HP-1 reciver issue

In the past I have owned several home patrol units and they all seem to develop a receiver issue, they work well for a period of time but then the receiver sensitivity falls off like a rock and the digital systems are stone deaf, after paying a small fortune to own these I would expect a better quality item that could stand the test of time. I have had many units through Realistic that never gave me this issue, very disappointed in the service information, it seems you have to be a detective to find any thing to remedy this, I am not pleased with the way this is handled or the quality of the product, fortunately I have other alternatives like the new Whistler units, I will be thinking very hard about my next purchase when it comes time but until then I have these stone deaf units that need to be fixed, so tell me what would you suggest? eBay?

Do you operate a transmitter near your scanners?

jonwienke said:

Do you operate a transmitter near your scanners?

Click to expand...

I have one of the 1st HP1's sold by a certain retailer, as well as one from the first shipment of HP2 in the US. I have 1 other HP1. No issue on any.

Comparing against 536, 992p2, 325p2, 996x - 536 are generally a little hotter receive, but on comparable antennas and systems - HP1 do very well.

FWIW - 1 HP1 stays in the SUV and has for 4-5 years.

It sounds to me like the OP is operating a high-powered transmitter too close to his scanners and has fried the RF inputs. It's the only reason I can think of why RF sensitivity would suddenly fail on multiple units.

jonwienke said:

It sounds to me like the OP is operating a high-powered transmitter too close to his scanners and has fried the RF inputs. It's the only reason I can think of why RF sensitivity would suddenly fail on multiple units.

Click to expand...

What is too close?

I have an FT-8900 (50W max) in my car and frequently have either a 436 or HP-2 in the car. Reception is good inside the car and no external antenna are used for the scanners. The ham antenna is mounted on a luggage rack cross bar on the rear third of the vehicle.

If you use an outside antenna it could also be static build up that discharge into the scanner with thousands of volt. Static can build up from smoke, snow and similar things.

Can you test the sensitivity using only analog channels and try NOAA frequencies and analog frequencies (without any tone squelch) in both 400MHz and 800MHz band. Keep squelch open and compare with a functional receiver. The results would be interesting to know, from all bad HP1s.

/Ubbe

It depends on the antenna config. If your scanner antenna was outside the vehicle, there's a good chance you could damage the scanner. My truck antennas are 3 feet apart, and with a 25W VHF radio, I get 500mW feeding into the scanner antenna. If the antennas are closer, or TX power is higher, it's not hard to fry something in the scanner RF input circuits.

Ubbe said:

If you use an outside antenna it could also be static build up that discharge into the scanner with thousands of volt.

Click to expand...

Good point. An ungrounded outdoor antenna could also fry the scanner RF input with high voltage static discharges, even if it didn't get a direct lightning hit. You don't even need a thunderstorm anywhere nearby, just low humidity, wind, and the right conditions.

That's why I prefer antenna designs with a DC path to ground from the main element--static electricity is constantly bled off.

just reciveing

jonwienke said:

Do you operate a transmitter near your scanners?

Click to expand...

No, I have been in radio service for many years its definitely a receiver amp issue that Uniden is aware of, even if you had the scanner next to a transceiver the bleed over would be minimal unless you are blindly ignorant of rf, I do not dispute the comment that it can happen but not on this end. all I would like to know is what and who to send this thing to for repair at Uniden the web page and processes they list are so poorly laid out its a chase game to get any information.

k1zxx said:

even if you had the scanner next to a transceiver the bleed over would be minimal unless you are blindly ignorant of rf

Click to expand...

You might want to rethink that. On my vehicle, the scanner and transceiver antennas are about 3 feet apart. But with 25 watt TX, I have 500 milliwatts feeding into the scanner antenna. If the TX power was increased to 50 watts, the RF power hitting the scanner would be 1 watt. If the transceiver was running 100 watts, the power hitting the scanner would be 2 watts.

500mW is probably pushing what the scanner is designed to handle, although it hasn't damaged my unit yet. But anything more probably would.

k1zxx said:

all I would like to know is what and who to send this thing to for repair at Uniden the web page and processes they list are so poorly laid out its a chase game to get any information.

Click to expand...

