Need Help Setting Up a Uniden BCD996P2

[baconbuccaneer]

Hey there,

Hopefully I am posting this in the right place - I have just discovered this forum tonight and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction. My family and I have bought a Uniden BCD996P2 for my grandmother because her old police scanner became irrelevant after the local department switched to a new system a few months ago.

Nobody in my family, including myself, knows anything about these radios and I'm unsure of where I could take it locally to have someone help. I have installed ProScan onto my computer and have tried playing around with it but I am completely clueless. I am located in Binghamton, NY 13905 and I am trying to get the basic police department radio chatter. My grandmother lives in a bad neighborhood (and is also just a little nosey at times) so she likes knowing what is happening around the area.

She wants to just have us return it because we haven't been able to figure out how to set it up but I know she'd really like to have it up and running so I figured I'd look here for some help. Could anyone point me in the right direction with some type of tutorial, tips, etc? If there's any other information I need to provide for you guys to help me, please just let me know. Thanks in advance!

 

[Enforcer52]

Broome County is on a simulcast system which the 996P2 may or may not handle as it is not specifically designed for simulcast. The SDS100 or SDS200 is designed for simulcast but at a higher cost than the 996P2. If you have a membership to RR then you can download the database with ProScan and give it a try. Read the instructions for ProScan and the scanner and you should be good to go.

 

[dave3825]

You may want to ask in the NY forum how that scanner will perform up there. Looks like Binghamton pd and fd are on a phase 2 simulcast system. Some people experience issues and some do not. Move thread to NY forum and ask around.

 

[Brales60]

What they said. I have one of those scanners, great on basic analog (airport, rail and forestry), it was terrible with the simulcast system (same as you have) we have here for police/fire/EMS. I ended up getting a SDS200, and all is well. As mentioned, it does cost more. Oh yeah, you came to the right place to learn. Wish I had found RR before buying the 996P2. Good luck.

 

[bearcatrp]

Before dumping your 996P2, try using the search function for public safety. See how well it picks up and how the audio is. Use just the included antenna. If the audio sounds choppy and not getting much hits, then you may need to get a SDS 200. I have the handheld version (325P2). Have a lot of simulcast towers in my area. Hooking mine to a discone, does fairly well but does struggle at times. You also program a handful of police freqs to test out too. Good luck.

 

[DJBio]

Welcome to RadioReference and I would recommend on becoming a premium member here so u have access to the radio reference database

 

[k2hz]

See this thread which is currently addressing the issues with a 996P2 for Broome County:

Broome County NY Channels

I am having trouble getting channels for a uniden bcd996p2. I used radioreference and imported into the freescan. Before hand I paid the company I bought it from to program. It just had 1 channel at the bottom. Now it has multiple channels and some channels come and some don't. I was wondering...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Welcome to the RR forums @baconbuccaneer. In respect to the simulcast distortion diagnosis provided by the members above me there are a number of mitigation methods you can try in the wiki linked here, they may or may not work depending on your location relative to two or more simulcasting towers (reference maps below)

Not sure which simulcast applies to you (assuming West since it appears to provide better coverage to Binghamton) but...

Broome West


Broome East

 

[rbluesky]

Hey there,

Hopefully I am posting this in the right place - I have just discovered this forum tonight and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction. My family and I have bought a Uniden BCD996P2 for my grandmother because her old police scanner became irrelevant after the local department switched to a new system a few months ago.

Nobody in my family, including myself, knows anything about these radios and I'm unsure of where I could take it locally to have someone help. I have installed ProScan onto my computer and have tried playing around with it but I am completely clueless. I am located in Binghamton, NY 13905 and I am trying to get the basic police department radio chatter. My grandmother lives in a bad neighborhood (and is also just a little nosey at times) so she likes knowing what is happening around the area.

She wants to just have us return it because we haven't been able to figure out how to set it up but I know she'd really like to have it up and running so I figured I'd look here for some help. Could anyone point me in the right direction with some type of tutorial, tips, etc? If there's any other information I need to provide for you guys to help me, please just let me know. Thanks in advance!

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