Wednesday, May 10, 2006

New Airband Scanner Arrives!


I have now received my Uniden Bearcat BR330t scanner which I have had to import from the US as it isn't available here. After forking out around £250 by the time I had paid for UPS delivery AND the dreaded import duty, I was hoping it was worth it.
This scanner has the 'Nascar' logo across the front as it has some special facilities for race fans in the US but after doing some research on the net, this scanner had the features I wanted specifically for airband listening (full VHF & UHF coverage included).
Wow! where do I start with this scanner, the functions included are brilliant and it's completely different to any scanner I have had before. Firstly it has up to 2500 'dynamic ' memories which basically means there is no set structure to the memory banks, the scanner simply has a memory area a bit like a computer to store any memory channels and banks that you create. Firstly you can create up to 200 'systems', for instance, I have a system called 'Mil Air'. Within that system I can then create up to 20 groups eg. I have groups within the 'Mil Air' system called 'Brize Norton' & 'Mildenhall' etc. Within those groups you can simply add as many channels as you want and also assign a name to them all (all systems, groups and individual channels can be given upto a 16 character name).
I have now added several hundred frequencies divided by about four systems all containing many groups and my current memory usage is just 6%!!

In addition, you can lock out any number of systems, groups or individual channels, and it scans at an amazing 90 channels a second (searching is 140 steps a second!).


Sensitivity and audio quality are on a par with my 'benchmark' Yupiteru MVT7100 (at last a worthy successor with all the facilities I could want!).
I will post again soon on my further findings and tell you all about the 'close call' feature included on this scanner. Cheers for now, Mark.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Mark!

What progress have you made with your BR330T. Any issues for UK airband users? How has the scanner been in out and about use?

Regards, -Rob

Anonymous said...

The European version of this scanner is on it's way ! Late december it wil be available in stores under the name of the UBC 3500 XLT. Can't wait! Mark, do you have more info about how this scanner is in full use ?

Fritsz