Thanks...I opened up the radio cut off the bulb and measured 13v off
the leads (I had the radio plugged into an AC- DC converter). So I
went to radio shack and got a 12v 25mA mini lamp (part 272-1141) and it
worked.

However, it doesn't sit too nicely into the space that the original
bulb did (I still haven't heard back from Uniden) and I'm afraid it
might eventually burn/discolor the back of the meter.

The LED idea sounds perfect, but as you can see I'm no Tech, so I
assume that the drop resistor would drop the voltage down to what the
LED would expect?