Home Patrol / The cost thread...

[al95]

Uniden has not release MSP

FCC approved and listed for sale at Ham Station:
UNIDEN HOME PATROL DIGITAL SCANNER
$495.95
Click here for Home Patrol Manual Email us at jeff@hamstation.com or call Jeff at 1-800-729-4373 for aditional information or to be added to our wait list.PLUS 15.00 UPS
Coming in OCT.
Approved place pre order now

UNIDEN HOME PATROL DIGITAL SCANNER - $495.95 : The Hamstation!, Your one stop on-line source for amateur radio fun.

How can they list a price if Uniden has not release MSP? If the radio was just FCC approve today.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Yeah, maybe you're right. Since this scanner was apparently aimed at drawing in new, not-so-experienced listeners, I am sure they [the new listeners] will go for a much cheaper product from a competitor or for older models.

Bob (targeted user) will buy this because he can have it up and running in a few minutes monitoring Public Safety in most areas no matter what the voice type.

What else would he buy?
The competition does not have anything that offers ease of use with touchscreen display and analog plus digital all wrapped up in one box.

I admit it... I love the features and design of this scanner, but the price is simply not on-par with what I can or will do at this point in time.

This part is totally understandable and I respect your decision.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[rdale]

How can they list a price if Uniden has not release MSP?

1) How do you know they didn't?

2) The dealer can sell it at whatever price he wants.

 

[SCPD]

If that is accurate, it is a complete pricing failure.

I totally agree.
I wonder if this unit fails to sell like hotcakes will UPMAN become the OUTMAN at Uniden ? Pricing in the high $ 400's will be a major, major mistake. This radio needs to be priced below $ 300.00 IMHO for it to sell.

 

[Drowsiness]

Bob (targeted user) will buy this because he can have it up and running in a few minutes monitoring Public Safety in most areas no matter what the voice type.

Not really. Bob doesn't much care for the ease of use if it will make his wallet flat. Bob is the guy who is currently feeling the crunch of a weak economy and while he may want to listen AND do so easily, he also wants to keep money for whatever else he may need or want, at a far cheaper price.

What else would he buy?
The competition does not have anything that offers ease of use with touchscreen display and analog plus digital all wrapped up in one box.

For now, yeah. There is nothing to say that the situation will not change in the coming months. Lots of people who are really not ready to spend $500 on yet ANOTHER P25 capable scanner will simply not buy it. Bob and his friends and family who are curious about scanning and would like to get into it will likely just save money, buy an older model and have it programmed "professionally" for themselves. Then it is just easy to use FreeSCAN or some other software to listen to what you want because, frankly, you can just download data files for any area of the country or world at this point.

This part is totally understandable and I respect your decision.
Marshall KE4ZNR

Thank you. I respect yours as well in this area. I just think the pricing is a huge mistake that will undoubtedly bite Uniden on the rear as far as moving these units goes.

 

[eorange]

Still curious on the performance of the radio (i.e. sensitivity, images, and intermod), once everyone settles down and gets past the user interface and the database. A slick UI will get old real quick if you struggle with obtaining a solid receive.

Most of my Uniden radios get/got crushed by my nearby NOAA tower in various frequency ranges.

My bet is the radio has the guts of the XT line.

 

[perigee123]

Add me to the "err.." list; I picked up both the 996 and 396 for $250.00 a piece on the secondary market, and given a choice between the price of these secondhand roses and a new homepatrol, I'd buy two more of the old beasts for the price of one plug-and-play, on the basis of sheer economics alone. When it comes to functionality, that remains the smartest thing to do anyway.

As a matter of fact, that's probably exactly what I Am going to do.

I do wish Uni well, and maybe I'll pick one up on the aftermarket in a few years as a toy.

 

[DMBFireman]

I went to the unveiling at Uniden and while this looks like a great revolutionary scanner, I wont be buying one at that price. I was pretty excited about the scanner until I saw the selling price. I too think its a big mistake for the target market that Uniden is trying to get to buy this scanner. I have talked to a few people who are not "Joes" that I recommended they get this new scanner coming out but when I told them that the price may be in the $400-$500 range they said no thanks. I imagine many others will follow suit. If I get any new scanner it will be a used 996xt that hopefully I'll be able to find after the people with money buy their new toys....

Brandon

 

[kilowa22]

You have to do an analyses of costs. If the scanner is bug free and works well it will sell. If you buy this scanner for $500 and keep it for four years before it dies you would pay $125 per year. How much do you pay for other entertainment such as cable and PP movies.
I bought a 396t new for $500 and sold it 3 years later for $300 so my actual cost was very low.
Also the major cost for digital radios is the patent on the digital decoding part. It will be a number of years before that patent expires, but if a new method for DV comes out that will most likely drop the cost for all DV radios.

 

[Drowsiness]

You have to do an analyses of costs. If the scanner is bug free and works well it will sell. If you buy this scanner for $500 and keep it for four years before it dies you would pay $125 per year. How much do you pay for other entertainment such as cable and PP movies.
I bought a 396t new for $500 and sold it 3 years later for $300 so my actual cost was very low.
Also the major cost for digital radios is the patent on the digital decoding part. It will be a number of years before that patent expires, but if a new method for DV comes out that will most likely drop the cost for all DV radios.

