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People are willing to pay for easy out of the box and reliable.

I think it is hilarious how "some people" so are completely incapable of grasping the simple fact that just because they dont like something, nobody else on the planet possibly could like it. As @marcspaz noted, many people are more than willing to pay for a simple, easy to use, no frills/no bells&whistles, "americanISH" product. Just because it is not the right choice for you does not mean it's not the right choice for someone else.

It's always nice to have choices. Midland radios are not for me but I also won't knock someone that likes them either. Nor will I degrade others for buying what they like or what they can afford. We all have different budgets and income levels. Go with what you like and don't worry about what others think of your choices. I see the same snobbish attitudes on the different firearms forums too. I'll stick with my Hi-Point carbine that is cheap, FUGLY, yet accurate and very reliable.

if your two radios are too close together when you test hitting the repeater, they could be desensing each other. Move them apart... like across the room if necessary... or get someone else to monitor the other radio further from your transmitting one.

They market to the Jeep crowd, including via event sponsorship. Excluding some quality issues with a couple of the recently introduced models, it seems like more of the complaints boil down to the limitations of the radios than something actually being "wrong" with the radios. Some of this may be attributable to their marketing, or just unmet expectations. Midland has their marketing down pat, and they do the simple "plug in and go" pretty well, and while they've improved on it with some recent models, they're still somewhat limited feature wise, especially for the price point....if they work for you as they are (and you're okay with the price), they aren't a bad choice.

Well, they did change their website to address it….

I just did a presentation on repeater etiquette at our club's monthly meeting last night. And that was one of the key points. I pointed out that you should always give your call sign on a couple of the Power Point slides. We have a guy that is notorious for doing that. He made the comment that he does it between 10-11 at night thinking that no one else is around. I politely informed him that some of us are night owls and do hear it. I would rather have someone using Roger Beeps or have a setting wrong that makes their radio squawk or make other noises at the end of every transmission than put up with a kerchunker. I bring up the squawk because we have a couple of guys using Baofeng and other CCR hand held that quack and man does that hurt my ears.

I like having some audible indication that the transmission has stopped, but I also find the roger beeps on my radios pretty unpleasant. What I've done on my gear is disabled the Squelch Tail Elimination option (tho it goes by a couple names...repeater tail elimination...even tho it works on simplex channels), which lets through a really brief burst (really, just a click) of static after the transmitter comes off the button, on the receiving radio. So, just another option that you can control on the receiving end, if you want that feedback, without adding a bunch of noise to your transmissions to those who might not want it.

Would you rather turn it on if it identified as Roger? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We have a member whose bypass switch was stuck open on the external microphone jack on his handheld, disconnecting the internal microphone. He didn’t know that. We discovered the problem when he tried to check in on our Net. The call went out for check-ins and we heard a full quiet dead silence followed by a beep. Because he was the only one of us who used a Roger beep we had some idea who it might be so one of our senior members called out to him by name with some suggestions. It turned out that by plugging in the external mike we were able to hear his voice. A week or so later he brought his radio to my house and I soldered a bridge across the stuck-open switch. If it hadn’t been for the Roger beep we wouldn’t have known who it was. So maybe we out to require that each radio include a unique Roger or Susan beep. My Alinco (Anytone inside) has the ability to customize the Roger beep with up to four separate tones. This could be fun.

But if you dont degrade others, how are you going to make yourself feel superior to them and show everyone how much of an expert you think you are?

I don’t understand your question. Are you looking for irregular guys?

After about two weeks using my 935H, I've tried to Nitpick faults or manufacturing oversights of it and have only compiled a few so far. 1. I have not found a mic gain setting in the menu anywhere. Wouxun could have omitted the Scramble feature for a mic gain. However, on a good note is seems to have Plenty of gain as is, on all 3 bands, so not a deal breaker. 2. The power supply uses a barrel connector on the Charging cradle and a wall wart to power it, where as USB-C would have been nicer ... But on the other hand I've noticed the the wall wart supplies enough current while charging the radio, that you Can still power the radio, and even Scan while in the cradle and Still charge the battery. My Yaesu FT70 won't allow it, during charge. 3. No Zone option on the 935H, but can be be dealt with by some programming voodoo. 4. No Bluetooth programming on the fly option, but then again, Not many on the market have this option yet. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with it so far. I purchased the premium data cable and a Second battery for it as well. buytwowayradios.com asked me to review it, so I probably will.

