Rusty you need to read a few things before you proceed (from here on out, anything in blue is a link);
a. To understand how to work with DMA, check out our
DMA FAQ wiki article. There you will get a basic understanding of things like groups, sites, systems, quick keys and much more. These are key to understanding how to work with this scanner;
b. The
Uniden TWiki site has more information about the 996xt and various functions
c. Although no 'complete ref' exists for the 996XT yet, the 396XT is close enough that it's reference should be very useable. It can be found
here
You didn't say which program you bought - there really are only 3 that you can use for programming and control - FreeScan (freeware), ARC XT and ProScan. I see you've already posted in the Arkansas forum; be sure to be specific about which program you have, because formats used by these 3 are not necessarily interchangeable.
All 3 can download data from our database; you're already a premium subscriber, so this function is available to you. Alternately, someone in the Ark. forum can send you a file you can directly import.
Finally, making the connection between the PC and scanner is possible using a USB cable, as most newer PCs don't have serial ports. This
article describes which cables are known to work (there may well be other distributors that also work, but no one has documented that yet) and how to properly load drivers, and tricks you will need to know
73 Mike