That is a bit of a stretch, really. Your "cost analysis" seems to assume that the scanner is somehow paying for itself over time and thus the price is negated by that.

The truth is, the HP1 will not sell very well. I don't care what anyone says... all of the people this scanner targets with its ease of use features are just not going to shell out $500 (as stated in a previous post) for it no matter how you want to paint the picture. Those people are looking at up-front costs, not what it would be over four years.

Let's face it... no one is going to save up for four years to buy this.

 

[petrol88]

How many posts do you see here from people who bought a BCD396XT, BCD996XT, PSR 500, PSR 600, PRO-107, PRO-197 who are so far in over their heads they can barely get the scanner to do anything? They all spent about $500...and it looks like HomePatrol has a good chance of replacing all of that newbie business.

The "professional" models will still sell to the professionals, but this looks to both steal from current models and open up the market to a new audience.

Bravo.

 

[trido]

I promise very very accurate I will even say the new homepatrol cost us dealers same and for me to the penny as the other two current Uniden digital models.

Any questions call me. or email.

If that is accurate, it is a complete pricing failure.

 

[trido]

We dont get price info from Uniden , Uniden's Wholesalers have had their cost for weeks.
So I have known my wholesale cost from the Wholesaler for weeks.
I was told the second scanner gets FCC approval we can post retail and take firm orders.
Thats what we are doing.

I have know what retail was going to be for a good while now.

How can they list a price if Uniden has not release MSP? If the radio was just FCC approve today.

 

[AZScanner]

Sounds like lots of "sour grapes" in this thread.

I've been into scanning for nearly 24 years. I started back when $500 bought you a scanner that had about 200 channels, didn't trunk, didn't have alpha tags, didn't do anything but AM and FM analog, and didn't have a computer interface. Radioreference? What's that? We used Police Call books. I remember when I got my first 200 channel programmable. I spent HOURS programming that thing by hand for the LA area. HOURS!

Fast forward to today. That same ~$500 gets you a scanner that trunks, decodes P25 digital (something that was rumored to be the death of scanning just a few short years ago, by the way), has a computer interface, alphatags, a color touch screen, data for the ENTIRE COUNTRY preloaded, the ability to record audio for playback later, can interface to a GPS device, and can be "programmed" by simply entering a zip code and selecting what you want to listen to.

Folks, it doesn't get any better than this. This scanner will sell boatloads at $495. It could have easily cost $100 more. I intend to buy one, and that's saying something considering the last new scanner I bought was a BC796.

-AZ

 

[dracer777]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

I wonder how uniden intends to market this. They need public advertising of some sort. TV may be too expensive... Maybe a flyer in the box of consumer electronics? Phones, for example.

 

[al95]

We dont get price info from Uniden , Uniden's Wholesalers have had their cost for weeks.
So I have known my wholesale cost from the Wholesaler for weeks.
I was told the second scanner gets FCC approval we can post retail and take firm orders.
Thats what we are doing.

I have know what retail was going to be for a good while now.

I have seen HP-1 price at $526.90. Why does it cost so much? I hope uniden sell alot of HP-1 at the $500.00 price range. For that price I might just buy me a BCD396XT which I can program myself with frequencies I want to listen to. So good luck to all retailers on selling this radio HP-1.

 

[AZScanner]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

I wonder how uniden intends to market this. They need public advertising of some sort. TV may be too expensive... Maybe a flyer in the box of consumer electronics? Phones, for example.

Ads placed here would work. Alot of stream listeners find their way onto this site to see how it's done. Or word of mouth from guys like us.

Scanners are a niche market anyway. Folks who buy a cordless phone probably think a scanner is something you attach to the computer so you can scan in pictures of the kids and upload 'em to facebook.

The key is to get them hooked on listening and then offer them a does-it-all product like the Homepatrol to listen whenever they want (versus whenever the local feed is online).

-AZ

 

[perigee123]

Sounds like lots of "sour grapes" in this thread.

-AZ

Not "Sour Grapes," Az - simply the free market economy.Everybody is going to compare the features and price to what they have available and decide if the plusses and minuses of the machine make sense to their pocketbooks. For myself, I listen at home, so the GPS functionality doesn't thrill me, I don't really care to record police activity, so that's no grabber, and I've sweated blood learning to program Uni, so the lack of programming is not a selling point to me.

What it comes down to is, what does Homepatrol offer me that a 250-300 buck aftermarket digital wouldn't - that _I_ would want? Not much - so simply no sale. I don't wish Uni ill - I'm just exercising my right to spend my cash as I see fit.

 

[RayK]

The FCC has approved the radio , ID# AMWUB363

 

[jack103]

I intend to inform the dealers of my intention Not to purchase this receiver due to the absurd markup of this receiver, maybe they will forward these issues to Uniden reps and to UPMAN YOU JUST DONT GET IT.