HP-2: Uniden home patrol 2

[Maverickmike]

I just bought a uniden home patrol 2 and it will not pick up police departments. It only picks up sheriff’s, fire, ems. I like to listen to local police stuff.

I just bought a uniden home patrol 2 and it will not pick up police departments. It only picks up sheriff’s, fire, ems. I like to listen to local police stuff.

I meant to ask why does this happen? And can it be fixed.

 

[jtwalker]

My guess would be the police is encrypted.

What specific police department(s) are you talking about? Did you check RR database to see if it's shown as encrypted?

 

[Maverickmike]

I’m new to these scanners. I have. App on my phone that would listen to Waco Texas Police Departments but most times it’s offline. So someone suggested a home patrol 2 to listen but I can’t receive police departments. If they are encrypted then this scanner is useless for me. I’ll send it back I guess.

 

[Maverickmike]

My guess would be the police is encrypted.

What specific police department(s) are you talking about? Did you check RR database to see if it's shown as encrypted?

Then I guess this scanner is useless. We use to listen to Waco Texas police departments on my iPhone app. but most times it’s offline. Someone suggested home patrol 2 and it would work fine. But if it’s encrypted then this scanner is not going to help. Someone said this was one of the best

 

[mule1075]

According to the database Hill County only has a sheriff's department. No police department and it is listed as no encrypted

 

[Maverickmike]

It would be McClennan County that Waco is in and I checked and it’s not encrypted. So why can’t I pick up Waco Texas Police dispatch

 

[jtwalker]

Where are you located in relationship to these McClennan towers? Near the Aquilla dot? The site is listed as simulcast but that far off from this cluster of towers might allow you to get away with receiving a simulcast site, unless you are just too far away.

 

[Maverickmike]

I’m between Aquilla and. Gholson. About 20 miles from Waco. It’s says Waco is part of a 2 county group listed as simulcast. What does simulcast mean?

 

[jtwalker]

Simulcast is when two or more towers transmit the same signal, on the same frequencies, at the same time. Most scanners can't cope with receiving signals from two towers slightly out of phase from each other and it creates what is known as simulcast distortion. You can read more here.

There are some hacks that may help, like turning on attenuation or using a directional antenna focused at just one of the towers, but these are hit-or-miss. The only tried-and-true solution is to use a receiver designed to deal with simulcast.

 

[tvengr]

I’m between Aquilla and. Gholson. About 20 miles from Waco. It’s says Waco is part of a 2 county group listed as simulcast. What does simulcast

20 miles can be a challenge for 800 MHz. Are you just using the antenna that comes with the scanner? Check your squelch setting. If you attach your favorites list file, I will take a look at it to check for errors. Using HomePatrol Sentinel, Click on the File tab and Export to hpe file. You will need to zip the exported file to be able to attach it. Click on Attach files and open the zipped file.

 

[Maverickmike]

I’m using a antenna that I got from my brother in law. It’s a magnetic antenna that I have on my metal roof. We ran some coax through the house. It’s a Home Patrol 2. I don’t have a favorites list just yet. It’s basically anything in Hillsboro Texas, Waco Texas. Three counties I would like to local get police transmissions from are Hill, Bosque, and McClennan counties. Like I said Waco PD is what I’m mostly interested in.

 

[tvengr]

When was the scanner database last updated? The systems in your area were recently updated. You need HomePatrol Sentinel to update the database.

 

[Maverickmike]

When was the scanner database last updated? The systems in your area were recently updated. You need HomePatrol Sentinel to update the database.

We did a update this morning, my bil is a ham operator so he’s been trying to help. Even he was stumped until I told him about Waco PD using the simulcast system. Then it made sense to him. I’m gonna keep the scanner, the features on this little scanner are incredible, it’s easy to transport. I’ll just use my scanner app on my iPhone if I want to listen to Waco PD. Half the time it’s offline though. Not sure if there’s anything else to do, but I thought about trying to manually putting in the frequencies that Waco PD uses, if that can be done on this scanner.

 

[hiegtx]

We did a update this morning, my bil is a ham operator so he’s been trying to help. Even he was stumped until I told him about Waco PD using the simulcast system. Then it made sense to him. I’m gonna keep the scanner, the features on this little scanner are incredible, it’s easy to transport. I’ll just use my scanner app on my iPhone if I want to listen to Waco PD. Half the time it’s offline though. Not sure if there’s anything else to do, but I thought about trying to manually putting in the frequencies that Waco PD uses, if that can be done on this scanner.

Make sure that you have the correct service types enabled. By default, when the HP-2 is first received (new), only dispatch service types are enabled for public safety (Law Dispatch, Fire Dispatch, EMS Dispatch, and Multi-Dispatch). You should also enable the Tac & Talk service types for public safety (Law Talk, Fire Tac, etc).

If you are using the main database, and location control, make sure that you have the correct range, as well as verify that your listed location is correct. More on how Location based scanning works can be found here: How it Works: Location, Location, Location

You can append the channels that you want from the database in Sentinel to create a Favorites list. Or, with your correct location & range set, as well as the correct service types enabled, you can have Sentinel create a Favorites list for you to get started. See my comments in another thread on how to do that. Once that is created, then you can edit it to tweak what you are interested in.

You updated Sentinel earlier today?, Did you also connect the HP-2 to your PC & have Sentinel write the database update to the scanner?

For the Waco system (Heart of Texas Regional Radio System) simulcast may well be your problem, along with the distance. Hill County has a trunked system, but it is not simulcast. Bosque is Vhf-high conventional, so no trunked system or simulcast issues.

Since Waco is using a trunked system, you cannot simply 'put in the frequencies Waco PD uses'. It's a trunked system. You have to be able to receive the site being used, and program the talkgroups, not frequencies, to hear anything. There are several pages in the Wiki, explaining how trunked systems work. See this one for a start.