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

I bought this to try because some reviews said it was good for beginners. Id have to disagree. No matter what I did, I couldnt get it to work. I tried just scanning but it didnt pick things up very often. Tried entering frequencies but couldnt get it to take. Not for me, I returned it.

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.

Seemed to work well for nascsr. Used the computer to program it because typing in individual frequency for 50 drivers was taking forever. Had to play with the settings quite a bit to get adequate reception. Instructions could be a little more clear. Overall it did its job of picking up the NASCAR driver radio broadcasts.

Great product for the cost

The scanner was more difficult to program than I expected Im still trying to figure it out

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.

Product as described by seller. No Issues.

I have always thought of Uniden as a quality product. The SR30C was a new product and seemed to have good reviews except for the complicated programming, but that was not a problem for me. The build quality was excellent as well a the sound quality. One big problem was the battery life. I put in a new set of alkaline batteries and they lasted about 12 hours when I got the low battery warning. Replaced them with a fully charged set of NiMH batteries which lasted about 3 hours until they also set off the low battery warning. I have a portable radio that works on alkaline batteries that has been working for months. Not sure if this was just a bad unit, or a battery hog. Returned it to Amazon for a refund. Will be contacting Uniden to get their opinion.

Good item not as easy to understand for me and does not work as I need for my area

Muy compacto y fácil de usar.