Uniden Bearcat BC125AT Handheld Scanner, 500-Alpha-Tagged Channels, Close Call Technology, PC Programable, Aviation, Marine, Railroad, NASCAR, Racing, and Non-Digital Police/Fire/Public Safety.

I am going to write a good honest review on this scanner and not rate it a perfect 5 just because I bought it! First off, I will list the negatives. 1. It only comes with a USB cord for recharging it or powering it. I think that is disgusting that Uniden is so cheap they cant throw in a $5 AC Wall Charger with that cord. Yes, you can hook that cheap cord up to a PC providing your PC is left on and charge or power your Uniden. But it is just so much simpler and easier to plug it into an outlet! 2. It only is made for 2 rechargeable or alkaline AA batteries. Most of the older scanners or even new ones have 3 or 4 batteries providing more using time before recharging or changing them. 3. I am old fashioned and would much rather prefer an AC-DC power supply over this USB thing! Yes, it requires a learning curve and can be complicated until you have the patience to take the baby steps and learn all the functions. If you realize you are the kind of person that has a hard time programming a DVD recorder or VCR, this is not for you. You should have known better before you bought it! Now for the good points: 1. The volume is surprisingly loud, crisp and clear for that small of a radio. 2. It has a very nice, large display screen that you can easily see and read. 3. I think it is fantastic that a $112 scanner can be programmed to have an alpha-numeric display for all your frequencies. It is so nice seeing what that frequency is, instead of trying to remember the numbers. 4. It also offers Ctcss which is a simple code you can program with each frequency to block others from interfering on that same frequency. 5. For those of you that can handle a scanner with a learning curve, this scanner has many things to offer you once you get into the programming modes. You can customize the close call for various bands to monitor and activate the DND, (Do not Disturb) so it doesnt interfere with frequencies you are listening to. A 4 is a decent, honest review on this scanner considering the positives and negatives I found. There is only one handheld Analog Scanner I would rate a perfect 5. That is the former Gre-Psr 310. That scanner pretty much done the same as this one except it went all the way up to 1300 MHz and this one only covers to 500. The Gre 310 had more batteries which allowed it to stay on longer before charging or changing. It also had a regular power receptacle on it for charging or powering the unit instead of this USB thing. Whistler is now taking over Gre/Radio Shacks line of previous scanners but doesnt have that model in their lineup yet. When they do, I would take that model in a heartbeat over the Uniden BC-125 even if it was $50 more. For the money, this Uniden 125 is probably the best ANALOG scanner CURRENTLY on the market.

It’s a descent scanner. Battery life is about 3-4 hours (rechargeable). Could be better. Lastly, I feel Uniden could have spent literally $3 dollars more and put in a 200% much much better speaker.

From Pittsburgh PA I can hear transmissions as far away as Interstate 80!!! And this area is full of hills and valleys, but this little radio was still able to pull those signals in. Scanning through the channels I hear a whole new world of conversations I didnt even know existed. I especially like the ability to scan for strong transmissions close by. It locks on and lets you know what is in your area. This feature can be turned off so that you can just run up and down a frequency range without being interrupted by strong signals you would rather ignore. A bunch of namable programmable channels means I wont lose interesting signals I may find while roaming through the hundreds of frequencies. A word of warning to you guys who like to just pick up a new toy and run with it... Read the manual!!! It will save you time and frustration! Once I understood the way Uniden had their menu scheme laid out, working with this radio was easy. This is my first real professional scanner and it took me a little bit of time to understand what I had purchased. But once I got the hang of it, I didnt want to put it down! Im still learning all the features, (havent tried to connect it to my computer yet), and can hardly wait to take it out to a sporting event. I know it is almost trivial, but the detachable antenna makes for easy travel. That was a nice touch. I can put it in my pocket with no worries about breakage. Uniden packed a lot of good things in this little radio for a fair price. I’m very happy with this purchase.

As a former firefighter I like to keep up with the calls thru out my county, Im still a first responder if needed. Glad to be retired.

