Uniden BCD536HP HomePatrol Series Digital Phase 2 Base/Mobile Scanner with HPDB and Wi-Fi. Simple Programming, TrunkTracker V, S.A.M.E. Emergency/Weather Alert. Covers USA and Canada.

The BCD536HP is a good radio that could be better. It does a great job on P25 systems and is decent on DMR and NXDN IF you buy the upgrades for them, which boost the price by $50 per mode. The Whistler TRX-2, which is about the same price, does DMR and NXDN with no extra charges. If youll primarily be monitoring DMR or NXDN radio systems, Id suggest going with a Whistler, if youll be listening to P25 (especially simulcast systems) this is the radio for you. If it werent for the extra cost of the upgrades, Id probably have given it five starts.

Good scanner but as with any radio Id suggest to use an external speaker for better sound quality. I just received it so Im still learning how to use it. But so far its a good scanner. The one thing they should add to it is an ignition wire for it for when installed in car since they say not to wire it to your vehicles ignition since I could corrupt the SD card when it shuts off if you dont shut off manually first.

Works Great:I have had this for 3 months without a glitch. If you need to listen to a Motorola or Harris P25 public safety system this is the best way to go for most people. Previously I was using a Motorola Spectra to listen to this system in analog mode (I have skills). But the county switched to P25 and shut me out. So this Christmas after a long delay I treated myself to a BCD536HP. Pros: Very sensitive receiver Receives analog and P25 digital and capable to upgrade the common digital modes Provoice and DMR at small cost. Small, well appointed controls, WiFi connectivity for Android and IOS. Powerful audio (when used with an external speaker) Easy to upgrade firmware and channels using Sentinel. Cons; You will have to get latest firmware and channels using Sentinel to get started. Not hard to do, it requires a PC and a USB cable (supplied). Ditch the internal speaker, plug in an external communications speaker 3 or 4 inch diameter. Getting Started Programming can be somewhat frustrating for the newbie. I am used to programming commercial LMR radios and understand all the parameters. So I would say I am expert, however this experience turns out to be unneeded and perhaps misleads me. This radio is quite different in that Sentinel will download a fire hose full of nationwide channels. Your radio will require you to provide your Zip code (or connect optional GPS) and it will activate all the systems in a radius you provide. This will probably be way more than you need. The solution is to use Sentinel to create a Favorites List and use Quick Keys to activate only the channels or systems you wish. Otherwise you will spend a lot of time pressing the Avoid Button to ignore the dog catcher (no kidding). The database comes FREE from www.Radioreference.com Visit that site, the forums etc, and learn about the system you wish to monitor. Simulcast Systems You will hear a lot of favorable and unfavorable things about this receiver. The largest complaint is the reception of P25 simulcast systems. It is true that the scanners available today (Both Uniden and Whistler) use a discriminator to decode the P25 signal. This is not the best way to decode P25 in a simulcast system. The best way is a DSP receiver, and you can only obtain that by buying a Motorola, Harris radio (which you cannot legally program properly), a Pricey Unification Pager, or set up a software defined radio (for geeks). Personally my experience is that my radio works fine on my local simulcast system and I am in an overlap area. Occasionally the bit error rate is high and the audio garbles. P25 itself is not a perfect mode and you will find dispatchers and officers sound like the have marbles in their mouths. It is the nature of P25. If you have any concerns contact local users and ask them their experience with this scanner in your area. Encryption If your local agency uses encryption on some or all of their talk groups you will NOT be able to decode them. The radio lacks an encryption card and even if equipped you would NEVER be able to obtain the lengthy 256 bit key. It would be illegal as well. If I havent scared you off, you will be very pleased after you get it up and running. Uniden also makes a portable version of this radio, the BCD436HP. I bought the mobile/base version as then I do not have to worry about batteries and the BCD536HP has better shielding and so receives with less noise.

The BCD536HP is a one of the best radio scanners. The sound is great, easy to manually program frequencies, and the sentinel software is nice but takes a while to learn. It works just like my BCD436HP but larger display and larger keys to add frequencies. zip code programming is great. I had it scanning frequencies in less than 10 minutes. I would sure buy it again if I did not have one. I plugged it into my cigar lighter in my truck and it worked great.

