By Richard Barnett

Destination: Dayton, OH
Event: Dayton Hamvention
When: Friday, May 20 – Sunday, May 22, 2011

Dayton Hamvention Report

We drive out to the show each year from our Massachusetts offices and this year we brought with us the Uniden HomePatrol HP-1 for the ride and mounted it on Uniden’s new windshield suction-cup mount along with our Garmin GPS receiver kit to provide the HomePatrol with constant automatic position data. This set-up was simply amazing. We did not have to touch the HP-1 more than a couple of times on the entire route from near Boston to the far side of Ohio. The radio constantly updated the active channels based on our location. As we drove the State Police/Highway Patrol was always active and the county sheriffs and local police channels enabled and disabled automatically as needed. If we wanted to listen to fire services as well we just pressed the menu key, pressed the select service types key, and the fire key. That’s it.

At the show the HomePatrol received universal praise from other very serious hobbyists as well as Ham radio operators for its ease-of-use and, like us, everyone who drove to the show with the GPS functionality on were simply wowed at how well it worked. As the RadioReference database which fuels the HomePatrol gets better and better every day the radio becomes more of an incredible tool. Yes we’re gushing, but this scanner deserves every accolade it gets.

We’ll have more on the show and other radios that people loved in an upcoming posting.

Rich Barnett