By Paul Blundell

 

 

The Uniden UBCT9 is a 250 channel base / mobile scanner that is sold in Australia with a RRP of $429.

The UBCT9 has replaced the UBCT8 as Uniden’s mid range base / mobile scanner with the cheaper UBC340CRS being a simple 100 channel scanner and the more expensive UBCD996T featuring APCO25 decoding and 6000 channels but at a much higher price.

Full specs on the UBCT9 are online and as such I won’t go too far in to these.

 

On opening the box for the UBCT9 you are greeted with a number of different accessories that are included, this includes an AC power adaptor, two different 12V power cords, two different aerials (one a telescopic whip and the other a short length of coax with 50cm of wire on the end) and the programming CD plus Australian scanner frequency CD.
The UBCT9 unit itself is quite solid in build and I think it would survive life in a car quite well, mine is setup on my desk at home and here it really shines .

 

Over the last week since I have had this I have used most of the features of the scanner and have noticed a few things with it.

 

The trunking features work well on the EDACS trunking network and I would say it seems to perform slightly better then what the 396T/996T does as it does not let the EDACS beeps through the speaker like the 396T/996T do at times.

 

Close call works pretty much the same as on my UBC93XLT once you disable it checking the 88-108MHz FM broadcast band, I test this with a UHF CB and it seemed to work as I would expect.

 

The software while basic does allow remote control and I have had no issues using this to program the radio and then save this for later use.

 

Scanning / searching the bands with this while comparing it to the DST-96 and UBC93XLT has shown what I would class as “good” performance across theses with the only real issue being with a lack of sensitivity in the 70-80MHz band to the point where local frequencies like 79.0375 and 79.0625MHz for which I can see the tower out my window at home are very weak and almost unreadable at times, this is strange given how good it seems to perform overt the rest of the bands.

 

I guess I didn’t expect much from this scanner when I got it but so far I have nothing but good things to say about it, all the features work as they should and except for the issues in the 70-80MHz band I have found no problem with how it performs RF wise.
If I was to look at what the UBCT9 does / has and what I would like the only real things would be more channels / banks (250 / 5 is not really enough) and alpha tags plus CTCSS tone decode would be very nice feature to have.

 

Overall for the price it does what it says it does and while it lacks some of the features of the 996T it does VHF / UHF + EDACS trunking well.

 

 

 

 

 

By Robb Wise

 

(Updated Feb 09)

 

 

Rating: 8/10 (Very Good)

 

Pros:

 

- Compact and car mountable
- Very good on UHF
- Easy to programme
- Great preset scanning groups (e.g., Marine, UHF CB.)
- Average on VHF

 

Cons:

- Overpriced
- Only 250 channels, doesn’t always have enough
- Does not do EDACS I-Calls
- Poor software

 

Frequency Range:

 

25-512Mhz, 806-956Mhz, 1240-1300Mhz.

 

EDACS:

 

Yes

 

Price:

$337 - $345AU

 

Anyone who wants a good scanner will pay many hundred dollars. What does one expect in a mid-range priced scanner? Is it going to have many faults or will it actually be just as good as higher-priced scanners? The UBCT9 is the cheapest “trunk tracker ™” scanner in Uniden’s range and I doubt any other brand would have a radio this cheap. Able to have a trunk tracker scanner is no little cost – the UBCD396T is RRP $800-$1000 and the same for the UBCD996T.

This scanner is analogue with Tunktracker ™ III that works very well, in fact better then the digital UBCD396T with Trunktracker IV ™. I have found you really should use the PC cable to make it easier to set up – however it as the photo below shows it needs to be set up with the ID’s first 2 digits plus a “-“:

 

 

The software that comes with the Scanner works adequately. Uniden forgot to supply the serial number with these scanners and despite complaints still does not fix the issue. In case you are in the same boat below is the Key to use this Cd*:

 

20025973

 

I personally had issues saving the profile, frequencies or anything – Paul on the other hand had nil program issues. This issue can be overcome (if you experience it) by uploading and downloading the frequencies to the scanner with the arrow keys and using the scanner as the “memory”. This is the best way around the bug and it works very well. When ever you need to add in a few new frequencies simply download them from your scanner, add them, then upload.

 

 

 

The scanner is small in size, unlike the big (but nice) UBC9000XLT which has nice big buttons. The UBCT9’s buttons are okay, some however are too small and often the wrong input can occur.
Reception on VHF is average, it is able to hear TFS and TAS but it is by no means as sensitive as the UBCD396T. There is still some interference from FM stations in the 70-80Mhz range however it seems to be a common issue when living near Mt. Wellington with the powerful transmitter. The UBCT9 is much better with less interference then the UBC340CRS. The priority channel feature works very well, I was impressed at how well it did work, although it didn’t work when on EDACS and there is 1 priority channel per bank. I tend to organize my frequencies so TFS is in 1 bank and TAS is in another, and so on. The downside was I did not need a priority channel in bank 3 or 4 as it was aircraft and general services which was not a ‘priority’ service. The only option was to move the priority channel to a blank frequency channel.

 

The scanning speed was very good, getting through 230 channels in about 2 seconds and it had very good sensitivity on UHF. Many services which didn’t pick up well on the handheld were clear and loud on UHF with the UBCT9. I would recommend this radio for in-car use and general scanning in the home.

 

To conclude, I do feel Uniden could have added alphatags to really compliment this scanner, and that the price is about $30 too much. Still I think this scanner is very good, it is basic with a lack of features but does do the job alright. To answer the beginning questions, one will find a mid-priced scanner works ¾ well, but will have some issues. If you would like a radio that works better then invest in a higher-priced scanner.

 

* Key/serial number has been sourced from the WA Scanner Group WASUG. The software is only accessible on Cd when the scanner is purchased, this serial number will not work with other Uniden software.