Great remote receiver. Works great with Proscan software webserver so you can listen to your scanner any where you have internet and a web browser.

This is an expensive unit. Setup was quite easy and when I entered my ZIP code it immediately began scanning. There are many possible complexities and it will take me some time to explore to see whether I can fine tune and expand my searches. UNFORTUNATELY, THE UNIT DOES NOT COME WITH A WI-FI DONGLE AS STATED. Considering the cost of this unit, this is a considerable disappointment and unacceptable.

If youre familiar with the menu system on Uniden/Bearcat scanners over the past 10 years, you will not have to relearn everything from scratch with this unit. I love the extra long lines of text that can be used for naming Systems, Sites, Departments, and individual channels/talkgroups. There is an extra layer of complexity introduced with the Favorites feature which can make enabling/disabling groups of channels with just the numpad+.+E keys a tricky mess, but the Favorites feature itself is cool. A Favorite is like an entire set of systems/groups/channels in a scanner grouped into a bucket, where you can now have multiple of those named buckets to enable/disable at will, like Local Only, Vacation Spot, Imported from RadioRef, I Love Railroads!, etc. Having those Favorites saved to the included SD card is cool, as well as the HomePatrol feature of preloaded sets of systems across the entire US and Canada, scannable and selectable by Lat/Long. The USB dongle is included, and the Uniden Sentinel software is free for updating the firmware and the SD Cards national database. I have been using BuTels ARC software with prior Uniden scanners, and there is a version for this scanner too. There is a useful multi-color ring LED that can be lit for specific types of services or individual channels; note that youll never see it light up if you only ever scan with the built-in national database. When I programmed channels I set it to light up blue for Police, red for Fire/EMS, green for Public Works, and more for other services. I set it to flash for my hometowns channels, which is easily visible from across a room. I also tried out Unidens Siren app on Android to listen to the scanner remotely within my house through WiFi, which is a cool concept but a bit buggy right now; occasionally the app gets stuck or stops streaming audio even though the system/site/channel continues to follow along in realtime. The app cannot handle higher-latency network connections, so if you connect to your scanner from outside your home through a VPN, the app will show system/site/channel but will not stream any audio. There is a purchasable, third-party Windows desktop app that can do this called ProScan; there may be others. For a relatively small receiver this thing is heavy! I like that it has a 13.8VDC input for the AC Adapter, and a 3-pin 13.8VDC jack commonly used for mobile receivers.

super easy to set up an use comes with all the stuff but I did get the external speaker and the gps hook up unit but have not installed them yet..just using what comes in the box..with the scanner ..simple use in home or in car cig lighter plug an go or home unit outlet plug or direct battery hookup all comes in box with the radio...very nice unit have had some scanners in the past that where so difficult to set up I ended up just giving up an gifting the thing to someone else more knowing about them ..I am dumb..this scanner is super easy to use enjoying it 200% cant wait to hook up external aftermarket compliant antenna an speaker an gps..then will really know but like i said out of the box its awesome NO need really for anything extra to get ...being it is a little expensive..but your getting a very high quality piece of tech ..super nice cant stress enough how happy I am with this scanner.ex trucker ex military used to have a bearcat bct7 analog system ..dont know if you can listen to cell phones an stuff with it like that radio..but I imagine a fella could with enough know how to do ...has digital signal pickup analog can download stuff to it ..see how it goes a year from now but I dont feel my 5 stars will change at all could not be happier with my purchase..thanks again hope this review of my dumb real self helps anyone wanting to have a nice scanner ..I was gonna do a scanner page on facebook also...why I did get this type...yes are cheaper ones but I read alot an wanted something that was from a quality company

I have owned Police Scanners for a long time now, just because I like to know whats going on in my neighborhood. But once we moved to Maui a few years ago, my old scanners couldnt pick up the Maui police that uses the P25 system now. So I bought the: Uniden BCD536HP Digital Phase 2 Base/Mobile Scanner... I LOVE it.. It does everything I want a scanner to do... AND I love they way I can just enter my zip code and thats all. The only thing I would like to see is, I wish the Sentinel software that this scanner uses to update firmware and date could be used on a Mac computer.. I went out and bought a small Windows OS laptop just to use with this scanner...