BC100XLT.3 NiCd Battery Pack The 100XLT comes with a 7.2 V 600 mAH battery pack which slides onto the bottom of the radio. There is a charging jack, marked 12 VDC, and a red charging LED on the back of the pack. The pack is not supposed to be opened, but the curious need only remove 2 screws. Inside is the charging components, and 6 AA size cells wrapped in heat shrunk plastic. When you buy the 100XLT, the 16 hour wall charger adapter is supplied, and is marked 12 VDC 500 mA. There appears no way to fast charge the supplied NiCd pack, and the manual cautions against leaving the supplied charger plugged in for long periods of time. no way to fast charge the supplied NiCd pack, and the manual cautions against leaving the supplied charger plugged in for long periods of time. The radio can be used with the wall charger when the bat- teries are dead, but unlike older crystal controlled por- tables, there is no easy way to power the scanner exter- nally, without charging the internal battery. A PS-001 mobile power cord is available from UNIDEN, as is a spare antenna. The owner's guide says to expect "up to 5 hours of depen- dable use" in between charges. Now 5 hours is a lot less than what scanner buffs want, but perhaps UNIDEN's idea is to stimulate demand for extra BP-205 slide on battery packs. Memory Backup - Unimpressive Having 100 memory channels is great, especially when thoughtfully partitioned into 10 banks. It takes time to program a scanner with so many channels, so you wouldn't want to do this often. A weak point of the 100XLT is that the memory is only backed up for 30 minutes by a capacitor when the NiCd battery pack goes dead. Take the scanner outside for an afternoon of fun. When the BATTERY warning blinks, do you have only 30 minutes to find an AC outlet? The manual claims the scanner will shut itself down automatically if the warning has been flashing for 10 minutes, but it's not clear how "dead" the NiCd is by then. CONTINUED IN BC100XLT.4