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When I was growing up, a neighbor had a police radio scanner that provided endless hours of amusement and audio voyeurism. (My neighbor was also a ham radio hobbyist and enjoyed pranking neighbors by using his radios to operate their garage doors.)
I recently decided that a radio scanner could be interesting for monitoring the heavy traffic on a nearby river. So I bought a Uniden Bearcat BC125AT Handheld Scanner from Amazon.
Boy, was that a mistake! It's easily the most frustrating and poorly documented electronic device that I've ever owned.
First, the Owners (sic) Manual is littered with acronyms and technical terms that are never properly defined or contextualized. (Aside: Bad tech writers will tell you what an acronym stands for, but not why you should care.)
The manual begins with 30 pages of tables and button identifiers before even attempting to describe how to use the product. (Which, ultimately, it fails to do for first-time users.) These tables include such useless information as defining that the keypad buttons labeled 1 through 9 are used to enter the numbers 1 through 9 - with each button being described individually. (I'm not kidding.)
There are also four pages of instructions about how to install, replace and charge the batteries. The number and size of the batteries are never mentioned. (It uses two AA batteries, which to Uniden's credit, are included in the box.)
One of the reasons I chose this scanner is that it comes pre-programmed with groups of common frequencies, such as those used for "Marine" or "Fire." However, out of the box, these groups are locked from use. The instructions for unlocking the blocks of channels are four pages long, and ultimately, don't work. (It's not just me; many reviews on Amazon mention this too.)
I feel bad for the manual's writer when much of the problem rests squarely with the designers and engineers of the product. (Although I suspect that the engineer and writer are the same person, which would explain a lot. And I doubt very much that Uniden has a user experience designer on staff.)
The main usability issue with the Uniden Bearcat BC125AT is that each of the 17 buttons on the face of the device has at least two functions. There is a "func" key to access the button's secondary mode, but in a few cases, you also have to hold down a button for 3 seconds to activate yet another mode.
Even the rotating knob on the top has three different functions, depending on whether it is turned, pushed, or held down.
The result is a usability nightmare.
If you're looking for a radio scanner that you can use, and one that you won't want to throw out the window, don't buy this one.