IRST LOOK F New Product Reviews The Best Just Got Better Uniden’s BCD396XT By Larry Van Horn, N5FPW ob Grove said the BCD396T handheld, heart of the scanner’s menu, display, and ad- can handle any rebanding situation you might “is the most advanced scanner ever ditional control functions in conjunction with encounter. B designed.” And when you looked at keys on the front of the scanner. Looking inside the radio, I found a world all the scanning capability built into that small The 396XT uses a flexible antenna with an of scanning capability. Here are some of the package, no truer words were ever spoken. SMA connector. They have included a BNC to features that BC396XT owners will be familiar Now Uniden has released an updated version of SMA adapter for additional antenna connection with. the venerable 396 and it made a great scanner options. Antenna jack impedance is 50 ohms. into a super scanner. APCO25 Digital audio decoding Adaptive digital threshold that automatically sets ❖ It’s what is under the the digital decode threshold for APCO 25 ❖ Case, Controls and the systems. Our field test indicates that this unit hood that counts. is a substantial improvement in this regard Antenna Given all of the recent concern over over the 396T. The BCD396XT is a direct descendant of rebanding in the 800 MHz band, you won’t TrunkTracker IV trunk tracker technology with the popular BC396T handheld scanner. Many have a problem with the 396XT. The memory control-channel only scanning and I-Call monitoring. of the primary features found in the earlier unit unit can be re-flashed via your computer so it Close call signal capture apply to this new handheld. Supports step sizes of 5, 6.25, 7.5, 8.33, 10, The 396 case measures 2.40 (W) x 1.22 12.5, 15, 20, 25, 50 or 100 kHz (D) x 5.35 (H) inches and weighs in at 9.6 Fire tone out alert ounces with batteries, and about four ounces Motorola control channel only trunking without. DCS/CTCSS/NAC rapid decode Scan and (selected) service searches. You won’t There is a multi-color backlight system for have to select just one or the other. the 1-5/16 by 13/16-inch liquid crystal display. A frequency/ID auto store function that automati- There are four user-selectable menu cally stores frequencies from a service or limit options for display backlighting: backlight search into a conventional system or store talk on for 10 or 30 seconds (push button select- group IDs into a trunked system, 16 character text tagging for each system, group, able), squelch (backlight illuminates when the channel, talkgroup, search range, and SAME squelch opens and stays on for five seconds), group keypress (backlight turns on when any key Compatible with the Uniden BC-RH96 remote is pressed then stays on for 10 seconds), and head accessory. infinite (backlight turns on when you press the Analog and digital AGC functions. multi-function power on/off key, then stays on Quick search; 12 service searches (Public safety, news, ham radio, marine, railroad, air until you press it again). (military and civilian), CB radio, FRS/GMRS, The screen backlight can be tied to a racing, FM broadcast, and special itinerant; channel alert, so even though dark blue might and custom search that lets you program up not be good for normal viewing, it is useful to 10 search ranges. to indicate a channel alert (the display briefly SAME weather alert and weather priority changes to the alert color, then reverts to the Priority scan with priority plus. Signal strength display, battery level display on normal selected blacklight color after the alert). the LCD. Available LCD backlight colors include red, LCD and keypad backlight blue, magenta, green, white, yellow and cyan. Adjustable (0 to 5 seconds) scan delay The keyboard backlight is not tied to the Adjustable Hold (scan duration 0 to 255 seconds) LCD backlight color selection; it is always per system, custom or service search Strong signal attenuation white. Upgradeable firmware There is only one knob (scroll type) on Channel alert the top of the unit that controls a variety of Independent alert tone volume lets you set the the scanner’s functions depending on other volume level of the following tones: Key Beep, controls being depressed. The multi-function Emergency Alert, Channel Alert, and Close scroll knob is used to set volume and squelch Call Alert Repeater reverse levels, adjust menu settings, enter text, change Broadcast signal ignore while searching (TV and channels in the hold mode, resume scanning, radio station frequencies, pagers, etc) and change display screens. Duplicate channel alert There are two push buttons on the side of MT RATING: 4 3/4 STARS Key Lock the 396XT that perform the same operations as PC Programming and control the buttons on the side of the 396T – function Wired cloning (will only clone to another BCD396XT) and menu selections. These controls are the A battery saver mode 68 MONITORING TIMES June 2009 ❖ New Trunk Tracking MT FIRST LOOK RATING (0-10 SCALE) definitely an improvement over the 396T. The 396T had a hissy and muddled sound, but I did Capability Audio Quality ..................................... 