Customer Reviews

Uniden BC355C 800MHz 300-Channel Base Mobile Scanner (Black)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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..!!

This unit is very compact and easy to set up with the attached stand. You just have to stick on the antenna and plug it in. Understanding how to use the controls, and to program in frequencies was pretty easy. I didn't think the audio quality was great, but I have nothing to compare it to, so I don't know if that is just what you get with emergency scanners or if it could be better. We could understand some of the local police talk and local boaters calling in to port. The pre-programmed feature means that the unit is already set up to receive most frequencies you want to hear. I programmed the private band so we were only listening to our local police and fire, not all the surrounding areas as well. If you don't want to restrict what you hear, you won't have to program anything. We did return this unit because we decided that we would rather have a portable unit, so if something was going on, we wouldn't have to hang around the kitchen table to follow the calls. This unit includes a suction cup stick-on antenna for use in your car, plus a mounting bracket and wires for attaching to the car's electrical system, or you can use the auto plug in for power. It is well equipped - you get everything you need!

So the scanner was bought as a present for someone else. They are not particularly technologically inclined, but were able to get it set up fairly easily. A major plus. The scanner works well, and has lots of extra features too. The only problem is this, the scanner is so good that it picks up things it is not intended to pick up. For example: Burger King drive-through orders. And other odds and ends of strange things. The person was able to block the burger king channel to stop it, but some of the other oddities are not on long enough to block it. So in short, it is a great product, is actually a little too good. Which is much better than bad!

It was easy to set up and program, it comes with an ac adaptor, and it hasn't failed me yet!

I'm streaming San Diego Int'l Airport Lindberg Field ATC 24/7 with it.

Give it a listen sometime at [...]

This is the smallest scanner made... However if you have set feq. you wish to monator this scanner is not easy to load.. No numeral buttons to push to load popular feq. It takes seven or eight steps to load one feq.First you have to find the feq.desired and then program it in the memory. Uniden should have added a lttle space for program buttons and made this a lot simpler...[ Rich

I'm using this as a base scanner in my home, and it works great. The trick is to "lock out" all of the noise so that the scanner will not lock onto it. What's even better is to determine which agencies you actually want to listen too (frequencies can usually be found on the internet) and set those up in your "Private" band so that those are the only frequencies you are scanning. I live in an area that has two adjacent cities surrounded by unincorporated residential under the jurisdiction of the county sheriff's office. Each has it's own law enforcement agency and fire department. They all use a common 911 center, but have their own discreet frequencies. Makes for pretty interesting listening on a saturday night.

uniden has been known for great products and this one is no exception. I really like the lock out feature and the pre programmed channels making searching easy if you dont have a list of your local channels just plug it in and let it find them for you. The fact that it includes a mounting bracket and antenna for your auto is another nice feature making it easy to go from home to a vehicle.....(check your local laws) overall a nice scanner....

I bought this for my autistic son who is very interested emergency services. As a scanner newbie, I could have done with more documentation on programming, setting, and identifying the various transmitters in our area. This isn't really an issue with the product, but more a simple wish that this scanner was a little more moron friendly, as my ignorance in this field is pretty comprehensive. That said, reception is good, and the 'close call' feature has given my son and I a lot of enjoyment.

I have owned several Uniden Scanners,they are great scanners. This is my first BC355C. It is not as easy to program
as some other Unidens, but can be done by scanning the preinstalled freQ's and then added to the Private Bank.
Great scanner for the Price

Once programed I was able to monitor local police and fire calls. also picks up the airport chatter.