That sounds good! Congratulations!

A facepalm, or banging head on the desk comes to mind, especially when I'm failing especially badly at the touch keyboard

You don’t have to enter the TX transmit frequency if you’re using a GMRS radio and you have selected one of the repeater channels (which you have!) but you do have to make sure that you have entered the proper CTCSS tone or DCS code that the repeater requires or the repeater wil, just ignore any signal it receives from you. No, kerchunking the repeater is not a very reliable way to confirm that you’re activating the repeater, especially if you’re relatively inexperienced. The best way is to push the PTT, say your call sign, and ask for a radio check.

It is a squawk, not a beep. Let the squawks begin. Some repeater owners are using MDC-1200 signalling as a requirement for accessing their repeaters. Besides the voice modulation you hear on the radio, it is normal for the radio to emit various types of noises, like static, intermod, MDC squawks, hetrodyne of multiple transmissions, squelch tails, and simulcast overlaps. If you don't like the various noises, turn off the radio and go turn on your computer and communicate with VOIP.

My Roger beep identifies as Susan, so I don’t turn it on.

I occasionally turn the Roger Beep on just to aggravate my friends and fellow club members that get bothered by hearing it. Otherwise I couldn't care less. Some will give you trouble for using a Roger Beep on any of our repeaters but we also do not ban the use of a Roger Beep.

You can get the Icom IC-2730A for $310 at DX Engineering and Giga Parts. And if you are interested in having the MARS Mod done, Giga Parts only charges $35 for the mod if you have them do it at the time of purchase of the radio. I replaced the TH-7800 in my shack with the IC-2730A. I'll eventually replace the TH-7800 in my vehicle with another IC-2730. I currently am using one of the TH-7800 radios strictly for Winlink and it will go into a go box along side my Xiegu G90.

I guess this is a great time to announce that I will be putting my NotARubicon "Ranchino" repeater back on Zello (just waiting for one more part to ship) AND, as an added bonus, will also be linking it over the internet to my buddy's repeater located in the Glendale area.

The radios are usually much more equal. The differences are more often in the antennas, the antenna mounting, coax and the users themselves.

The roger beep originated with the U S Space Program in the 1960's. There were no radio services that I'm aware of. Sometime in the early 1980's, someone came up with device be installed in CB radios. The rest is history,

I have to agree with @SteveShannon on this. I just tested my Q10H with a Wouxun hand mic and it works just fine. I have also used headsets. with my Q10H and 935G and they work fine with both radios. One thing to remember is that the hand mic will only transmit on the channel set in the top area (A) when you have dual channel display. It will not transmit on the area B channel if it is selected. Another issue when using a hand mic or headset is that no matter if you change the two PTT buttons on the radio, the hand mic or headset will still only transmit as if you are using PTT 1 button (bottom PPT button) So lets say that you have PTT 1 set for area B and PTT 2 set for area A, the hand mic/headset will only transmit on what area PTT 1 is set for in the radio's settings.

GMRS is definitely a Bring Your Own Friends service, especially when out in the desert.. We do off-roading/Rock Crawling in JV all the time (will be near there tomorrow).. Keep an eye out for the big orange jeep and say hello - we'll be on channel 16, the official off-road GMRS channel..

This sounds exactly correct.

OK --- I see the suffix options in Chirp, but without it, trying to program the HTs on the keyboard --- nope; all you get is "N"s. Sooooooooooooooooo .... I'll try to understand what I just learned. Thanks --- there will be more questions someday.