The scanner it self is working great. After six hours of confusion getting it programmed. Why cant a large company like Uniden make a decent manual and website for understanding how to use this scanner? Getting the All Channels Locked message was the first challenge. After a few YouTube videos I learned this is normal, that it needs some frequencies entered. I was thinking of returning it as defective after following the instructions in the manual. Newsflash, Uniden: Please put an insert about the Channels Locked welcoming message. The Uniden support videos are just awful. Please get a presenter who understands how to communicate. The scanner is pretty useless without the program to set up channels. Doing it with just the 10-step procedures directly on the scanner is for masochists. I tried the driver install with a Windows 7 computer unsuccessfully. It reminded me of Windows 95. Then I did it on my Windows 10. It worked in spite of the Uniden instructions. Somehow Windows 10 was able to install the driver automatically. The spread sheet is easy. The driver is not. This scanner is not for the technologically timid. I have 35 years of computer experience, a Masters degree in educational computing, and experience doggedly working on computer problems, 50 years of radio experience. I am an aviator used to dealing with radios. Bottom line: Uniden get some better technical writers!

I got a BC72XLT a couple years ago, and never regretted that purchase. I saw the features of this radio and decided it was worth the upgrade. I think its definitely worth it for someone looking for a few more features. Alpha Tags - so you know what youre listening to, you dont have to memorize what frequencies are USB programming - MUCH easier to program new frequencies. You can also back up everything to a file, so you can change the entire setup of the banks really quickly. Nice if you go on vacation, because you can enter all the new frequencies on the computer, back up the old setup and apply the new setup. When you get back, it takes less than a minute to put the old setup back on. USB charging - you dont need a special AC charger for the radio, it can charge from a computer or USB charger. If you plan on using it at home or in one place a lot, I would definitely suggest getting a USB charger (maybe with a mini USB plug already on it). This helps to get it away from the computer, which can cause interference. It comes with 2 rechargeable AA batteries, which seem to last maybe 8 hours on a charge. Backlight and frequent transmissions could reduce this, but I have been very happy with battery life. Military Frequencies - one of the main things that convinced me to get this radio. I have to admit I havent heard anything except the UHF from airport towers, but I will be around more UHF traffic soon and I expect to get a lot more from this. Better Programming - you can set delay specifically to each channel. You can also set a temporary lockout, which only locks a channel out until you turn off the radio. Useful for localized interference. Backlight Options - you can set the backlight to come on only with squelch, so it is off until it picks up a signal. DND Mode - this stands for do not disturb. This means that the close call or priority modes will only do their checks when scanning. Once it picks up a channel, it will not interrupt the channel to do those checks. This is really nice, because even the short pauses to do those checks can make you miss key information in a transmission. Close Call memory - you can store the frequencies found in close call mode to a small bank for later review or scanning. Large banks - 50 channels in each bank. Sometimes I have to combine smaller categories into one bank, but overall it is good to have plenty of space in a bank. Also good to have more frequencies overall. Dedicated Weather Function - Fn-3 accesses weather radio modes, nice to have when there is bad weather. There is also a weather function to scan weather radio in the background for alerts. Easier service search - When in service search mode, each service is treated like a bank and can be turned on or off. This is much more intuitive and lets you only choose the ones you are interested in. These are: Police, Fire/Emergency, Ham, Marine, Railroad, Civil Air, Military Air, CB Radio, FRS/GMRS/MURS (handheld civil radios), and Racing. You can also set custom ranges. There are other features, but these are the ones I found most useful.

