So long Home Patrol, its just not working out

[r9a9d9i9o9]

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Dear Home Patrol,

You looked so good at first glance when you said things like
"Listen to local emergency calls"
"Help sidestep accidents"
"Hone in on information"
"Quick and easy zip code based setup"

So I figured, yeah, let's go out.

On arrival, you kept asking me to connect you to a computer. Fine, easy enough and done.

When taking you for a spin, you spoke too softly. Your P25 is great but you needed to speak up! I wanted to hear you. You are the only one that always needs to speak at a minimum of 50% of your volume max and usually around 95% and still barely be heard.

When you are talking, its often about activity that I am not interested in. I know you don't know much better, its the circle based coordinates you have access to. For example, I didn't care about Illinois statewide freqs in Indianapolis, New York statewide freqs in Philadelphia, Mississippi statewide freqs in Birmingham, or Kansas statewide freqs in Lincoln Nebraska. You need to move away from using circles. Just like the centers of zip codes are available, you can get polygon based boundaries for all cities, towns, counties, and states in the US that GPS can recognize.

It would help if you could let me restrict to certain states or counties but you kept talking about profiles on the computer which defeats the purpose of saying you are easy. You should have an option in the menu to let me filter your blabbering a bit.

I also hated that when I locked in on an agency which often means county, you wouldn't scan trunked systems within the same county. Radioreference knows a trunked system is active in a certain county and so should you!

I really liked that you were completely on top of rebanded systems. I also liked that you can be updated weekly but for now you keep blabbering about areas I do not care about. If I need to use your Sentinel software I may as well use Win500 or Freescan.

You were very good when locked on statewide trunked systems with lots of towers. At $200 or $300 I could keep you around. Maybe $400 if you included a built in GPS chip instead of a NMEA hockey puck, kitchy cables, adaptors, and another power source requirement. You and your baggage are just too much for me to handle for $600.

I really had high hopes for you. If you have a sister or cousin, I could be tempted to go out with them but for now I need to end our relationship. Its just not working out.

Sincerely,
r9a9d9i9o9

 

[rdale]

When taking you for a spin, you spoke too softly. Your P25 is great but you needed to speak up! I wanted to hear you.

Maybe you got a bad unit? I can't turn mine up beyond 50% without causing the neighbors to get upset

For example, I didn't care about Illinois statewide freqs in Indianapolis

Set your range to 0

I also hated that when I locked in on an agency which often means county, you wouldn't scan trunked systems within the same county.

Of course not... If you want to lock in on the trunked system, you would hold on the trunked system. It should not "overthink" -- if I want to hear only my local FD on their conventional channel, I don't want it still picking up state police on their trunked just because they are in the same county.

I also liked that you can be updated weekly but for now you keep blabbering about areas I do not care about.

What is the "blabbering" you keep referring to? I've yet to have that happen.

You and your baggage are just too much for me to handle for $600.

They sell for under $500 - so you must have taken on some serious baggage

 

[rwier]

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Dear Home Patrol,
...............................................................................................
I need to end our relationship. Its just not working out.
Sincerely,
r9a9d9i9o9

If you can't get your money back, I will start the bidding right now at $300 USD, I could use a second HP if there is a real bargain floating around out there somewhere.

 

[r9a9d9i9o9]

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The range was already set to 0. The problem lies in states where statewide channels bleed into adjacent states because its within the radius from the adjacent state's center. Any state that is not close to being a square has this same problem.

The blabbering refers to systems from far away that do not matter for where I am. Some of it is due to incorrect database info (part of paying for the Home Patrol means paying for correct info) and some of it is due to the coordinates/radius issue of adjacent states.

$600 includes the GPS and cables. Where can I get the entire package for less?

 

[r9a9d9i9o9]

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Dear Home Patrol,
...............................................................................................
I need to end our relationship. Its just not working out.
Sincerely,
r9a9d9i9o9

If you can't get your money back, I will start the bidding right now at $300 USD, I could use a second HP if there is a real bargain floating around out there somewhere.

About $300 is where I also peg its value, not $500 to $600.

 

[KC0CSE]

Over priced hp-1

I have to agree with you on this one....way way over priced....where are these folks coming up with that kind of cash?....forget the rent let's get an over priced scanner....I'll wait till they get the BUGS out of it...and they come to there sences like radio shack did and sell scanners for what there worth...maybe $300.00 or less let's hope....KC0CSE 73"s.........ham radio operators take a wait and see attitude....

