I might add the radio is not the most user-friendly thing! In fact when they first came out I thought the specs were great and ran right down to the radio store to try one out. I was kinda disappointed. But after going thru several other brands, and the fact that good software programming appeared (FTB8800), I ended up with the two I have. Again performance trumps user-friendlyness for me. All this is primarily for ham radio use but it also serves as a public safety scanner. I've never been really happy with commercial scanners, especially hand-helds) in the car. I basically have the same things programmed in both sides (486 out of 512). That way if I want to monitor two ham or PS freqs at the same time they are in memory on both sides.