HERE WE HAVE... THE COMET GP-9 DUAL BAND BASE ANTENNA GMRS COPPER ANTENNA THE COMET CA- 712EFC 460-470 MHZ BASE/REPEATER ANTENNA ED FONG GMRS J-POLE BASE ANTENNA

From where the repeater is on the map, less than 3 miles and it shows about 10 miles range

Agreed, if it does not say there is an output tone for your RX... you should only put the TX in. If they do say there is an RX tone on the output... well then you can choose to put it in to ONLY hear things from that repeater.. or leave it off to hear anything else that might be on that frequency as well.

Personally I find the squelch tail burst of static almost more "unpleasant" than a beep... but I'm so used to either of them that it really does not phase me or matter to me anymore. It's just part of using two way radios at this point.

My thanks to everyone who has assisted with unraveling this mystery. Just to dive a little deeper down the rabbit hole; I'm not sure that the CPS for the GM-30 and the GM-30 Plus are the same software. I am utilizing the OEM software from Radioddity website, for the GM-30 Plus - along with the cable supplied for this radio when purchased. After a lot more troubleshooting, I'm left thinking that there is some glitch between my PC (running current Win 10 OS, VPN, security suite, drivers, etc.) and the CPS / radio connection. Although everything looks good at the onset, something interrupts the connection leaving the CPS to fault / fail without reading from the radio. I've initiated a discussion with Radioddity's support staff but haven't discovered anything that would lead to correcting this issue - so far. Disappointing having a new radio and not being able to program it with the PC. I'll keep this thread updated if there is any further positive results. Thanks again for your time and suggestions.

Thanks so much! I'll take the "relatively inexperienced" as a compliment! I'm determined to figure this out.

Connecting the repeaters to Zello does violate the FCCs rules.. But, nobody really cares, including the FCCs, which has never done anything about the hundreds or thousands of internet-linked GMRS repeaters out there.

I've went round and round with Siri and whenever I have called her a dirty name, she just laughs at me and really messes up what I have types. Siri is pure evil. The issue I had with the MXT500 I owned was that it had low power even set to high. And I don't care for how the Midland radios with everything in the hand mic cannot be programmed using a computer. That is more of a personal preference for me since they are pretty easy to program through the radio itself. Midland radios are fine for those that want a simple radio that works right out of the box and they don't want/need all of the bells and whistles. I'll stick with Wouxun radios for Part 95 certified radios as they have all worked well for me. PS: I double checked everything to make sure Siri did not change anything before hitting the reply button.

Welcome to the insanity...

Use it if you want. It’s your radio and there are no rules prohibiting it. It makes no difference. I don’t understand why anyone is bothered by it, but they should get over it. Edited to add: some repeater owners don’t want Roger beeps on their repeaters. Follow their wishes when using their repeater.

Wouldn’t have happened if Hezbollah had removed the batteries …

I feel your pain. When asked how far my HT will go I usually reply, "Half a mile, two if you're lucky." My 25W mobile with a mag mount is another story.

Well, I may have found the lower limit. This afternoon, I tried to work that repeater 20 miles away with 1 watt and a 2.5" antenna. I could key the repeater, but nobody responded to my call, which usually means nobody can hear/understand you because there's always someone listening to that repeater. I have done it with 5 watts and a 2.5" antenna, but for 1 watt, a 701 seems to be as low as I can go. It's been a fun experiment, though. Just now, I got into the 70cm repeater 20 miles away and the signal report was "almost full quieting" using a 2 watt Arcshell AR-5 with its stock rubber duck antenna. The Arcshell is practically disposable, so if you spend $300,000 in the right location, you too can work a 20 mile repeater with a $10 radio.

A heavy forest and flat ground is almost the worst case for uhf. And although I’m one who over generalizes that a person will typically not notice the difference between 3 watts and 5 watts, that’s not in all instances. I could definitely see it making a difference getting through woods or other material that attenuates the signal rather than outright blocking them. If power were completely meaningless we could all get by with 100 milliwatts. I made a contact hundreds of miles away last night on ham radio. I was using 800 milliwatts on 10 meters when I did it. It was an accident and I was busy trying to figure out why my RF output was at 0.8 watts at the time. Of course conditions must have been just right and once I figured out my mistake and started operating at nearly 50 watts I was getting contacts faster than I could handle.

