I juuust got the HP-1 last night.
I've been a scanner user for years, still have a Pro-2006 here that i did several mods to myself over the years and more recently a 396XT as well. I'm a ham operator and a general gadget nerd.
Out of the box setup went as fast as I could possibly walk through it without even having to read the manual. I'd seen a few youtube videos showing how Sentinel mounts up on a computer and has the setup for the software stored on the flash drive for install. Installing Sentinel and doing the initial firmware and database updates was as easy as could be. I use an old XP laptop as my programming/radio machine and it worked without a hitch.
I would like to see Sentinel with a more extended feature set to manipulate the config and settings, but PowerPatrol fills that gap anyway.
I was very curious about the HP-1 and happened to have some spare change in the toy budget so I pretty much impulse bought this unit. This is not 'typically' the scanner I would want. I've never been a fan of the older 'pre-loaded' scanners as I really like controlling what my groups/systems are based on old patterns of how I like to structure things.
This isn't the old way of pre-loading a scanner, it has immense flexibility to select and build groups built-in. Without software, you cannot (at least from what I've figured out) direct entry your own 'channels' though. You poke your way through a GPS style interface drilling down by country -> state -> county -> township via the touch screen interface.
This works very well for a handful of frequencies to add to a 'Favorites' group. It's a bit annoying with initial configuration if you are as specific as I am for how you like to group your systems, but still pretty easy to do.
One immediate interface nit to pick...unless I'm being dense..once you drill all the way down to a township and select all the frequencies you want to add, you have to start at the top of the hierarchy to move down to yet another township. There should be a persistent state to remember the depth you are already working with as it's got to be a frequent thing that one would be working with neighboring townships.
Thankfully using the PowerPatrol software takes care of this issue nicely and makes it a lot simpler to do the initial configurations of Favorites lists.
My usual approach is to make banks/systems/groups in concentric geographic circles. Meaning, I almost always have a 'home' group that is my immediate township and the bordering townships only that is my primary monitoring bank. I add further groups that begin to add further reaching townships or service groupings for things like 'rail' or 'public works' or 'amateur radio', things that I may not want on regular scan rotation.
With the Favorites lists, this can pretty easily be accomplished. The Home Patrol allows you to select a Favorites list and 'add current channels' to it so you can 'stack' multiple Favorites lists if you want to broaden your selections.
I haven't really experimented with the 'range' feature yet as I'm just sitting at my house and have all the PD/FD/EMS frequencies that I prefer to listen to already configured. This will be a lot more interesting while mobile or traveling in general. One of the big reasons I picked up this scanner is for when I'm on vacation or traveling so I can very easily just fire up a 'local' config for the area to play with.
The sensitivity is as good as my 396XT from what I can tell with A/B comparisons on the same antenna system or comparing a whip on the 396 with the stock HP-1 antenna.
The audio quality from the built in speaker is very clean and crisp, easy to hear, however it's pretty narrow band audio. I prefer a wide band sound, even if it means I can hear PL coming through on some systems...I've worked dispatch enough that I'm just used to hearing all of the signal I suppose. The built in speaker is quite loud and with the bottom end filtered it doesn't break up much when pushed, so that's an advantage.
I like the touch screen to be able to quickly reach over and lock onto something interesting. I like that you can lock via the hierarchy as well, as in lock on the regional system, the township or the frequency itself. The touch screen makes it easy to set an 'avoid' too, a L/O in old style lingo. I also like the temp vs permanent 'avoid'.
One very curiously lacking function on this is NO PRIORITY option...I have to admit, that annoys me as I routinely set my local township PD as the priority on any scanner I'm using. Again, it is entirely possible I'm being dense as I'm new to this unit, but I'm fairly certain there is no priority function in this scanner.
This could be easily done in a software update I'm sure. Another lacking feature that could be implemented is the ability to have alert tones for fire department paging systems. This would be useful for volunteers to have the scanner silent unless their particular department was dispatched. I'm not sure this has been implemented in a scanner yet, but since this is all software, it would certainly be possible.
Audio quality is very nice on the output jack when fed into my set of bookshelf speakers via my mixer. HOWEVER, there is one very annoying flaw with the audio via the headphone jack. There is no proper ground isolation on the headphone jack. When plugged into my mixer in many different configurations there was a persistent ground loop hum (very loud, as loud or louder than received audio, not just a minor buzz). This was fixed by putting this Ground Loop Isolator - RadioShack.com in line, the Radio Shack 270-054 ground loop isolator.
I have at least ten channels of audio feeding a mixer on this bench from other scanners, ham radios and my computer with no issues from any other equipment aside from the HP-1. To be fair, this is becoming more common with Chinese electronics as they skip every last component in a design that they possibly can and seldom do quality control testing as they drop the pieces.
Someone at some point dropped a very simple component off the headphone circuit that would have held the audio down to proper ground potential. This is a hardware issue...so be aware you will likely need an isolator if you plug this unit into an amplified system or even a computer audio shoutcast feed. If you get a nasty ground buzz, this is your fix.
If you are used to controlling every aspect of your programming or you need field programmability of specific frequencies on demand, this isn't the unit for you. Stick to the 396XT or 996XT instead. If you already have those and want to play with a new toy, I'm pretty happy with this unit.
Things I'd really like to see fixed.
The audio issue...Uniden, make this a revision for the next production run for sure...please. Either that or ship a ground loop isolator patch cable with the unit.
Priority Channel - Please add this
Direct Frequency/Channel Entry - Add to the advanced menu so that people can do full entries manually, this one lacking function will turn off a LOT of users.
A deeper 'advanced menu' set would be very welcome in general.
Aside from those issues, I really like this unit.
