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Reviews For: Uniden BCT15X

Category: Receivers: Scanners

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Review Summary For : Uniden BCT15X
Reviews: 19MSRP: $319.00
Description:
A mobile and base radio scanner with conventional and trunked radio systems monitoring support.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.uniden.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
14193.7
KC5MZD Rating: 2014-02-09
Useless POS Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This scanner is an epic failure for someone that knows the frequency they want to monitor.
Even with a numeric keypad you still can't just enter a frequency and just start listening!!!!!!!!!!
With all the fancy modes you would think it would be easy to manually enter your repeater’s frequency hit enter start listening.
NOT SO!!
You have to hook it up to a PC and use aftermarket software purchased separately.
DO NOT BUY
Unless you have deep pockets and a couple of months to finish buying "extras" and setting them up.

TURBO68 Rating: 2013-02-05
Excellent Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I got mine injuly of 2012 main intrest for me is monitoring the vhf airbands performance is excellent & as good as receivers from aor,icom and othe uniden scanners antenna is an Icom-AH7000 discone paired up wiyn an Mfj-1281 extension speaker lots of people always find something that they dont like but at the end of the day if most hooked up a decent antenna,good quality coax would have nothing to compain do have more then 40 receivers and anther 20 in dads shack.Well
done uniden.
N2DY Rating: 2011-07-13
Excellent Scanner, Very Poor Documentation Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Being familiar with both the Uniden high end scanners and ARC software, I had no problem programming the BCT-15X via my computer using the Radio Reference web site. The scanner performs flawlessly. I am in an intermod alley near several commercial towers and with two high-powered FM broadcast stations about a mile away. I receive no intermod whatsoever. Sensitivity is excellent and scanning speed is more than adequate. The all metal build quality is very good.

That being said, I sympathize with those reviewers who find the radio too complex. While it is not for me, since I am familiar with predecessor models, the lack of a proper manual is a huge oversight by Uniden. The CD provided with the radio is useless. In addition, this radio requires software. Trying to program it manually is just a waste of time. For Uniden to refer you to ARC Software (which is very good) and have you purchae it separately is not the answer. The Scanner should come with it. Uniden has been very shortsighted by cheaping out and not providing a proper manual and proper software for this radio. They have made a great radio but then have blown it with poor execution on the little extras. The reviews here reveal that shortfall. I am a big Uniden scanner fan. I have over 20 of them. I hope they listen and learn their lesson for next time.
WA1DMX Rating: 2011-07-12
Not What I expected Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Not anyway near normal after trying to figure this scanner out even with ARC XT PRO Software.
If any manufacturer's read these
reviews - STOP Making Scanners with DMA memory.
This is worse than my BCT-396t scanner.
If you ever loaded it up with allot of systems, you would miss an awful lot of transmissions.
S L O W Scanning with only 30 conventional channels.
Wish the bct-8 had pl/dpl option!!
I've owned allot of scanners. These new DMA scanners are awful.
Also get allot of Intermod from local Weather Transmitter. Don't get it on my Icom even with a preamp.
I'll keep it short, Don't like it, am going to sell it and stick with my ICOM PCR-1500, Good OLD Bearcat 780XLT and other old scanners.

73's, Mike
KC6RUO Rating: 2010-08-30
Good Grief! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
You will be suicidal before you can get the thing to trunk properly. Also, I like to have a manual in my hands to sit on the sofa with to read not a freaking PDF file.

And at just shy of $300 and no software? What’s that all about Uniden? I called Uniden for Technical support and they refer me to Butel. I could not get it to work and Butel refer me back to Uniden. NICE!
N5LXI Rating: 2010-07-10
Complex but good Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
It's a very capable and VERY COMPLEX receiver / scanner. There is NO printed manual and the HTML manual on the CD sucks! Download a PDF manual for the BCT15 (no X), the previous model. That manual is fairly accurate and much better.

It's also VERY annoying as it powers up and defaults to VERY LOUD alerts. You turn that off by pressing the POL and HP buttons. The reason the radio works well, is largely because of Free Scan software, http://scannow.org/. It's really, really good! You can "grab" and import from a spreadsheet, web site (no need to be a subscriber) and about any other source. The radio has very creative memory use and more memories than you will ever need. Way more.

The radio also comes with everything (except the bloody manual) - three power cables, a serial cable (DB-9), and brackets. It is made in China.

I'm lucky, as I don't really need trunking for what I listen too. However, the radio does that as well.

In summary, with free software and a PC to program the radio, it's pretty cool. However, software and PC are REQUIRED not optional!

joel / N5LXI in Dallas
WB3IGR Rating: 2010-06-17
Nice Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Great little radio for the price I paid!
N6JPA Rating: 2009-10-11
Excellent Value Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This scanner radio is a great deal. One of the nice things about it is the ability to select scanning by State to monitor State & Local PD and State Dept of Trans frequencies. Another nice thing is the ability to turn on Control Channel trunking mode in Frequency Searches to monitor any 3600 analog Motorola trunked system while driving down the road. The program Freescan can be used to easily program this scanner and avoid the tedious task of programming by front panel keypad.
Reception on this radio is very good. I can hear weak signal stations a 100 miles away clearly and I'm at a limited Antenna QTH. The unit is built very well so if you are pulling it in and out of the car it can take the abuse. Another plus is the optional DIN E sleeve that you can use to have the radio installed in the dashboard of your car or truck. With 88-108 MHz FM coverage the scanner can act as a full replacement to your radio in dash radio.
The GPS programming is nice. While driving down the road the scanner automatically changes the systems scanned that you have programmed in the scanner. So if you commute from one city to next the scanner tunes to the frequencies in your area.
W0KIE Rating: 2009-10-04
Out of the box first day impression Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First day impression:

The good: The scanner is a lot smaller than expected and seems to play very well. Having state wide frequencys preinstalled is nice.

The bad: Out of the box the scanner has its alert tone turned on full blast as well as the bearcat alert turned on which interupts the audio every two seconds. The included CD manual is horrible. The speaker is downfiring so for desk mounting you have to intall the scanner on its mobile mount placed beneath the scanner.

This non-digital scanner, like most higher end scanners these days, requires a serious learning curve and some third party software and a radioreference.com subscription to get the most enjoyment out of it.