BC125AT Full Review

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KD4UXQ

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I remember when I first saw the BC125AT advertised I thought GREAT! An analog only scanner that included MilAir and did not include 800. I had an RS PRO-60 which has great audio, but image reception from the 800 MHZ region in the 225 -400 range was intolerable. So when I saw an inexpensive analog to cover MilAir without 800, that piqued my interest. Then I read the specifications looking for sensitivity, selectivity and IF frequencies to try and judge it's design for performance. When I saw it did not cover 380-400, but did cover 400-512 I was in disbelief. I thought surely this is a mistake and started checking the forums here about it. Then I was shocked to find it was true and then dismayed that the reasoning was 380-400 was being repurposed to trunking.

My main interest in pointing out the mistake is so it does not happen in future models. If the BC125AT had covered 225-400 I would have jumped at owning one immediately. I can't see how not including it would be an RF design limitation. No front end filtering in that small a package could have sharp enough skirts to restrict 380-400 yet allow decent coverage below 380 and above 400. The LO wouldn't be a technically limiting factor unless designed that way on purpose in firmware. And the IF would not have such a limiting bandwidth for the same reason as the front end filtering. Could not a firmware update allow coverage?

It is possible that image rejection could be seriously impaired in 380-400, but that would be odd too. But it is possible. Do we know the IF frequencies? I didn't find them in the manual. Knowing the IF frequencies it would be possible to predict image rejection. Actual image response would require testing a unit.
 

N8IAA

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I was aware of the missing 20MHz at the top of the milair band when I bought the scanner. Not happy, but bought it none the less.
My thoughts about this scanner though, is it does eat batteries, the audio though fairly loud, is limited by the size of the scanner and the plastic housing.
I have a dual band ham HT and a DJX-11 that outperforms this radio on milair (plus gives me full coverage).
It was a design that was hashed out by the product manager and the techs at Uniden. Thank goodness my 396XT has the full coverage.
I will say that for VHF air, railroads and limited conventional analog I monitor, it delivers.
Larry
 

KD4UXQ

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Dec 24, 2004
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I was aware of the missing 20MHz at the top of the milair band when I bought the scanner. Not happy, but bought it none the less.
My thoughts about this scanner though, is it does eat batteries, the audio though fairly loud, is limited by the size of the scanner and the plastic housing.
I have a dual band ham HT and a DJX-11 that outperforms this radio on milair (plus gives me full coverage).
It was a design that was hashed out by the product manager and the techs at Uniden. Thank goodness my 396XT has the full coverage.
I will say that for VHF air, railroads and limited conventional analog I monitor, it delivers.
Larry

I too am thankful my BCD396XT covers the whole MilAir range. The 396XT does have a bit of problems with image rejection of 800 band near strong signals at times and causes some frustration searching 225-400, especially if trying to use an external antenna. But it mostly does a great job overall. I have been looking for some reasonably priced small in size low pass filters to reject anything above MilAir, but most have been too pricey so far. The BCT15X is doing the job of MilAir searching for me now and doing it quite well, but it is of course not portable. I am starting to look at the ICOM IC-R6 and the Alinco DJX-11 for a portable MilAir, but have not done any extensive research yet. It is hard to find good objective reviews of scanners and receivers for MilAir. Especially if you are trying to find one that rejects images well.
 

Xray

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I'm looking forward to taking this thing out in the field, I'll be interested to find out about battery life, which some claim is abysmal and others 8 hours +. 6-8 hours is the length of an average airshow for me, I'd be satisfied with anything in that range and will of course have spares on hand.

I usually run my handhelds through external speakers as audio can be difficult to impossible to hear over the noise of aircraft without a little boost ,,, So I won't necessarily have to have the volume cranked all the way up, nor will I need backlight. First day though I'm going to test it with backlight coming on with squelch, next day I'll leave it off completely and see what kind of difference it makes.
I'll also have my 396XT and DJX-2000 going so I shouldn't miss anything in the 380-400 range.
 

iMONITOR

Silent Key
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Thanks for such an extensive review Matt! You prompted me to buy one. It's pretty slick, and gives me something to play with while monitoring the 800 band on my digital (BCD436HP).
 

Pitachio

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In the case of cellphone lockouts, there is nothing we can monitor there. Analog was abandoned a long time ago regardless of ECPA laws. As Xray tried to point out, there is plenty of MilAir to monitor between 380 and 400 MHZ so leaving out the assumed trunking area of 225-400 because the BC125AT is not a trunk tracker was an unfortunate mistake for MilAir fans. For many you may as well have left out 225-380 since we cannot monitor a lot that happens from 380-400.