I've been a scanner user for years, still have a Pro-2006 here that i did several mods to myself over the years and more recently a 396XT as well. I'm a ham operator and a general gadget nerd.
Out of the box setup went as fast as I could possibly walk through it without even having to read the manual. I'd seen a few youtube videos showing how Sentinel mounts up on a computer and has the setup for the software stored on the flash drive for install. Installing Sentinel and doing the initial firmware and database updates was as easy as could be. I use an old XP laptop as my programming/radio machine and it worked without a hitch.
I would like to see Sentinel with a more extended feature set to manipulate the config and settings, but PowerPatrol fills that gap anyway.
I was very curious about the HP-1 and happened to have some spare change in the toy budget so I pretty much impulse bought this unit. This is not 'typically' the scanner I would want. I've never been a fan of the older 'pre-loaded' scanners as I really like controlling what my groups/systems are based on old patterns of how I like to structure things.
This isn't the old way of pre-loading a scanner, it has immense flexibility to select and build groups built-in. Without software, you cannot (at least from what I've figured out) direct entry your own 'channels' though. You poke your way through a GPS style interface drilling down by country -> state -> county -> township via the touch screen interface.
This works very well for a handful of frequencies to add to a 'Favorites' group. It's a bit annoying with initial configuration if you are as specific as I am for how you like to group your systems, but still pretty easy to do.
One immediate interface nit to pick...unless I'm being dense..once you drill all the way down to a township and select all the frequencies you want to add, you have to start at the top of the hierarchy to move down to yet another township. There should be a persistent state to remember the depth you are already working with as it's got to be a frequent thing that one would be working with neighboring townships.
Thankfully using the PowerPatrol software takes care of this issue nicely and makes it a lot simpler to do the initial configurations of Favorites lists.
My usual approach is to make banks/systems/groups in concentric geographic circles. Meaning, I almost always have a 'home' group that is my immediate township and the bordering townships only that is my primary monitoring bank. I add further groups that begin to add further reaching townships or service groupings for things like 'rail' or 'public works' or 'amateur radio', things that I may not want on regular scan rotation.
With the Favorites lists, this can pretty easily be accomplished. The Home Patrol allows you to select a Favorites list and 'add current channels' to it so you can 'stack' multiple Favorites lists if you want to broaden your selections.
I haven't really experimented with the 'range' feature yet as I'm just sitting at my house and have all the PD/FD/EMS frequencies that I prefer to listen to already configured. This will be a lot more interesting while mobile or traveling in general. One of the big reasons I picked up this scanner is for when I'm on vacation or traveling so I can very easily just fire up a 'local' config for the area to play with.
The sensitivity is as good as my 396XT from what I can tell with A/B comparisons on the same antenna system or comparing a whip on the 396 with the stock HP-1 antenna.
The audio quality from the built in speaker is very clean and crisp, easy to hear, however it's pretty narrow band audio. I prefer a wide band sound, even if it means I can hear PL coming through on some systems...I've worked dispatch enough that I'm just used to hearing all of the signal I suppose. The built in speaker is quite loud and with the bottom end filtered it doesn't break up much when pushed, so that's an advantage.
I like the touch screen to be able to quickly reach over and lock onto something interesting. I like that you can lock via the hierarchy as well, as in lock on the regional system, the township or the frequency itself. The touch screen makes it easy to set an 'avoid' too, a L/O in old style lingo. I also like the temp vs permanent 'avoid'.
One very curiously lacking function on this is NO PRIORITY option...I have to admit, that annoys me as I routinely set my local township PD as the priority on any scanner I'm using. Again, it is entirely possible I'm being dense as I'm new to this unit, but I'm fairly certain there is no priority function in this scanner.
This could be easily done in a software update I'm sure. Another lacking feature that could be implemented is the ability to have alert tones for fire department paging systems. This would be useful for volunteers to have the scanner silent unless their particular department was dispatched. I'm not sure this has been implemented in a scanner yet, but since this is all software, it would certainly be possible.
Audio quality is very nice on the output jack when fed into my set of bookshelf speakers via my mixer. HOWEVER, there is one very annoying flaw with the audio via the headphone jack. There is no proper ground isolation on the headphone jack. When plugged into my mixer in many different configurations there was a persistent ground loop hum (very loud, as loud or louder than received audio, not just a minor buzz). This was fixed by putting this Ground Loop Isolator - RadioShack.com in line, the Radio Shack 270-054 ground loop isolator.
I have at least ten channels of audio feeding a mixer on this bench from other scanners, ham radios and my computer with no issues from any other equipment aside from the HP-1. To be fair, this is becoming more common with Chinese electronics as they skip every last component in a design that they possibly can and seldom do quality control testing as they drop the pieces.
Someone at some point dropped a very simple component off the headphone circuit that would have held the audio down to proper ground potential. This is a hardware issue...so be aware you will likely need an isolator if you plug this unit into an amplified system or even a computer audio shoutcast feed. If you get a nasty ground buzz, this is your fix.
If you are used to controlling every aspect of your programming or you need field programmability of specific frequencies on demand, this isn't the unit for you. Stick to the 396XT or 996XT instead. If you already have those and want to play with a new toy, I'm pretty happy with this unit.
Things I'd really like to see fixed.
The audio issue...Uniden, make this a revision for the next production run for sure...please. Either that or ship a ground loop isolator patch cable with the unit.
Priority Channel - Please add this
Direct Frequency/Channel Entry - Add to the advanced menu so that people can do full entries manually, this one lacking function will turn off a LOT of users.
A deeper 'advanced menu' set would be very welcome in general.
Aside from those issues, I really like this unit.
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