Uniden Bearcat SR30C, 500-Channel Compact Handheld Scanner, Close Call RF Capture, Turbo Search, PC programable, NASCAR, Racing, Aviation, Marine, Railroad, and Non-Digital Police, Fire, Public Safety

This low-cost scanner is easy to operate and the included computer interface makes programming frequencies in very simple. Battery takes too long to charge, but that may be due to the quality of batteries installed. Very handy for work.

My mom wanted this to listen to. She don’t get out much because of the corona virus, so this gives her some kind of entertainment on what’s going on in the outside world of her town. Made her happy, and she could set it up herself, which was my main concern because I’m in a different state than her.

Update: I cancelled return. After playing with I find this a good product except for no USB drivers and software are not available. Easy to program and find the local search very useful. When I go to website stated in manual it says not found. When I look around there is NO app available as stated in manual and product description. What I do find says for Vista, OMG, what, that’s 20 years old? Bottom line, NO APP SUPPORT! Might be good product if you you don’t care about drivers or apps, I can’t say. Returning be a cause above review.

The one thing we dont like about it is the display light doesnt stay lit long enough otherwise a great product.

…and good enough to do the job. This fills that bill. Probably not for you if your interest is police traffic. Not si ple to program on the scanner, but is easier to program from a PC. If you are some distance from the rail traffic, consider 6dB antenna.

Just a old product.. not up to date.. I have a old radio shack scanner that has all 800 frequencies that I bought in 1998..

Only gets weather. Doesn’t pick up any fire, police,or ems

I liked how brand new it looked and worked. I have nothing bad to write about it.

The ONLY problem you are going to have with this scanner is programming it according to the instructions in the manual, because theyre not great. However, there are a ton of YouTube videos about this unit; watch one and youll be like yeah, this is super easy. The only reason I can think of why youd want a more upscale scanner is if your local police department uses digital radios - more and more departments go that way every year - and you want to listen to the cops. This one wont do that; the one that will is $339.49. This radio will tune in any kind of auto racing, plus weather, aviation, marine and railroad traffic. This can be programmed from a Windows PC; as I am a Mac person thats not an option for me, but programming it from the front panel is easy to do. This does not support Bluetooth out of the box. If you have a good pair of Bluetooth headphones, Amazon sells adapters for less than $20 that will interface your headphones to this scanner. For MOST purposes these are fine. For auto racing they are not - it is very loud at the speedway and you need isolation headphones, such as the Race Day Electronics headphones I bought from Amazon. Those are awesome. I use them for woodworking as well as going to races and they work well both places. BIG recommendation: buy Ni-MH batteries because that will save you a lot of cash. The scanner will recharge Ni-MH batteries so you dont need a separate charger. Program it before you go to the speedway so its ready for you when you get there. It will cost you $47.95 to rent a scanner at a race, and it must be returned when you leave. If you buy this scanner and a set of headphones, youll be saving money at your third race. AND its yours! Also consider: they dont rent scanners at airports or on Amtrak trains and that traffic is a lot of fun to listen to. Its really worth it to have your own scanner.

I own multiple scanners and have been scanning for well over 30 years - this little Bearcat is incredibly inconvenient to program - turn the volume and/or squelch up or down - but most of all, just to turn on and off. It’s reception is very poor compared with all my other hand held scanners - I used various antennas to see if there was improvement. The best thing it does is search active frequencies, so I use it as a “search scanner” to find active frequencies so as to load them in my other units. For auto racing or for listening to Emergency services close by, it would be fine. But for anything more then 2-3 miles away that’s not being broadcast through a county wide repeater - forget it.