"New" SD cards typically are formatted, so they can be used out of the box. However, they often have utilities on them for backup purposes, that don't do anything for scanning. Plus they take up memory space. So that's the reason for re-formatting a new card.
Two things are needed to deal with formatting. A device that can write to the card and software doing the writing. SD Formatter, which is recommended by Uniden is the software. The scanner itself, in Mass Storage Mode can be that write device. However using the scanner in the re-formatting process can be very time consuming as opposed to a computer card reader.