A good location is everything of course! I'm in the middle of a heavy forest on flat ground for 10's of miles around and people just don't seem to believe me when I say most HT's won't do more than a mile HT to HT here. I get "your doing something wrong...your radio's garbage" or similar stmts...ok I Invite you here with whatever HT you got I guarantee you won't do better. When people say there's no difference in a 3w HT vs 5w HT...i beg to differ as it makes a huge difference here in the woods. I've tested many brands on various services HAM VHF/UHF,MURS,GMRS,Business some expensive motoroalas to cheap baofangs. My HAM HT has a diamond SRJ77CA and the GMRS HT's have a 771G Naygoya those antennas also help quite a bit in range in the heavy forest with a 5.5w HT and one of those antenna's I can usually get 1.5-1.75mi HT to HT here before the sound quality drops off significantly. I can hit a GMRS repeater 18mi and another HAM VHF 26mi away from my HTs if I'm in very particular spots but move 5' or turn around while talking and it's all over. If I could get an antenna above the canopy I could go for miles. To get good full quieting and reliable signal on the repeaters though I have to use a 50w base station, the GMRS uses a 6 element yagi and the HAM one has a diamond base U/V ant mounted mid-canopy height to clear the ground scrub but not be in the canopy itself. To get out of the canopy I'd need 110' tower and I'm not doing that. So a "bad" location proves your point. But the reality is most people can't (or won't) do much about their location unless your really an uber radio dork and willing to move just to be in a better radio location.

Why not? These aren’t nuclear secrets.

What, exactly, are you confused about? What is it you are not able to do? FIND repeater? USE repeaters? Something else?

Hey Kenny... I appreciate the recommendation, but I will never buy a Rugged Radio. They have such bad products and reputation for poor quality. Everyone I ever knew personally who owned one, it was broken in some way shape or form and none of them ever made anything close the the power they claim... like 4 or 5 watts on max instead of 50w, kind of stuff. Also, that they have been cited for unlawfully marketing radios in violation of marketing rules. I'd rather steer clear. https://www.fcc.gov/document/eb-issues-citation-rugged-radios-equipment-marketing-violations

