Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I am a long time scanner user and own and have used many different ones over the years...from early crystal 8 channel ones to some of the very latest trunking, multi-channel units. I find this compact unit an ideal second or third scanner to carry in your car as it has so many great features to assist you when you are traveling...heading the list is the Close Call option.
The "Close Call" allows you to 'grab' any nearby strong signals, say from a tower along the road, the drive up window at your local fast food place or to find the frequency that is being used by that police car or fire truck in the next lane. A great 'sub-option' with CloseCall is the DND..."Do Not Disturb" setting that you can use. Any of the so-called "Priority" type options on most scanners cause the radio to interrupt every audio transmission at frequent intervals...usually every 2 or 3 seconds. The DND comes into play when you are listening to an active channel...and the DND suspends the 'interrupt' until the audio is over. And I can relate that IF you have a Priority feature active, it will cause a short bit of silence at the MOST critical time of the broadcast...Murphy's Law I guess...! So, running CloseCall with DND active gives the best of both worlds...a 'Frequency Finding' ability that does NOT become a huge pain at the most critical times...
The next most useful feature of this 355C is the way you can 'link' any combination of the scan groups. Nearly all other scanners make you choose between Police OR Fire OR CB OR Air...etc. This scanner allows you to choose to scan just a single bank..this might be your Private Bank of 100 channels of your choosing....or...any combination of Private, Police, Fire/Emerg, Air, Marine or CB. This means that when you are in open country where there are few radio transmissions, you can opt to scan every pre-programmed frequency in the radio..and that is close to 4000 channels...!!!...just listening to anything that might pop up...
While this scanner does NOT have actual TrunkTracking, I still use it to monitor our local 800 MZ trunking system by just entering the 15 frequencies that are used here, and then once a day, I lock out the one channel that is used for the Control Channel that day. I do this by use of the neat "Temp. Lock Out" button to keep the Control Channel quiet. Now it does NOT "lock onto" a TalkGroup..(I use a BCT-8 for that when needed) but most of the time the conversations will stay on the same freq. for the entire exchange, so you normally hear the complete conversation this way.
This is not a scanner that you would want if you intend on changing to a different set of freqs every day or so...it's not difficult to put in your own 100...or 200...or all 300 favorites, but once that is done, it's best to use this scanner as a very useful tool for listening to a LOT of channels and finding new frequencies to monitor.
And finally, this unit is very easy to use in a vehicle...it only takes the press of one button to alter the setup of the banks...so that makes it a very minimum distraction to your driving...it's not unlike changing stations on the AM-FM radio....but a LOT more interesting..!!
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Uniden BC355C 800MHz 300-Channel Base Mobile Scanner (Black)The BC355C is an affordable, basic mobile scanner that's great for home or mobile use, with 300 storable channels, coverage of all the "action" bands, convenient features like "close call" and program lock, and a wealth of powering options for different applications.
An affordable, basic mobile scanner that's great for home or mobile use.
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Click here for more information about Uniden BC355C 800MHz 300-Channel Base Mobile Scanner (Black)
