I'm at Holden, this is a new purchase with stock antenna. I installed new firmware and database, not getting any thing just public works. I did go over the forums still at a loss. Do you have the extreme update?
That's a real stretch to get Edmonton from Holden but looking at the database you should be getting RCMP repeaters near Tofield and Viking. Make sure you have Police, Fire and EMS selected to be scanned in the Home Patrol. Down the road you may want to put on a better antenna but the stock antenna should work just fine for your local services.
I do have the Extreme upgrade but not having it shouldn't cause you not to hear your local area.
I have Fire, Police, and EMS selected and moved the HP1 to different locations in the house. My old BC72XLT gets 155.550 and the HP1 doesn't don't know why. What kind of antenna did you purchase?
One thing to try is select all services to be scanned in case RCMP is classified as Federal. Select them all and eliminate the ones you don't want as you start picking stuff up.
I don't use the RR database so I'm not totally used to how it works. I program all my lists as favorite lists something you may not be able to do without the Extreme upgrade. I see the proper PL code ect is shown properly for RCMP in the database for your area. Can you just program 155.550 into the scanner and sit on it? Then listen on the BC72XLT until it's active.
At this point don't worry about a better antenna till we sort out you getting calls from your local area.
I selected Federal and pick up the weather channel ok, It will hit on some channels far away but just get static. As for programing 155.550 I type it in press accept don't know were it goes. Thanks for helping me try to get this thing going
Trying it in various locations in your house was a good idea. Are you using your postal code or your location to access the database? I'd try location for Sherwood Park to hear what you get. Make sure the receive radius is set to the maximum I think 50 miles rather than the lowest setting.
I'm currently using the HP 1 in the car using a Larsen tri band antenna. When it was in the house I used my rooftop discone.
Hopefully we will figure this out for you. We know it is receiving.
I've always had the Extreme update so really I'm not sure what extra features I got with it. Perhaps direct entry of a frequency was one of them.
For what it's worth, RCMP is not tagged as Federal; they're Law Dispatch, Law Tac, or Law-Talk, depending on the type of channel. I'd turn them all on for purposes of trying to receive a signal, if I were you.
You should also be able to pick up at least one AFRRCS site (Holden) if not more. The talkgroups might be encrypted (the busiest agency on the system so far, AHS, is) but you should at least see the scanner pause on AFRRCS with a signal strength indication.
I have them all selected and still nothing just weather, When I look in the HP1 AFRRCS channel I don't see a Holden or Viking site listed as they are in the sentinel database. I am scanning all the sites in the AFRRCS just to see it it will lock on a channel.
The stock antenna is not particularly good. I even had one of them break at one point.
You may not need to go as far as a fixed antenna like a discone. I replaced all my stock antennas with the Diamond SRH-789 antenna years ago, on all my radios, and it performs rather nicely. It is a metal telescoping antenna you can "tune" to your desired frequency range by extending or collapsing sections, and has a hinge so it will fit a radio like the HP1 and still be able to point straight up. The "S" in the model number means it has an SMA connector (for the HP1), but you can also get it in BNC if you order it as an RH-789 instead.
I don't know about local - to you or anyone else in Canada - but there are a number of online retailers such as Universal Radio and Scanner Master that stock it. While looking it up for this post I also see that Amazon (USA) has a page on it; maybe the Canada site does too, but unfortunately my browser is failing right now for some reason so I can't do any more lookups, sorry...
I am still baffled why you don't hear much from your location. What do you hear if you leave the Edmonton location on when you try it at home? Or use a Toefield postal code or Sherwood Park. You should be hearing the Toefield RCMP detachment and I'm thinking the Sherwood Park RCMP. The Diamond antenna Jay suggests may also allow you to get Edmonton.