Received Dec. 23rd for an anniversary gift from my wife. This is my first scanner and I really knew nothing about them until now. The HP is fairly easily to program and customize. You can use the software provided to do it or just use the touchscreen on the unit. I've been hearing everything from planes, swat team communication, and medical emergencies in my town. I was just listening and heard about a fight that broke out one town over from me. A back-up officer responded right in front of my apartment and I heard him turn his sirens's on from my home as he went to the scene. Cool stuff. The other night a woman had overdosed on meds just a mile from my house. The antenna works great. I have it programmed for 20 miles around me but it's picking up stuff from much further away than that.
The only thing I don't like about it is it will not pick up radio activity from the ski area that's a half-mile from my home. Ski patrol, security, mountain operations....there's at least 50 radios on the mountain used to communicate in between departments. I was able to find one frequency that had a transmission from one department to another (security to the snow tubing park) but since it's not on the radioreference database, I have to punch it in manually and stay on that frequency and wait to hear anything. The homepatrol does not let you manually select your own frequencies to scan, and you cannot add it to the other frequencies normally scanned. Otherwise it's a great system for listening to law enforcement, EMS, and all the other official business stuff.
I haven't read the manual yet so if anyone knows something about the HP that I may not, please chime in.
The only thing I don't like about it is it will not pick up radio activity from the ski area that's a half-mile from my home. Ski patrol, security, mountain operations....there's at least 50 radios on the mountain used to communicate in between departments. I was able to find one frequency that had a transmission from one department to another (security to the snow tubing park) but since it's not on the radioreference database, I have to punch it in manually and stay on that frequency and wait to hear anything. The homepatrol does not let you manually select your own frequencies to scan, and you cannot add it to the other frequencies normally scanned. Otherwise it's a great system for listening to law enforcement, EMS, and all the other official business stuff.
I haven't read the manual yet so if anyone knows something about the HP that I may not, please chime in.