Uniden's repair services, procedures, policies, addresses, and rates are clearly provided here:

Uniden - Online Repair Form

.

jonwienke said:

You might want to rethink that. On my vehicle, the scanner and transceiver antennas are about 3 feet apart. But with 25 watt TX, I have 500 milliwatts feeding into the scanner antenna. If the TX power was increased to 50 watts, the RF power hitting the scanner would be 1 watt. If the transceiver was running 100 watts, the power hitting the scanner would be 2 watts.

500mW is probably pushing what the scanner is designed to handle, although it hasn't damaged my unit yet. But anything more probably would.

Click to expand...

I am sure you have had this happen as I have stated in my text, the point was that I do not have that issue and did not deny that it can happen but someone who has had over 20yrs in service knows this and can prevent it from happening.

fxdscon said:

Uniden's repair services, procedures, policies, addresses, and rates are clearly provided here:

Uniden - Online Repair Form

.

Click to expand...

This is what I was looking for and could not find, thank you for the help and sorry if I stirred up some feathers NO WORRIES.

As with all HP scanners that use a SD card, I would get a new SD card and reload the scanner profile on the new card as a test before I would send the scanner in for repair.

We have seen a number of cases where a corrupt SD card caused the scanner to not function properly. Often they appear to scan as expected but may not pick up traffic.

k1zxx said:

This is what I was looking for and could not find, thank you for the help and sorry if I stirred up some feathers NO WORRIES.

Click to expand...

Can you restore RF by pulling the batteries and wall wart and holding the power button for 30 seconds or so to drain the caps?
Try that and see if RF does not come back after you plug the wall wart back in. It may need the reset button to be held in the battery compartment but mine has always restored the front end by holding the power button with no batteries and no wall wart. Sometimes I can restore it by simply power cycling the radio via the normal power button but not always.

Back in 2014, Uniden released some Beta firmwares in the 2.06.xx range.
When they did this, it enabled a Manual P25 decode value to be selected from a hidden menu under the Audio Settings menu.
After several months, the beta thread grew silent but others did report that the front end was shutting down at random. You did not know until you realized you had not heard anything for a while or you happened to notice the RF bar graph signal meter was no longer showing anything but grayed out bars.
The last known Beta was version 2.06.08.
You can only see the full beta version by looking at the file on the SD card named HomePatrol.info. It is just a text file and contains the full running version of the current firmware loaded in the radio.
The radios Version menu only shows the 2.06 but does not show the least significant version info to the right of the 2nd decimal point.

About a year or two later, Uniden took the 2.06.06 Beta version and made it an official release version so those that checked for firmware with Sentinel would be given this version as the latest version. The official version is bit for bit the same as the 2.06.06 beta.
The now latest version still has the RF front end shutdown bug that the beta versions had. Many did not report the front end shutting down so maybe there was a hardware difference in the HP1s that we never knew existed like a logic board revision or something.

The only good thing about the released version of the beta is it still has the hidden option to select Manual P25 decode setting for those that need that. That one is kind of stupid though as the setting does not stick through a power cycle, in the beta or release version.
That option does allow for reception of many simulcast P25 sites that are normally so choppy that you cannot monitor them. The drawback is the front end shutting down at random.

Nobody ever figured out what causes the front end to shutdown after installing any of the 2.06.xx beta versions but they all did it.
Mine will run from 5 minutes to several days or more before the front end turns off. I find the beta version 2.06.04 was the most reliable and not the 2.06.06 version Uniden later made the official release version.

Anyway, if you find you can restore RF by removing all power and draining the caps, you may benefit from an older pre beta firmware such as 2.05.03 which I think was the last official release before the beta's came out for testing. If that works, just remember to keep a copy and not use Sentinel to check for firmware unless Uniden comes back later with a fix for this but I think that may be unlikely.
You will no longer have the hidden option to select a manual P25 decode threshold setting if you go back to 2.05.03. Switching versions will not affect the Extreme upgrade if you have that.

My HP-1 has been working fine with no front end shutdowns occurring since I went back to FW 2.05.03.
I cannot monitor a favorite simulcast P25 site worth a darn but that is no longer much of a problem as the entire system went nearly 100% encrypted. Non-simulcast P25 sites work very well and do not seem to be bothered by the P25 decode running in Auto mode which is how the HP-1 works without any of the 2.06.xx FW versions.

