I just recently bought one of these,I can't believe the gain on this unit's rx from 400-512 range..Our local pd is on 460.075 and i live 30 miles away in the sticks and i am not kidding i can hear this with the stock antenna pretty plain and with an outside antenna it's perfect.I have played them all from the gre's and the 996t's and none can touch this unit as far as sensitivity.And it does great on 800mhz and vhf as well..Could use a little more volume but overall it's a great unit...
I consistently pick up stations 45 miles away with my HP1 using an outdoor antenna and quite often 80 miles away as the crow flies. this is way better than my old RS PRO 51 using the same antenna. If the skip is right I have picked up stations as far away as Mexico, and I am located in Central Tx.
Speaking of Skip, Back in the late 70's I was in the army stationed in Alaska as a O5B combat radio operator . We were on a FTE at Ft. Greeley. We were using a FM freq. I don't remember which one, but I picked up, and was communicating with what was called Defender Control in Korea. From what little info they would tell me they were with the Air Force patrolling the DMZ along the 38 parallel.
The best skip I ever got was the very next day while I was playing around with an ANGRC 106, this was an AM radio commonly used in teletype rigs but also for voice. I picked up a Coast Guard ice breaker off the coast of Antarctica. They were there to resupply a U.S. research station. As it turned out, one of our pilots was the Uncle of one of the crew members on the vessel and he was able to talk to him for about 10 minutes from one end of the world to the other.