My Uniden BC125AT now reads SCAN MODE ALL LOCKED! when I turn it on after just one day of pretty decent reception of my local railroads. When pressing the Hold button twice, it then reads ALL CHANNELS LOCKED OUT!. The owners manual makes no reference to this particular set of problems. I have erased all programmed channels hoping that this would clear it up but it did not fix it. I have a number of frequencies ready to load into it from my PC, but when I attempt to use the write to scanner function I get an error, which I presume is related to this problem. The error reads as follows: See the end of this message for details on invoking just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box. ************** Exception Text ************** System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Configuration system failed to initialize ---> System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized configuration section system.serviceModel. (c:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727Configmachine.config line 134) at System.Configuration.ConfigurationSchemaErrors.ThrowIfErrors(Boolean ignoreLocal) at System.Configuration.BaseConfigurationRecord.ThrowIfParseErrors(ConfigurationSchemaErrors schemaErrors) at System.Configuration.BaseConfigurationRecord.ThrowIfInitErrors() at System.Configuration.ClientConfigurationSystem.EnsureInit(String configKey) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.PrepareConfigSystem() at System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection(String sectionName) at System.Configuration.ClientSettingsStore.ReadSettings(String sectionName, Boolean isUserScoped) at System.Configuration.LocalFileSettingsProvider.GetPropertyValues(SettingsContext context, SettingsPropertyCollection properties) at System.Configuration.SettingsBase.GetPropertiesFromProvider(SettingsProvider provider) at System.Configuration.SettingsBase.GetPropertyValueByName(String propertyName) at System.Configuration.SettingsBase.get_Item(String propertyName) at System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsBase.GetPropertyValue(String propertyName) at System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsBase.get_Item(String propertyName) at BC125AT_SS.Properties.Settings.get_ComPort() at BC125AT_SS.Main.writeToScannerToolStripMenuItem_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripButton.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam) ************** Loaded Assemblies ************** mscorlib Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3649 (GDR.050727-3600) CodeBase: file:///c:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll ---------------------------------------- BC125AT_SS Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 1.1.0.0 CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Uniden/BC125AT_SS/BC125AT_SS.exe ---------------------------------------- System.Windows.Forms Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3645 (GDR.050727-3600) CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll ---------------------------------------- System Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3644 (GDR.050727-3600) CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Drawing Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3644 (GDR.050727-3600) CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Configuration Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3654 (GDR.050727-3600) CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Xml Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3654 (GDR.050727-3600) CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll ---------------------------------------- ************** JIT Debugging ************** To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this application or computer (machine.config) must have the jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section. The application must also be compiled with debugging enabled. For example: <configuration> <system.windows.forms jitDebugging=true > </configuration> When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer rather than be handled by this dialog box. My expensive radio scanner is currently useless to me. There is no customer support available.

Bought this handheld scanner for my Dad on May 9, 2021. He is a Past Chief of our Fire Dept. and still enjoys listening to what’s going on. He noticed it wouldn’t charge and opened the battery compartment to find the rechargeable batteries from 2010 ( ELEVEN YEARS AGO) had deteriorated and melted the inner compartment. He cannot switch it over from rechargeable to AA batteries because the old rechargeables melted the switch and contacts. Very disappointed. I had not realized this handheld was released 2011. I never would have purchased such an OLD product!!! Now to see if the original retail warranty applies to me or the radio company that is selling these. I will update this review once I find out what course of action I have. We missed the Amazon return date because we lost my Mom recently and our minds were not on this scanner.

No charging system. Have to charge using laptop? Does not hold charge long!

I mainly purchased this to monitor aircraft frequencies which it does well. I hear many airborne aircraft, but not much from the ground unless I am near an airport. Except for fire paging and ambulance to hospital comms, it does not receive police and fire services in my area for two reasons; 1. Most of those are above 512 Mhz, and 2. Those that are below 512 Mhz are mostly digital which sound like a loud buzz on this radio and any other radio that is not equiped to decode digital. The radio has 3 main modes to chose from; 1. Scan mode scans 10 banks of 50 frequencies each plus a close call bank. The active banks show up at the bottom of the screen, and pressing a corresponding number on the keypad turns each bank on or off. The two search modes allow searching for CTCSS (subaudible tones) and DCS (Digital Coded Squelch). Active frequencies can be saved along with the privacy code. 2. Service search allows searching for activity on 10 different pre-programmed frequency ranges / lists. Similar to the scan mode, the different ranges can be turned on or off by pressing a number. Service search bank 3 is ham radio and includes 6 and 2 meters and 440 Mhz. Service search bank 9 includes FRS / GMRS / and MURS frequencies (mostly UHF and a few VHF). 3. Search gives you 10 different frequency ranges that you can program yourself - low and high limits. The close call technology works in all 3 main modes and has three options; 1. Do not disturb turns off close call when the scanner is receiving a signal 2. Priority mode has close call turned on all the time, and will interrupt reception of other signals. However, unlike turning a priority channel on, normal reception is unaffected while receiving other channels. With a priority channel enabled, other channels are briefly interrupted every few seconds while the priority channel is checked. 3. Close call only listens only for close calls Temporary lockout is a nice feature. When the power is reset, all the temporary lockouts are reset. To permanently lock out a channel, press the lockout button twice. This also works for close call channels. Cons - there are a limited number of lockouts - 100 temporary and 100 permanent. If you decide that you do not want to monitor a permanent channel, it is easy to delete it. The weather alert is a nice feature if you do not have a dedicated weather alert radio. It even alerts you if it can no longer receive your local weather service channel. The computer interface works well which allows you to input information into a sheet similar to a spreadsheet. It allows you to read information from the radio or save information to the radio. Rows or blocks of rows can be copied and pasted to easily move frequencies around within a bank or put them into other banks (tabs).