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So if I tune my UV-5R to 122.750 and there are helos nearby talking to each other on this frequency, I should be able to hear them? And theoretically speaking, could I talk to them? I wouldn't do this but I'm trying to understand if that's possible?

I once lost (bricked) a radio during firmware update. After 5 minutes into the update and not seeing any response on the software side, I actually thought windows locked up and did a ctrl- alt-del to shut down the program. The radio then started flashing astraks. Got. In touch with Atlantic, they confirmed I bricked the radio. I got lucky, they sent me a new replacement on warranty repair. I’,ve never done a firmware update since,

The only one to stay away from is 240625, that had some detrimental effects on the radio. I can't remember what but I remember removing it after I put it in.

Most of my radios have GMRS_250110 This one added the antenna meter that shows strength instead of just showing full bars on all signals. For some reason they removed it.

That's because as I've learned the radio is looking for a perfect 50 ohm load from the antenna and since the dummy load gives the radio the 50 ohms it's looking for the SWR is perfect. The load the radio "sees" from a given antenna can vary depending on frequency, hence the need to tune the antenna for a given frequency. I really want to pick up a NanoVNA to run SWR scans on my antenna so I can see what each is tuned for.

Thanks to @TheMeatTrapper (WRMN250), @SteveGibbs (WSBM443), WRXS569, @WSGE773, @WSCY890, WSDK964 and @WSDV406 (me) and for joining the check-in net tonight (8/13/25). Besides the check-in, tonight's question was "If you could master one skill, what would it be?" A sample of the answers (you'll have to jump in the nets to hear the full answers) were: "understanding why women are always mad at us", morse code, bladesmithing, and much more. Join us every Wednesday at 8pm on Brentwood 600, tone 123.0 for a quick one fun question check-in net. Always feel free to weigh in with your answer to the nets' questions here on this thread. If the nets get large enough, we'll start making each net it's own post. But for now, we'll keep it all here.

They seem to be a very popular radio and I'll bet they cranked the assembly line up to 11 to make more radios and many more are failing.

That seems to be A Thing with these, unfortunately. When they're good, they're great, and I guess I just got lucky with the 4 I bought. But they seem to be having some pretty serious QC issues.

You got 2 duds.. I've been seeing more and more reports of this (here and on the big GMRS Youtuber channels in the comments).. getting more and more common with the H3's..

Flipping between ham and gmrs (and unlocked) modes shouldn't break anything. One of my two GMRS-mode radios is a ham model, and my ham radio is a GMRS model. (Why? Because I wasn't paying attention when I was setting modes and I'm too lazy to swap antennas/modes, that's why) Two of my four radios (one ham, one GMRS) are warranty replacements, and I have a fourth radio that's dead somewhere. All of them read 0W on an SWR meter but could still TX to a nearby (i.e. in the same room) radio after they died. Assuming you have all your settings correct (allowed frequency/channel, correct offsets, etc.) and still can't talk or it shows 0W, send it back or contact TIDRadio support and have them ship you a replacement. Or get a different radio. I think I'm done buying H3s after this and will be switching brands when my remaining radios start dying.

Possible you got 2 duds. If you have nothing showing on the meter likely it's showing correctly. What does the working radio show? If that shows 4-5 watts and the other shows zero then you got a dud x2. I've gotten 2 duds out of 16 radios. And they would transmit about 1000 ft or so before getting static and wouldn't reach any repeaters.

I have 2 H3's and convinced my brother to get one on the Amazon sale.. It came quickly, but inadvertently he bought the Ham version.. No matter, I know how to change it over to GMRS... Got it changed over and programmed to our repeaters and such.. Went smoothly.. We just couldn't get it to work right.. It would receive somewhat but transmitting was a problem.. I finally decided it was defective and we boxed it up and asked Amazon for an exchange.. The exchange came today, got it programmed and zilch.. Recieving, but not transmitting at all. Same problem as before except maybe worse.. . Hooked it up to my fars-o-meter and get nothing even though the radio's meter shows all bars.. Now I think I may be missing something on the switch from Ham to GMRS.. Seems easy enough, but what the heck?..

I have 3 H3'S. I haven't updated the firmware. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unless there is something specific that needs fixing, I'll just leave mine as is.

Thank you, now I understand what that setting is for my radio

Wild azz guess for the win.

Excellent

I imagine it's some form of VOIP software. I'm not savvy enough to venture anymore of a guess than that.

Enlighten me?

There is. The usual default is 0123 and I only see it in software. It's editable; not hardcoded like the MAC on all network card/radios (Wi-Fi).

Please forgive my incredibly dumb question here, and granted this could very well not be a thing, but technology for radios has changed since 1996 I have no clue: How does a repeater owner get around to banning someone? Is there some form of radio ID sent when you key up on one?

DMR IDs are only sent from/to whomever you contact. Most of the CPS requires an ID but the only purpose is to identify units on the same network.

The timing of this is perfect for me: I was listening in on a repeater and someone, that owns a different repeater, was driving through KY, (on a Ky repeater) trashing Ky. They are on a repeater in Ky, their repeater is in Ky, they live in Indiana and trash talk Ky. It was not the first time. So, I, politely, set the record straight; not on their repeater. They lost that zone, came back on their repeater and started trash talking me, personally, (because he assumed if he was out of range of the other repeater I would be out of range of his?) I told him I could hear him and he was just lying about what I had said. So, he threatened to ban me from his repeater and get every repeater around me to also ban me and I laughed. I sent out 'requests' in April, he replied with 'enjoy' to the official request and sent message saying he banned me, yesterday morning and saying he would talk to the other owners in the area... Threating me, again. Well. This is not about rude behavior, this is someone thinking they can group the repeater channels in the area and make them high school cliques. There are 8 channels for repeaters. The section cited is who is allowed 'control' over the equipment. Not the use of. It's America guys; you can broadcast on any frequency with any tone you are licensed to and if their, expensive, equipment cannot discriminate, I have no responsibility to spend a calorie changing the programming on my radio. I should post screenshots and email chains but let's see if they want to have their $0.02 here.

Yeah, I have to agree: seems to turn DMR into GMRS and not in the broader spirit of Ham Radio. But to each, their own...

ISM radios, such as the Motorola DLR200 DLR600 and DTR700 radios, for communicating with other radios you will need to know the Group Profile ID Number and have your radio programmed accordingly. For Direct Connect, you would need to know the 11-digit Private ID numbers of the radios you want to communicate directly with and have that info programmed in your radio. The radios do come with a factory default program and will communicate with other factory default programmed radios, but good luck and finding anyone with a factory default program when the SHTF that is nearby within no more than a mile. These radios cost almost $500.

I wonder how they link them. They won't tell me