I discovered the company TIDRADIO when I purchased their H8 model which, as many of you know, had some very real problems but, to the surprise of many, TIDRADIO not only did not deny the problems but, instead, they tried really hard to listen to their customers and they fixed the problems which were reported. It took them two attempts, but they eventually succeeded. Not only that, but they replaced the early production models with fixed ones, at no cost to the client. Many, including myself, were very impressed with how TIDRADIO turned what could have been a major problem into a major success. Clearly, TIDRADIO listened and swiftly acted to correct the issues identified. I was so impressed by not only the company, but also by the H8 model which came packed with superb capabilities, especially for an extremely competitive price, that I contacted TIDRADIO and offered to beta-test their pre-production models. TIDRADIO quickly and kindly agreed and sent me their latest H3 which I shall review below. The TIDRADIO H3 and H8 As you can tell from the photo above, the H3 very much looks like the “smaller brother of the H8”. But that would not at all be fair to the H3 which, while being amazingly small, packs a lot of awesome features. But let’s begin with one of the features which made TIDRADIO HTs so popular: both the H8 and the H3 offer three different boot-up modes: GMRS, HAM and “unlocked”. Just to clarify, each time you change the boot-up mode, you are doing a factory reset, so if you program your radio in one mode and then boot up in a different mode, all your changes will be lost. There is, of course, an easy workaround here. Two in fact: if you use the CHIRP free and open source software or the ODMASTER app and website, you can quite easily copy your frequencies/channels into the memory banks of the H3 (which has 199 memory slots, more than enough, at least for me). Both the H8 and the H3 can also be programmed by Bluetooth using the ODMASTER app. Both CHIRP and ODMASTER offer access to repeater databases, but for me the best results were achieved by using the “query→repeaterbook” option in CHIRP. [Note: I have found it helpful to, after I am done with CHIRP, to also connect to the radio with the ODMASTER app just to double-check some buggy aspects of CHIRP which, for examples, messed up my TX power settings when cloned back to the radio. One simple “read” in ODMASTER followed by a single “write” fixed that issue for me] I should mention here that the H8 and H3 have different RX/TX capabilities: H8: 144-148 & 420-450MHz (TX) and 76-108 MHz (FM Broadcast Radio); 136-174 & 400-520MHz (RX) H3: 8 Band Receiving: ( FM )50-76MHz; ( AM )76-108MHz; 108-136MHz; ( VHF ) 136-174MHz; 174-350MHz; 350-400MHz; ( UHF ) 400-470MHz; 470-600MHz and 2 Band Transmitting: ( VHF )144-148MHz; ( UHF )420-450MHz The fact is that while both the H8 and the H3 have the same transmitting capabilities, the H3 comes with a galore of extra frequencies, including Airband! So, as you can tell already, the H3 is hardly a “little” brother to the H8 but a very capable radio in its own right. While the radio is small, which is a big advantage and very convenient, it also feels very solid and well built. All the buttons function smoothly and having them backlit keyboard is a very good choice. The only suggestion I have would be to change the color of the characters on the buttons from white on blue to bright yellow over blue as that would make it easier to read the characters. The battery has a very long life time and fits very snugly into the radio. The stock antenna seems to be of a very decent quality and it is well built. The sound of the speaker is very good. No problems here. The choice of a single top rotating power switch/volume control, a flashlight and two indicators is a very good layout, I just wish the knob was a little stiffer to rotate. The flashlight itself seems decent, but the light is too widely dispersed and should be better focused by a better lens. The H3 does not have any IP rating, but it seems very well built. Don’t go swimming with it, but it should fare just fine in light rain, dust or sand (especially if you cover the two USB-C port with a small plastic plug). I was unable to test the USB-C programming slot. While CHIRP could “see” the H3 when I used a regular programming cable, I could not get my computer to “see” the radio when connected to the internal USB-C programming slot. This might be a GNU/Linux specific issue, I don’t know. The USB-C charging, however, works very well. As I mentioned, the ability to boot into different modes is a true “killer feature” which I hope all future TIDRADIO radios will retain. I did most of my testing in the “normal” (unlocked) mode but I tested booting up in GMRS and that works very well. I tested the Odmaster and CHIRP programming with the H3 (using Android and GNU/Linux) and I have had zero problems. Both applications work really well (though in my case, only when using a regular programming cable). The ability to copy and paste between various modes (HAM to GMRS or GMRS to HAM) allows the user to configure the radio to exactly his needs. The user manual is well written and the radio’s menu system works well, but there are 3 menu items which are missing from the user manual: #52 (200 TX) #53 (350TX) AND #54 (500TX).I also suggest that option #34 (frequency hopping) should be given an explanation on how to use it and what to use it for. I find the implementation of the AM mode clumsy. Why not have it immediately activated when on the airband? The “selective scan frequency” is still very “raw”. For example, the frequency scanner seems to start on the last frequency it detected. This is not good. I also hope that future software updates will add an option to give the scanner a starting frequency. The FM radio is adequate, but it has zero ability to scan. When scanning in the FM mode, I could not get it to detect a single FM radio station. So the current firmware still could use some fixing, and I am confident that TIDRADIO will fix these issues in future updates. I admit being very impressed by the H3 which is among my top favorite radios which, considering its price, is a huge achievements. The H3 currently sells for $39.99 on Amazon. For comparison, my Wouxun KG-935G Plus now costs $149.99, my Btech GMRS Pro cost $154.89, my Wouxun KG-UV9GX $187 and my Wouxun KG-Q10G now sells for a whopping $219.99 (and it has at least as many bugs as the H3 including a basically useless GPS receiver). FYI, the 2nd Gen TIDRADIO TD-H8 now sells for $69. So for 110 bucks, you can get both the TIDRADIO H8 and the TIDRADIO H3! Then I want to return to the form factor: the H3 is really very small, fits in a pocket, yet it is very strong, it has this solid quality feel, and the color screen is superb and very well designed. And while the H3 is both smaller and cheaper than any of my other radios, it is the one I mostly carry around. Could the H3 be improved upon? I think so. First, it would need to be made “outdoors” compatible, which means a decent IP rating and a GNSS chip: the Wouxun KG-Q10G only have a GPS chip, the Btech Pro has a chip which can receive both GPS and Beidou signals, which is better, but still not the full GNSS (which combines GPS+GLONASS+Beidou+Galileo). Nowadays GNSS chips are cheap and small, and the first HAM/GMRS radio featuring a real GNSS chip would have an immense advantage over all its competitors (much faster acquisition and much superior precision). All in all, the H3 is an absolutely fantastic radio with a huge potential and TIDRADIO/ODMASTER are a company which tries really hard to offer very capable radios at unbeatable prices. I can definitely recommend both the H8 and, especially, the H3.

