A review of a unique CB radio

Hi everyone! I'm Allison. I occasionally have a codriver but not most of the time. I am a trainer but kinda on and off for that too. My company doesn't like hiring newbies but if I can convince them, they'll hire a good one and let me get their feet wet.

That being said.....I would like to come out swinging for a first post and give an unbiased review of a very neat radio. This radio, brand new is $450 dollars, plus or minus. It's the Uniden Bearcat 885. It's unique not because of it's CB aspects, but because of its SCANNER function. You want to talk about neat? Something interesting to pass your time? This thing is very cool.

It's a CB that has great sounding audio, lots of features (minus a CB scanner function, kind of ironic) but it is also a scanner for police, fire, EMS and DOT. (DOT doesn't mean the DOT that pulls us over, think the DOT operating the road service trucks, plows, etc). The DOT that pulls us over would be heard over the "police" function.

At first the radio looks kinda scary, lots of buttons, but once you learn it, it's quite intuitive. The display works great, no issues with it like the 880 had. It comes with a window mount suction cup antenna for the scanner side. I got mine used from a pawn shop south of Houston for only $170 shipped to my house, the thing looked brand new AND the guy (or gal) who had it before me included a very nice magnetic mount tiny little Tram scanner antenna. it works FABULOUSLY well. For those of you familiar with radio scanners, this radio does NOT require you "fiddle" with it while driving, as it has a small GPS box about the size of a fat matchbox that you stick to your windshield with sticky tape and a small telephone cable that connects that box to your radio. When you turn the radio on, it automatically gets your GPS location and tunes to the frequencies that are in your area. As you drive, it seamlessly changes frequencies so you don't have to do anything. They are stored on a removable SD card that you can update with a laptop computer from their database for free any time you want. I've had this radio just about a year now. I've updated the database 4 times so far. I can't tell if I'm doing any good.

I've heard some CRAZY stuff. I've heard some VERY SAD stuff. Just understand, if you buy this radio, there is no filter. So if you carry your heart on your shoulder like I do, you could hear something that could cause you to have an emotional breakdown while driving. What do I mean? Well one time while driving on 35E in Dallas, all of a sudden I hear on the automated EMS dispatch voice that the Dallas area uses, "Medical Emergency! Fifteen year old female.....attempted suicide." I instantly went numb and started praying to God to help this girl with whatever hardships she's having in her life. Being 15 is so hard these days. I prayed to God that she didn't succeed. Just the other day I heard a call in for a "Major MVA with entrapment". (MVA is motor vehicle accident in cop-speak). Then I heard EMS say "Performing CPR now!!! Performing CPR now!!!!" Again, no filter on this thing. You hear the raw radio. It can take your breath away sometimes.

The problems with the radio are few and far between, but they do exist. Like, the radio can't descramble an encrypted or scrambled channel, so all you hear is what sounds like someone chewing rocks. But, to get past that, you can hit a 2-button series of buttons that will "block" that frequency from the scanner so it will ignore that frequency. You don't normally have to do that a bunch, but I've been in areas where I had to block 10-15 channels of static or sometimes, data. (If you hear data, that's just a garbled sound, useless to you.) Then I've driven 10 hours and blocked one channel, so you just never know. The only thing about the blocking of channels is that turning the radio off clears all blocked channels. Good if you accidentally block a channel you didn't mean to. But bad for obvious reasons.

One other feature it is which, to me, is very limited in its usefulness is what is known as "Bearcat Alert". It's supposed to alert you when it can detect an emergency vehicle within two miles. Ok, I mean driving through cities it goes off constantly because, yea, there are emergency vehicles everywhere. So it can be disabled easily with the push of a button and will remain off until you turn it back on. I disabled it about 6 months ago and don't miss it.

I most frequently hear cops running license plates, checking for "29's" (warrants) and one time was parked at a truck stop and heard a cop say "Ok, get your gun and come around my side of the garage." Like I said before, you REALLY don't know what you're going to hear. You might hear a lot, you might not hear much at all. But it is really neat. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a cop call in a license plate at a mile marker ahead of me on the interstate, give the plate number and vehicle description, and in a few minutes I drive by, and sure enough, a cop has that vehicle pulled over right where the police said it was.

You can also be of more use to other truckers. I was driving one afternoon and heard a fire dispatch for a grass fire on the interstate about 30 miles ahead of me. I called out on the CB to everyone in my direction to be alert for a grass fire at that particular mile marker. Sure enough, we come over the overpass and the grass fire has spread to BOTH sides of the interstate. You had no idea until you got there unless you had a scanner like me. Nobody on the radio let anyone on my side know about the grass fire. But thanks to my scanner, I could help out.

It has a built in SWR meter, which actually turns out to be pretty darn close. it's digital. I have it hooked up to a NGP antenna and brand new wire. I checked the SWR with my 200 dollar meter and the needle didn't move, I had to make sure everything was connected correctly. It was. Sure enough, the SWR was literally 1:1.00. I used the SWR meter on the radio and it showed a reading of 1.00 as well. Digitally. I had tried it with an old antenna wire and my 200 dollar meter showed about 1:1.6 or so. (ish) And with the SWR on the radio, 1:1.60. So it's pretty darn close. Good enough for this job for sure.

It puts out right at 4.5w on the CB side. Crystal clear audio as I get really good audio reports and I've checked it myself inside the truck with an old backup radio I use just for audio quality checks. It has a great functional WX alert feature and the audio for the WX channels is crystal clear, unlike my old Cobra. It also can apparently pick up some marine channels as well, as when I drive through Mobile I can hear the Coast Guard on channel 16. It comes up on the display as MULTI which is not even in the user manual so I don't even know what that means.

Overall, especially for the amount I paid for it, it's a solid 9 out of 10. At 450 dollars, I'd say it's maybe a value of 8 out of 10. I actually look forward to driving now just simply because I never know what I'll hear. You feel more in tuned to the world around you knowing more about what's going on.

Full disclosure: I am not associated with Uniden in any way and will not be paid if you buy one or steal one, nor am I paid for this review. I just think it's a neat radio and wanted to share my experiences with it. If you have questions, please post. I'll try to answer them to the best of my knowledge.