Leaderboard

I bought this radio in January and after 3 months, I still really like it. This radio gives you what you need. High power of 50 watts, mid power 20 watts and low power 5 watts. Using a dummy load, the outputs have been right on the button. It is super easy to operate and easily programmable from the front panel, I have no need for software The transmit and receive audio are very good and, YES, you can choose wide band or narrow band. It does, however, lack a cooling fan and can warm up pretty quickly in a longer conversation. I can only hope that Midland took this into account when working out heat dissipation in the design. It IS expensive, but having fond memories of using Midland gear back in the 70's, I chose to go with them again. Pete WSGL709

I bought a hardside case from Amazon for (IIRC) $17-18. I use it for my "grab-and-go" field trip/travel kit. It contains 2 each AR-5RM radios, spare batteries, USB charging cables, 701 antennas, 771 antennas, tri-band antennas, and belt clips. Also 1 each user's manual, dual-port 12-volt USB power unit, dual-port 110-volt USB power unit, a tiny Phillips screwdriver (to install the belt clips), programming cable, and (for the sake of completeness), a USB drive with CHIRP and the program file for the radio on it. Wherever I go, I can pull out my laptop -- or even someone else's computer -- and put in all the local repeaters. Having two radios means I can give one of them to a friend or have a backup in case one goes down. It doesn't weigh much, and it seems to provide good protection. The radios have silicone sleeves for protection. I put them face-down so the other stuff doesn't scratch up the screens and there's a thin piece of foam under them just for added protection.

Actually it should be 15 minutes per regulations. And I agree that having any repeater ID without any traffic is a bit much. We have our GMRS repeater setup to ID every 15 minutes only when there is traffic on the repeater.

You would be surprised how many people get this point all wrong, repeater ID'ing. Where the mistake is usually made is in reading the rules and missing the two usage cases, the first where only users all operating under the repeater's owner's license, closed, and the second where the repeater is "open" for use by any licensed GMRS user. The first case is only users operating under the owner's license, and the only users allowed on it, closed, when they ID it is sufficient to ID the repeater. No self ID is required. The second requires the repeater to self ID using some kind of automated control using the repeater owner's id, either by voice using English, or by Morse code, at the intervals specified by the rules. It's not unusual to find general use, open, repeaters that fail to ID. Those are bad examples of what NOT to do, and are not operating per the FCC rules.

I was told by a (former) Midland Marketing person that this is by design - the entire chassis is a heat sink so a fan is not needed, but yes, you feel the heat. Also, beware that "some people" are going to leave ssstupid comments in this thread declaring that this radio "sucks", "is junk", it's too expensive, it's gimmicky, etc, etc, because it does not have the features that THEY think are important. So bear in mind that Midland did not design this radio for them, they designed it for normal people such as yourself that just need to talk to people while driving. Midland did not design this radio for losers that sit in the basement searching for anonymous men to chat with over the radio to brag about how many buttons or knobs their radio has.

Actually, if you look at RepeaterBook and MyGMRS public listings, you will see that use of CTCSS grossly outweighs DCS.

I prefer the H-8, simply because it's Larger and fit's my hand better... I can't do tiny radios lol!

I'm thinking he is taking all of the down votes as a compliment. Anyway. Don't be afraid to think outside the box for different ways to carry radios and gear. I was wanting a good case for my RigExpert Stick Pro and saw where others were using a hard side cordless toothbrush case. I ordered a case and it fits the RigExpert like a glove and protects it.

It's underused in my area, but apparently overused in some others. Either way,.I choose to develop habits of politeness so that when I'm away from home, I won't interfere with someone else's enjoyment of the airwaves. The Tragedy of the Commons is a real thing, and my refusing to participate in it won't actually make any difference where and when it's occurring, but it helps me respect the guy in the mirror.

Were you born such an annoying dick, or did you have to study for it? You actually know some helpful stuff. It's a shame you're so offensive that most people ignore your posts.

NaNa NoNo has spoken.

Or someone's got very tiny hands?

Whoopie,, $40 bucks to a better repeater

They need a banana for scale?

Well, that’s one of his problems.

At UHF, there isn't much discernable improvement, the radio body is more than enough counterpoise to the antenna. Now, when you get to low band VHF (50MHz) a tigertail counterpoise has the potential to provide significant improvement to compromised antenna systems.

You shouldn't be. That's one of the points of this forum, to ask questions.

When I get a used radio and program it, I will often put in a common frequency and label it as "TEST" instead of "Channel 1" That way, when I have the radio on my tuning bench, I know the frequencies (and codes) that are in the radio, and I know it hasn't been programmed to a customer frequency. I don't believe you are actually seeing a Test mode - ie: Something the radio is locked into. I believe you are seeing someone else's old programmed name for the first channel in the radios. Especially if the two radios talk to each other already. A Kenwood radio should drop into a "Program" message when you have the proper cable & software, and try to read or write the radio. Some of the older Kenwood software required you to run a regular Comm port (not USB) and the software only allowed a choice of Comm1 through Comm4 for serial ports. Trying to use a newer computer with old software can lead to some issues.

Hearing them talk a channel number between 15 and 22? If so, my guess, based on 1,000 other people asking the exact same question, is that you are hearing people talking on a repeater. They will not hear you until you configure your radio to transmit on the repeater. If not and you are hearing them on channels 1-14, then either they are using tones/codes so they cant hear you or, they just dont want to talk to you. Hope this helps!

