By holding down the 2, 9 & DLY keys as you turn the 9000XLT on, you enter a sort of Test Mode. To do a "keycheck test" you can hit any key or turn the VFO knob either direction and the alpha display will tell you what key you're touching or which direction you're turning the VFO knob. At this point, if you momentarily hit LOCK (to the right of the VFO knob) and one other button various things will happen: LOCK & C - REPLACES ALL MEMORIES w/1300MHz and alpha-tags channels 1-250 with CH 00-249 in the display. Again, will effectively wipe out your memories! LOCK & D - Checksum and Firmware Version Number (v.09 in ALL 9000s to date) LOCK & E - LCD Display Test LOCK & PROG - Runs a short, continously-repeating Demo Program incorporated specifically for showing at the Jan 1995 CES in Las Vegas. It also sounds attention tones as the message scrolls on the display! (Note that the word "scanner" is spelled "Scaner" in the demo program; it was too late to change this booboo that originated in Japan.) The last three tricks will NOT wipe out memory. Only LOCK/C will do that. --- Keypad Tricks for the BC-8500XLT Scanner. Hold the 2, 9, & SCAN keys while turning on the power loads test frequencies into the following channels. CH Frequency in MHz -- ---------------- 1 25.0150 2 27.0950 3 54.0500 4 111.0875 5 112.0125 6 224.0950 7 299.0125 8 300.0875 9 418.0125 10 419.0875 11 549.0500 12 760.0125 13 916.0875 14 917.0125 15 1119.0875 16 1120.0125 17 1223.0875 18 1224.0125 19 1229.0875 26 25.5000 27 27.0650 28 40.8400 29 62.4500 30 73.4500 31 87.4500 32 127.1750 33 162.4000 34 195.5000 35 220.5000 36 230.0500 37 325.0500 38 453.2500 39 531.5000 40 765.2500 41 954.9125 42 1085.7500 43 1120.1250 44 1205.8750 45 1299.9125 * So far I cannot find any out of band frequencies but if someone found one such as 888.960, you could unblock the 869 to 894 MHz part of the band. Other Uniden made scanners (PRO-23, PRO-46, PRO-51) can restore this part of the band by this trick. Some of these use several key combo's to load different freq's like 2, 9, & MANUAL loads one type of test frequencies and 2, 9, & LOCKOUT loads different ones such as the PRO23. The KEY seems to be that all key combo's start with a 2 & 9 with one other key held while power turned on. This holds true on most Uniden made scanners like the above including the 3000XLT & 9000XLT. Hold 2, 9, & CTCSS while turning power on - counts from channel 1 to 25 Bank (A) very slowly in Demo Mode and displays the following message: "Uniden America Presents You A New Bearcat BC8500XLT Specifically Designed For Professional Scanner User. Features Such As 500 Channel, Continuous Band Scanner V.F.O. Control, 20 Banks, 25MHz to 1.3GHz, Turbo Scan, 10 Priority Chs, Auto-Store, Aux.Tape Output, Alphanumeric LCD display. Great Stuff!! For Example DPS Dallas Texas HWY Patrol" * This message is displayed over and over. This will only work if you first Hold the 2, 9 & Scan keys while turning on the scanner and then turn it off. Finally Hold the 2, 9 & CTCSS keys and turn on the scanner. I guess this was used to demonstrate the scanner at the CES. Hold 2, 9, & PROG while turning power on - Display goes blank and can hear background noise/static like listing to an channel with the squelch open while channel not active. (Not sure what it's for, maybe a test mode or a Program mode. Very Strange). Any ideas? Hold 2, 9, & MANUEL while turning power on to clear all channels to 000.0000 MHz. You can use this like a system reset to clear ALL memories. There maybe other keypad tricks but this is all I found so far. Don't you love the Uniden programmers. I'm looking for the game thats been rumored to be hiddened in it's firmware. I'll find the secrete key tricks someday unless someone beats me to it. If you know anyother keypad tricks for the BC8500XLT please E-mail me. Thanks, Carl. --- Turbo Test: "2" "9" "ATT" held while turning power on will set the unit into a Turbo Search Test Mode. (Requires a signal generator)