Sent from my Sony Tablet S using Tapatalk
 

Xray

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May 24, 2005
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Took it out to 3 days of shows featuring Blue Angels, scanner is a decent performer.
Feels good hanging on the hip, had the audio fed out to a small portable speaker also hanging from my pocket.
Programmed a couple new freqs on the spot, something I couldn't do with my other handhelds. Light made a big difference in batt life ,,, Coming on with squelch it lasted about 5 hours, turned off was more like 7, very good life either way for 2 AA's.

This thing would be the cats meow for airshows were it not for the clipped UHF, as it stands I'd recommend it to casual listeners, would not recommend it to those serious about milair. For those into trains, VHF air ect, no brainer get it.
 
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DeadMike

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Took it out to 3 days of shows featuring Blue Angels, scanner is a decent performer.
Feels good hanging on the hip, had the audio fed out to a small portable speaker also hanging from my pocket.
Programmed a couple new freqs on the spot, something I couldn't do with my other handhelds. Light made a big difference in batt life ,,, Coming on with squelch it lasted about 5 hours, turned off was more like 7, very good life either way for 2 AA's.

This thing would be the cats meow for airshows were it not for the clipped UHF, as it stands I'd recommend it to casual listeners, would not recommend it to those serious about milair. For those into trains, VHF air ect, no brainer get it.

Yup love those alpha tags too! Hard to beat for the money!!
 

iMONITOR

Silent Key
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I ended up returning mine. The VHF sensitivity was poor. I couldn't even receive the weather service. Their signal is weak in my area, but not being able to receive it all, was really disappointing. I even swapped out the stock antenna for a Diamond RH77CA.

In addition to that, the coverage for MilAir was not complete. Not sure why Uniden did that.
 

pinballwiz86

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Alpha tags on the 125AT is worth the money over the BC75XLT. Not to mention the extra 200 channel storage capacity.
 

Xray

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Hmmm, weather comes booming in strong on mine [162.55 wayne cty]
Also get police car to car freqs in 155 range very good.
 

questnz

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Xray

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Not sure why Uniden cutting some frequencies for USA versions, for Australia/New Zealand versions we have full MilAir coverage. :: Uniden Australia :: Unfortunately we are paying premium price for it after $ exchange !? The same for Europe as above both Uniden and OEM under Albreht name have the same frequency up to 520 Radioscanner alle bekannten Marken wie Bearcat, Yaesu, ICOM Alinco und andere - ausführliche Infos.

Paul, can you comment on this please !?

Wow, and there you have it - The US version, for whatever reason, is intentionally hobbled.
I would have searched and paid more for an export version had I known that.
 

737mech

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BC126AT

I wish someone that owns a BC126AT would post a youtube video doing full milair and 800/900 as described in the ad. My thinking on this the ad was wrong and the scanner doesn't have those features but if anyone that actually owns one posts info pics or video then we'll see. Has anyone found another source for the BC126AT?
 

Xray

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May 24, 2005
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I'm not going to buy one, it was asked if there were other sources.
If it gets to the point where they make it to ebay/amazon I might consider a purchase.
 

ML143606

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Sep 17, 2014
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BC125AT CTCSS/DPL CODES FLASHES (& Fade in/out)

Hi everyone, not new to the forum, just new to registering. Been reading you guys for a while now.

I wanted to make a post to help some of you out. (as well myself)

Issue: The BC125AT is capable of reading the CTCSS or DPL when it picks up a signal. Great news right? But Uniden thought to not only make this FLASH, they also thought to make it FADE in and out as if it was not playing hide and seek fast enough to tease us further.

Now I see some of you have posted something about this. Why am I posting this?

Because Uniden says I am the ONLY user reporting this issue, that they have no record of anyone else reporting this and that my scanner is less than a year old and it will be repaired for free. The rep contacted the repair dept. explained the issue, and they replied back that it is a fixable repair and fully warrantied.

Now.... How can they fix something that they don't know is a problem?
How can they fix something (or say they can) when it is a design flaw?
Why is no one else reporting this issue to them? (Or are they fibbing)?
Why is it so difficult to make the repair dept know what the problem even is?

I have been in touch with someone at Uniden and hope to get a resolution to this. She is calling me back on Thursday. She is in contact with the repair dept and engineers there trying to explain to them what the issue is. It seems that trying to relay to them she herself is having a hard time getting them to even understand what is going on as she sees it first hand herself duplicating and confirming it on her own BC125AT while on the phone with me.

I will keep you posted but in the meantime can other BC125AT owners be persistent and make some calls to Uniden? The rep easily duplicated the problem on her scanner, make them do it on your call too. Make sure your rep puts notes of the call that "Problem duplicated by support rep".

Uniden Scanner Support # 800-620-7531
(Not the number on the web site, they can't even get that right)

Thanks everyone....
 
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