. Parts of the interface are undeniably clunky. Selecting to listen for just the Police or EMS/Fire bands is easy, but programming stuff is a bit icky. It's not complex, just slow - I'd rather be able punch in a frequency and store it, but this requires you to find a frequency first, THEN store it in the "Private" bank.
Anyway, for something you want to pop right out of the box and have work as advertised? Well . . .
Within minutes I was listening to a helicopter overhead ("What's the radar look like ... garble, garble"), picking up the local bus service ("She said she put a $20 bill in the box but I wasn't looking"), and hearing the local gendarmes being dispatched to quell a domestic dispute ("Subject is a white female, attempting to break into the house. Lots of shouting, both are unarmed"). I even picked up one of our neighbor's child monitors!
This really is best used while sitting down, rather than as a mobil unit; nonetheless, I dragged it into my car (hook up was trivial with included DC lighter plugin) and tooled down the rainy highways on a Monday, listening on the police band for reported accidents (I could make out about half a dozen).
From my reading, I know there are better scanners, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the BC350C for other beginners like myself. Sit down and read the manual while you're playing with it, and you'll get the hang of things pretty quickly. If you've never listened to scanners, give yourself a little bit of time to develop an ear. I also recommend that you keep a pad and pencil nearby to jot down interesting frequencies you can usually look up on the Internet later (search for your state and the phrase "scanner frequencies").
You might move up and onward in scanner-dom, and this nifty little gadget is likely to just be your introductory toy to the exciting world of the electro-magnetic spectrum! - 2005-11-15, 41 of 42 people found this review helpful, Rated:
