Uniden's New Product Called Home Patrol

[Viper43]

You will hear the EDACS beep, except in recordings.

 

[trido]

now that he mentions the beeps I think they are LOUDER in the homepatrol than say a 396 not sure why but they do seem to be to me.

You will hear the EDACS beep, except in recordings.

 

[Viper43]

I don't hear it in the 396XT like I did before the fix Uniden did. Yes, the beep is more noticeable in the HP-1. However it doesn't show up at all in the recordings, it seems they managed to filter that out.

V

 

[lachacz]

I agree with you Marshall,
I have one and absolutely love it. Its only been 2 days though...easy to look at good sound quality. I have my 996xt next to it...the pre-programming seems to be spot on for now,,, the only downside is they are using a different data cable so you cant use your 996 or 396 cable with this.

Actually, it is exactly what this hobby needs.
The number one issue I encounter when helping
anyone get started in the monitoring hobby these
days is the knowledge it takes just to understand the
basics of the radio systems used and how it relates
to the $500 radio they just purchased.
The beginner user just wants the radio to work straight
out of the box without needing an engineering degree
to know how to listen to their local PD/Fire/EMS.
If our beloved hobby is to survive and grow, we need to
be able to make sure we include everyone from beginner
to advanced users.
I am sure Uniden will have advanced features available
for those of us inclined to use Home Patrol that way.
I would also ask everyone to wait until the full details
of the product are released as I am sure there will be
still some as yet undocumented features
that all will love.
Happy Monitoring
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[edith]

I got my HomePatrol yesterday and played with it as much as I could. It is freakin' awesome, I am thrilled with it. To my musician ears the reception with the stock antenna is absolutely fine and I don't see any reason I'd need an external antenna.... but then, I live almost at the tippy-top of Russian Hill in San Francisco -- not the highest elevation around, but definitely higher than most of the city. Dudes, I am soooo hiiiiiigh right now!! But yeah, my educated guess is that I'm almost certainly very lucky to be listening up here rather than down there lost in a sea of high-rises and signals bouncing around.

I'm the one who complained about being a Mac user and feeling trepidation about how it would be to use it without 24/7 access to desktop software, and blah blah blah. For that reason I did pay the extra $40 or whatever it was to ScannerMaster to optimize it for my area. I don't usually pay for things I can probably do myself but I didn't want to open it up and realize I would need to call my win-friend and arrange to use her computer to do something to the radio before I could play with it. I actually DID end up going to her house & updating last night anyway! But that's all I had time to do, so I'm glad everything else was set up for me. I didn't have time to go fool around with the favorites lists or do much looking around at the Windows software, but I did upgrade the firmware and the database on my radio. That operation went fine, and very quickly, like buttah. I don't know how much of the db was changed in my area. I'm still using the favorites list that ScannerMaster made for me, populated with all the local channels they guessed I would probably want (and were mostly correct). I realize that favorites list might contain old metadata now that I've updated, so I'll probably set up my own lists once I get more comfortable moving around in the menus and whatnot.

All in all I'm thrilled with this cool new device, and now that I have one I'm even more convinced it's going to be a game-changer for this industry. If word gets out to the mainstream (and I really hope it does) it's going to open up this hobby/avocation to pretty much anybody who's the least bit interested. I can't tell you how relieved I am to be able to do my thing with this radio without having had to spend months getting an education in how radios work. I can still do that if it pleases me, but I didn't have to in order to get started. That is HUGE.

 

[wise871]

I can’t wait for the next HP-1 update. The Admin for my area updated the 4 counties in the N.W. Florida area and they look great. They will display correctly if all goes well.

 

[KE4ZNR]

I can’t wait for the next HP-1 update. The Admin for my area updated the 4 counties in the N.W. Florida area and they look great. They will display correctly if all goes well.

This is one of the side benefits of having the HomePatrol around: the communication between the RR database admins and the rest of the RR.com userbase will only get better! We can truly work together to help make RR.com and the HomePatrol even better than they currently are!

Happy Monitoring (and HPing)
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[UPMan]

And the improvement to the radio data will also benefit every scanner programmed via RadioReference, especially those that are location controlled.

I started a database pull at 4:30 pm, today. So, as long as the changes to Florida are in by about 9 pm (I'm guessing), they'll be in tomorrow's refresh.

 

[wise871]

Great news, I can't wait.

 

[jbdx241]

I got mine yesterday and I love but the only problem I had is the WVIRP and some Air traffic from WV is not in the main database. I can put both of them in my favorite list but not in the database

 

[wise871]

I can’t wait for the next HP-1 update. The Admin for my area updated the 4 counties in the N.W. Florida area and they look great. They will display correctly if all goes well.

I just installed the latest update this morning and I am happy to report that everything for my area looks great now on the HP-1 . Now when I look at the HP 1 I see the county broken down by departments. Thanks again.

 

[WM8L]

My New HP-1 Yesterday

I did a lot of searchs on the new HP-1and found that I just had to have one. Got it yesterday and I feel like the first time I went to see the Grand Canyon. Just unbelievable.

The best thing that works for me is traveling with it. I travel about 32 miles one way to work through about 4 counties. I picked the zip of a city half way between and I get every thing I could want to listen to on the way. The sensitivity using the rubber duck that comes with it and just setting on the seat is great. I have ordered a GPS and mobile antenna for it that I am looking forward to trying out.

The Ohio MARCS system works very well with it but you do have to avoid out a lot you don't need as it loads the complete marcs system and will spend extra time scanning that system. I am hoping when I use the GPS with it using a 10 mile range may help.

I will give it a real test when I get the GPS and take a trip into south central Ohio around Portsmouth. Even with a good mobile antenna on my Pro-197 there are a lot of dead spots.

 

[Viper43]

I agree with you Marshall,
I have one and absolutely love it. Its only been 2 days though...easy to look at good sound quality. I have my 996xt next to it...the pre-programming seems to be spot on for now,,, the only downside is they are using a different data cable so you cant use your 996 or 396 cable with this.

Actually it's better it doesn't use the cable the 396's 996's etc use as the HP-1 acts moe like another drive instead of taking up a com port. It means the novices have fewer connection issues and it's just a better way to do things overall.

V

 

[johnwashington]

I just purchased this product about 2 days ago with the optimum setup for my zip code. My question is in the software setup for the pc, there always seems to be something that Microsoft doesn't recognice the file and gives an option of some zip file which I guess must be purchsed. Any member know if this is true?

 

[CoolBlue87GT]

I had a customer bring one of these into my store to show me. I was very impressed.

What is the best source you all have found to purchase one of these ?

Also, what is the advantage to have the scanner optimized for an area ? For 35 dollars, what are they doing ? Is it worth it, or is it something that can be done by the user ?

 

[Viper43]

I just purchased this product about 2 days ago with the optimum setup for my zip code. My question is in the software setup for the pc, there always seems to be something that Microsoft doesn't recognice the file and gives an option of some zip file which I guess must be purchsed. Any member know if this is true?

Uh? The PC recognizes the HP-1 as if it is another drive, It uses a USB cable. No messing with com ports. Don't need to purchase anything other than GPS and car mount if you want to.

V

 

[Viper43]

I had a customer bring one of these into my store to show me. I was very impressed.

What is the best source you all have found to purchase one of these ?

Also, what is the advantage to have the scanner optimized for an area ? For 35 dollars, what are they doing ? Is it worth it, or is it something that can be done by the user ?

It's something you should be able to do easily eough, not something you need to pay for since basically they update the firmware (or should) and the database, takes just a few minutes. And then they put your zipcode in and make sure it is loading everything it should.

V

 

[dsleigh]

Bearcat Warehouse has Home Patrol-1 for $479.00 plus shipping. That is about $20.00 off initial price There may be other dealers reducing price.

 

[CoolBlue87GT]

It's something you should be able to do easily eough, not something you need to pay for since basically they update the firmware (or should) and the database, takes just a few minutes. And then they put your zipcode in and make sure it is loading everything it should.

V

Thanks for the that advice. Can't see paying extra for a process I can do.

Bearcat Warehouse has Home Patrol-1 for $479.00 plus shipping. That is about $20.00 off initial price There may be other dealers reducing price.

Thanks for the price info. I see BC $479 & SM $495 are now $16 apart, with shipping $12.27 apart.

I'd like to give my sale to SM, as they advertise here

I see ScannerMaster has a price matching & cheaper shipping. I'll give them a call Monday.

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[Viper43]

The Ohio MARCS system works very well with it but you do have to avoid out a lot you don't need as it loads the complete marcs system and will spend extra time scanning that system. I am hoping when I use the GPS with it using a 10 mile range may help.

I will give it a real test when I get the GPS and take a trip into south central Ohio around Portsmouth. Even with a good mobile antenna on my Pro-197 there are a lot of dead spots.

Actually what you need to avoid are the sites you won't hear, they take all the time, not TGID's. You can avoid TGIDS too. I tend to avoid TGIDs like dog catcher, road crews, zoning and so on. I keep all police and fire active, never know what/who will be associated with a site.