If you use Sentinel and did a firmware update in the last year or less, you were given version 2.06.06 which is the same, bit for bit, as the Beta version 2.06.06 was.
There was also a beta version 2.06.08 as well but they released 2.06.06 instead. I don't recall what 2.06.08 may have corrected or broken.

The thread discussing this is at: https://forums.radioreference.com/uniden-tech-support/294284-homepatrol-1-2-06-xx-open-beta.html

You should see mention of the front end shutting down in that thread but it is a big thread so it may take some time to search through it all.

Resolder the SMA connector, I had the same issue and that fixed it.Also ensure you dont easily turn on Attenuator,since its on the screen and easy to hit making everything hard to hear.

ok, after all the good ideas we decided to give them a try and use this as a testbed. the sma connector was loose after inspection with what appeared to be a cold solder joint, this was fixed and the unit was inspected as far as we could for any other unwanted anomalies, once the unit was meticulously put back together the scanner receive was dead, this was what I thought would happen, but for the sake of the string we thought it would do good to nip this in the bud, it is apparent that Uniden has dropped the ball on this, we have come to conclude that the rf amp has failed and the replacement for this is beyond our capabilities. so we will send this unit out for service to Uniden with a request for information as to what was the problem and what was the solution, as we have stated in the past we have had several units that have shown this same issue so be advised once we know so will you after our findings for this thread

kruser,

Interesting comment about the front end shutting down. I commented in that thread with the Beta firmware and I found a clear problem with the audio mute that I think Uniden did tweak and fix. I have not used my HP1 consistently enough to determine exactly what is happening, not sure if the loss of receive is due to a low battery Voltage or what.

Last I thought I had this problem, I was running on batteries, returning from a trip and I did not have my GPS puck. I was trying to program and pick up traffic manually on the fly since I was a passenger and I recall I was not able to pick up any traffic. I chocked it up to incorrect programming, but now thinking back, the radio was too silent and I forgot about power cycling the radio to try and regain receive again.

I may have to play around with the HP1 a bit more to see if I can replicate this lack or receive, I am running the most recent firmware release, I may need to roll back to what you are running?

Ok we found the issue, it turns out that Uniden during manufacture, used a low grad SMA connector, this was placed in the unit by bending the solder point to the right and weakening the integrity of the brass coated fitting this causes such a small crack in the pin that some have been ok and others fail after a period of time, the KEY here is to take your time and look intently at the connection, then desolder the point and do a continuity test with a multimeter to see if the piece is ok, we replaced ours with a uhf Motorola SMA antenna cutting it to size and soldering it in place so no loose ends could occur. The UHF antenna is much stronger than the regular sma that was originally installed and gives the perfect size and isolation for this part, not to mention it is what we had on hand. I have 3 units and took them all apart to inspect the sma connector and out of the 3 all had a cracked pin, so we did this mod and replaced the sma with the Motorola uhf antenna. if you want to know how to do this give me a shout or I will try to post some pics of our findings, so you can compare and proceed in rectifying this problem, and just for a report the receiver has never been stronger even after it was purchased.

Good to hear you found it. Would love to see the pics.

As I said before, hav 3 and no issues, though I have buggered one of the GPS ports on one. None ever got the easy treatment either.

73 ...

k1zxx said:

Ok we found the issue, it turns out that Uniden during manufacture, used a low grad SMA connector, this was placed in the unit by bending the solder point to the right and weakening the integrity of the brass coated fitting this causes such a small crack in the pin that some have been ok and others fail after a period of time, the KEY here is to take your time and look intently at the connection, then desolder the point and do a continuity test with a multimeter to see if the piece is ok, we replaced ours with a uhf Motorola SMA antenna cutting it to size and soldering it in place so no loose ends could occur. The UHF antenna is much stronger than the regular sma that was originally installed and gives the perfect size and isolation for this part, not to mention it is what we had on hand. I have 3 units and took them all apart to inspect the sma connector and out of the 3 all had a cracked pin, so we did this mod and replaced the sma with the Motorola uhf antenna. if you want to know how to do this give me a shout or I will try to post some pics of our findings, so you can compare and proceed in rectifying this problem, and just for a report the receiver has never been stronger even after it was purchased.

Click to expand...