9 not note that in the side by side test I conducted. The BCD396XT is a Trunk Tracker IV© Audio Levels ....................................... 10 APCO25 digital audio was also a major model scanner. This lets the user follow unen- Backlight/Display ................................ 7 complaint and Uniden seems to have put Battery Life ......................................... 8 crypted conversations on the following trunk Ease of Use ........................................ 8 those problems behind them as well. The unit radio systems: Motorola Type I; Motorola Type (programming is much easier with computer performed well on the four trunk/conventional II; Motorola Type IIi Hybrid; Motorola Type II software) systems on which I tested the unit. I did not hear Smartnet; Motorola Type II Smartzone; Motorola Feature Set ......................................... 9 any motorboating, and when compared with the Type II Smartzone Omnilink; Motorola Type Keyboard/Button/Control Layout .......... 9 396T, I did note a definite reduction in watery II VOC; EDACS Standard (Wide); EDACS Overall Construction ........................... 9 audio. I also saw better rates and fewer drop Overall Reception .............................. 9 Standard Networked; EDACS Narrowband (Nar- Owners Manual outs on the 396XT. row); EDACS Narrowband Networked; EDACS media on which it is presented... ....... 5 SCAT; EDACS ESK (will not decode ProVoice); content.................................... ........ 8 LTR Standard; and Project 25 Standard. Sensitivity ............................................ 8 The 396XT will receive the following voice Selectivity ............................................ 7 systems: Analog; Analog and APCO-25 Com- mon Air Interface (P16); and APCO-25 Common conventional channel monitoring that includes Air Interface Exclusive (P25). NAC and talk group ID user differentiation (P25 Trunk systems in VHF, UHF, the new 700 One-Frequency Trunk). MHz public safety band, 800 MHz, and 900 MHz Another new feature is Control Channel bands can be programmed. This includes trunk Data Output that permits the analysis of control systems now being installed by the Department channel data without the need to perform inva- of Defense in the new 380-399.9 MHz LMR sive modifications to the scanner. You can now sub-band. The scanner can also scan both con- use software programs such as Unitrunker and ventional and trunked systems at the same time. Pro96Com to analyze or monitor trunk radio In addition, the 396XT can monitor certain systems. trunk systems using control channel trunking. Private Systems lets you flag a system so If the scanner is set to scan trunk frequencies, that it cannot be read out of the scanner or modi- the user can track the trunk system using only fied. There is also a Key Safe mode that, once control channel data. You do not have to program set, lets you hand the scanner to a novice user all of the system’s voice channel frequencies without fear that they will modify the program- into memory in this mode as long as all possible ming in the unit. control channels have been programmed into the Other new features include: NAC decoding of all P25 signals scanner. Ability to flag a channel as digital, analog or all The multi-colored backlight of the display Multi-site system support like its 996T cousin is a neat feature, but, when using lower contrast ❖ Close call temporary store (last 10 hits) settings, on most of the colors the display is So What Has Been GPS support for location-based scanning, loca- hard to read. I would dump that lousy blue tion alerts, and crows-flightnavigation. (Note: color in favor of a bright orange color as used Added? The GPS unit is not provided and must be So is it worth upgrading from your purchased separately) on the BC-330 or BC-246. BCD396T to a new BCD396XT? With the new Independent GPS control of sites and channel There is no UASD programming software feature set listed below, the answer to that ques- groups as of presstime, and without it, programming tion is a resounding "Yes!" There are a lot of Fire tone out search has a built-in frequency this scanner can be laborious. Based on our new features incorporated into the 396XT, a lot counter to display the received tones conversations with Uniden, UASD software A temporary lockout feature will be available soon. In the meantime, I have of them based on feedback from owners of the Startup configurations. You can learn more about 396T scanner. this feature at http://info.uniden.com/twiki/ published in our specifications table a couple of The ability to manually select a specific bin/view/UnidenMan4/StartupKeys software packages that are available right now, programmed channel in the older Uniden dy- Individual channel volume offset including FreeScan.