The BCD396 is close to the bcd996 with the 396 being the
portable and the 996 being mobile/base. The instruction set is
the Comma-separated variable strings with many of the same
instructions for the BCD396 good for the 996.
	It does great on P25 and the analog receiver is nice 
and sensative though it does catch a lot of intermod so, in that
respect, I would downgrade it a bit.
	Another thing to keep in mind if you write your own
access program is that the CTCSS and DCS codes you put in to
memory are index numbers and are different between say the
BCD780 and 396/996. On the 780, for example, the PL tone for
173.8 HZ is the number 28 while on the BCD996, it is something
like 90-something. On both receivers, the display does show
173.8 so your program will have to include a lookup table
specifically for that scanner or a lot of channels will seem to
be dead if you use the wrong table.

Martin
Matthew Chao writes:
> Which one would you guys recommend:  the bcd396, or this one?--Matt, 
> N1IBB.