 

[rescue161]

You can set the HP-1 to "lock-out" agencies, frequencies or whole systems if you like. If you don't want to hear them, lock them out. There, no more hearing the signals that you don't want to hear. It's as easy as that.

Got mine for less than $300.00.

 

[KC0CSE]

Hp-1

Was it hot?.??????????????

 

[rwier]

You can set the HP-1 to "lock-out" agencies, frequencies or whole systems if you like. If you don't want to hear them, lock them out. There, no more hearing the signals that you don't want to hear. It's as easy as that.

Got mine for less than $300.00.

There have been several legitimate posters (mostly owners) with difficulties with the HP operation. Most of them have learned and advanced, and will, in the future, probably pass their knowledge on to those in need.

However, there appears (to me) to be a few that are not looking for help, or trying to help. I suspect that most of them are not owners. I also suspect (my paranoia) that some of those are actually industrial saboteurs and that they have a financial interest in keeping sales of this radio at a minimum.

Trying to explain the features and the ease of use of this fine radio to them is like beating on a dead horse.

Oh yea, tell me how to get a $300 deal for a new (?) HP?

Thanks,

Rob

 

[rescue161]

Nope. Brand new!

 

[r9a9d9i9o9]

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You can set the HP-1 to "lock-out" agencies, frequencies or whole systems if you like. If you don't want to hear them, lock them out. There, no more hearing the signals that you don't want to hear. It's as easy as that.

Got mine for less than $300.00.

When I did temporary lockouts, I had to repeatedly lock out channels on power up.

When I did permanent lockouts, I could not hear that channel when I got to the area.

The solution is to have channels accurately match their territories, something that will never be achieved when coverage is based on a perfect circle. Giving me county or state filters in the menu would have helped but even that did not exist.

If I paid $300 I would have a different view. For $500 plus $100 for GPS, the babe ain't quite worth it. How did you get yours for $300? Did that include the GPS?

 

[Astrak]

Hmmm is there any way to edit the boundaries the home patrol uses?

 

[KE5TLF]

Yep single circles absolutely suck for a means of controlling this thing on the state level and even many other smaller levels. Somebody should have realized this fact long ago and worked out a better system than this. The most obvious and easiest fix would be to allow multiple range circles to be saved within a given area. Users of previous gps aware models have been doing this for years to overcome those units shortcomings.

...or even simpler "Do you want to include adjacent state databases?" "Yes" "No"

There are many ways to improve upon this I'm sure. It's just a matter of someone taking a little time and making a little effort to improve it. Obviously it's not something very high on Uniden's priority list though or it would have been addressed long before release.

 

[del1964]

Glad I didn't buy one now...

Glad I didn't buy a Home Patrol now...I was sooooo close to but the price was way too high. I always said I'd buy a 996XT before I bought a HP. I have a 396XT and am VERY happy with it!

 

[rdale]

If you're VERY happy with the 396XT - this wasn't the scanner for you anyways...

 

[del1964]

If you're VERY happy with the 396XT - this wasn't the scanner for you anyways...

True That

 

[rescue161]

Oh yea, tell me how to get a $300 deal for a new (?) HP?

Thanks,

Rob

It was less than $300.00 ($275.00 shipped). It was a promotional thing with a very small window of opportunity, so I jumped on it. One of those "once in a blue moon" things I guess. :wink:

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.1; en-us; Droid Build/FRG83D) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)If I paid $300 I would have a different view. For $500 plus $100 for GPS, the babe ain't quite worth it. How did you get yours for $300? Did that include the GPS?

It did not include GPS, but it was available for an additional cost.

 

[rdale]

In my "day-to-day" I use it just to monitor my local FD and the "big city" fireground talkgroups in the living room area where it needs to stay quiet most of the time. I have other scanners for normal listening. But on the road - this has been a MAJOR blessing. I drove back and forth to Birmingham AL before Christmas and it is physically (and mentally) impossible for me to have duplicated the system info in any other scanner I have. This was a great resource for the trip.

 

[DaveNF2G]

The OP apparently never figured out how to build useful Favorites lists.

 

[r9a9d9i9o9]

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The OP apparently never figured out how to build useful Favorites lists.

I did not want to set up favorites for every area I visited because I paid for a product that is supposed to do that for me without the garbage. Anything statewide in Vermont is monitored in New Hampshire and vice versa. Senseless.

Your solution to turn the Home Patrol into less than what a regular scanner can do is a waste of money and functionality.