I am extremely well known in the tech world. Not because of things like YouTube or forums, but because of the work I do. So, I have had some unique opportunities and have some test equipment that most people don't have. Not sure what else to say. I didn't mention the KG-1000G. Although I did test that radio, too. I said I had test results from the MXT500 and the Yaesu FTM-300DR, the the Midland was better. I didn't say i did a head to head, because i didn't. I have no video, pictures or anything else. I wasn't comparing them. Over the years, I tested lots of radios on separate occasions. I happened to reference the results if these two a couple of times in a few threads here, because I found them unusual. The reason I tested the Yaesu was because I was having receive problems and was hoping to align it... but I ended up sending it to Yaesu for repair. The numbers I shared were after the repair. My results after the repair matched (close enough) to what is advertised in the owners manual... From the manual "0.2μV for 12dB SINAD (420 - 470 MHz, @FM)" I have no pics, video, etc., because I was just doing it for me and my own benefit. I don't typically post tech stuff on YouTube. Especially bland stuff like Yaesu doing a repair for me. As far as the Midland goes, at a completely different time, maybe a year later, I got a pre-release MXT500 model through a friend who is a pro offroader and was sponsored by them at the time. I bench tested it for sharing information here and it was trash. I spent a couple of weeks working with Roger French at Midland to get it squared away. When it came back, he emailed me a test sheet that included the 12 dB SINAD and SQ4 test results. So I confirmed them at home, too. I didn't video record or photograph any of that testing either, because it's way outside the understanding of most people who come to this forum. We have a lot of new users who just want to know if it's any good and don't need to get in the weeds. While I didn't share much on the KG-1000G, again months apart from any of the other two, I tested that radio for entirely different reasons. Danny Feemster from Cricket Ventures was working with Wouxun to develop the KG-1000G. The radio they sent me was a prototype that was essentially a heavily modified KG-UV980P. It was the only one in existence at the time and I had to send it back after about a week. That was a fantastic radio. I've actually been blessed with being asked by a global tech company to test another prototype just a few weeks ago, though I can't disclose those details yet. Should be interesting to some, when it does get shared. While I still have my test gear, I don't have any of these radios anymore. It's been years in some cases. I can't duplicate the tests without spending a ton of money... not worth it. Seems like you have your mind made up that I'm a liar about doing any testing myself... which I find some irony in. I have no problem steering clear.. but I'm pretty sure if you post some BS, you can expect to get called out again. I tried... just not going to bother anymore.

Although GMRS is in the name of the site, the site also caters to ham radio interests. Radio is radio. If you’re so up-tight that the inclusion of helpful information about a radio triggers you, then you probably aren’t getting much enjoyment out of anything. Learn to ignore posts about non-GMRS radios.

@offroaderx Affirmative! Get the license so we have more happy hams! 73 de AI7KS <beep>

So far the vote is roughly 790 NAY to 30 YAY. StinkFinger OUT, over <beep>