UNIDEN BC370CRS 300-Channel All-Hazard CRS Clock Radio Scanner-by-UNIDEN

PROS: I always compare conventional non-digital scanners with the Granddaddy of them all, the old Realistic Pro-2006. Surprisingly this Uniden holds its own in the side to side comparison and is a bargain and can easily be picked up on sale (as I did at Farm and Fleet) for about $110. I was surprised to find out that the BC370CRS has triple conversion and does a decent job of close channel rejection even on a base antenna near several broadcast radio towers not quite as good as the Pro-2006, but considering how inexpensive the BC370CRS is, it does a GREAT job. I would say that average effective range using a cheap base antenna to be between 75-90 miles and even farther when atmospheric conditions are perfect. The speaker quality is also pretty good and I elected not to use an external speaker as I do with some other models I use. Programming is straight forward and uses the same method that dates all the way back to the 70s, so ANYONE should be able to program and use this without even reading the manual. If you do need to read the manual, it too is pretty straight forward. In reality, when compared to all available scanners, it is probably only a 4-star, but for the money it's a 5-star as you can't get anything even close to it in this price range. The battery backup is both a positive and negative as you will read in my "cons" section. I'm not aware of another scanner that offers battery backup during power outages.

CONS: I have all my receivers hook into a main power strip so I can power up all the units with the touch of a single button. By shutting down the BC370CRS using a center power supply the scanner keeps running on battery backup. If the batteries are not in the BC370CRS, then it will not turn back on when the main power source is activated. If you are using the Uniden as a standalone unit, this will not apply to you and will not be a "con". I also wish the backup light would be defaulted to the "on" status rather than requiring that the light be individually turned on separately from the main power button. Just my preference.