Got an email there is a new TidRadio H3 Plus coming out next week. Its going to have over the old H3: -Odmaster app communication - Wireless Repeater signal relay - Bluetooth PTT - Screen refresh/update. Pricing looks the same and may be a bit bigger. https://tidradio.com/products/h3-plus-5w-bluetooth-radio?srsltid=AfmBOop7EgZljqaSGOCBI0lBh-vWv7PV47nWNNHr5GuX6FujMXDOKKoq

This was also my interpretation.

I assume that’s a typo?

How far apart are the two radios when you test? If they are closer than 50 feet, get at least 100 feet away and try again. PS: Welcome to the forum.

There are systems out there to consolidate multiple remote radios and control it by one device. I had one in my company car for about a year before I retired about 20 years ago.

That's the case I saw on the Baofeng site. I also remembered I have a hard case from 2014 that I got when I purchased a digital camera. I'm going to see how much I can get in it. I have two radios so would be nice to carry th 2nd one and accessories in the case. Thanks for posting.

My criticism is there are similar radios with the same features that cost less.

I prefer Menwith HIll. Great place to hear the Middle East from...

On the repeaters I use, it's not the norm to give a callsign at the end of every transmission. People typically use their callsign at the beginning and periodically (usually when the repeater IDs), then when they're finished with the conversation. I suppose it varies from one location to another. Things often become customary not because there's any requirement for it or even inherent logic in it, but just because it's what someone did and everyone else followed suit.

I didn't know him personally, but I knew of an airman who got caught using Air Force equipment to intercept his ex-wife's phone calls. His command was not amused. It ended badly for him. So, yes they can, and no they're not supposed to.

When available on the radio, I enable "Busy Channel Lockout". With this enabled on my mobiles and HTs it prevents me from transmitting on a busy channel and gives me a districtive error tone. So far I haven't experienced any downside to enabling this feature by default and should I suspect a problem it is easy to disable on the radio.

I've been on some other forums and I've read about issues like yours. In a few cases the radios got bricked. The Windows VM's seem to have some issues with serial port and USB port pass through at times. Have it mess up while programming a radio, or worse updating the firmware, could make for a very bad experience. I've had a mixed bag of luck using Chirp. Some radios it seems to do OK. Others it screws up good. Remember the guys who do the programming for the various radio models Chirp claims to support is done by reverse engineering the communications to the radio and figuring out how the code plug is "structured" internally. They don't always get it right, and if the manufacture changes somethings it can hose your radio. My general recommendation is to use the manufacturers official programming software where possible on the supported platform.

"Don Quixote in action" Submitted a filing to have the term networking removed from GMRS rules and clearer definitions of "Clear Speech", "Networking" and existing rule terminology. Final comments on Docket No. 25-133 are due by 04/28/2025. I am hoping this wont take years to determine.

This is probable for many of the ham or single band antennas, but some of the magic in the "all-band" HT antennas doesn't appear to be improved by a tiger tail. Though, to be honest, the radio bodies are significantly larger and involve much more metal than say a FT3DR or Woxun GMRS radio.

Sure a 6.5” 12g wire with a ring terminal inter the antenna will help but I never found it helps enough. I just use 771 antennas and have no issues with tx distance. With a short and stubby antenna they do help somewhat.

My 3D printed version.

Nice find!

"Some People" have CTCSS/DPL enabled on their receive channel that will prevent you to hear the other traffic thus, you will interfere with that traffic. It is the responsibility of all users to not interfere with other traffic and they should monitor to see if the channel is clear before proceeding. Most cheap Pandaland radios have a monitor button to use to see if the channel is clear, but that usually just momentary disables the receiver decoder and blows squelch noise. In order to properly monitor to see if the channel is clear you have to keep the button depressed for a few seconds and put up with the squelch noise. Real radios, like Kenwood, GE/Tyco/Ericsson/Harris, and Motorola, has a feature called PL Defeat or just Monitor, that will disable the receiver decoder, temporarily with a programmable switch or button, without putting up with the radio blowing squelch to allow you to see if channel is clear.

Nana NoNo hasn't heard of a term describing squelch tail? Oh, the horrors......

I have several Apache cases from Harbor Freight. They will work just fine to protect radios. I trust them enough to put my handguns in.

IF you have nothing NICE to say, then maybe you should just say NOTHING AT ALL, rather than make an ASS out of yourself !!

Wouxun's latest addition is the 935H which is identical in appearance to the 935G, but being a 3 Band radio for amateur radio with the 2meter/1.25 meter/70 cm bands, and with a 4 digit keypad trick it will also add Gmrs & Murs . Mine has been pretty flawless so far, and I like it alot. For those who hold both licenses, it's a nice addition.

TOTALLY wrong. Completely depends on the repeater owner and what they set. Many of our local repeaters have a dcs tone for in and a ctcss for out. Some of the others use digital only. So I wouldnt say most Maybe most of the ones you know of In your area.

Don’t feel like you need to go away. We like to argue minutiae.

On one of our trips I ended up using one of my wifes Yeti lunch coolers... figured I better get somthing designated. I ended up with this Go Pro case from amazon ($18). I use usb-c cables to charge and I can get three radios and cables or two radios and a small battery bank ($20). I got one for the Surecom, dummy, cables and adapters as well. I used some velcro strips to keep stuff where I want it. Probably something better out there but it was cheap and it works.

I didn’t mean to bring all the legalities of repeater ID to this. My GMRS repeater is closed; so I’m not worried about an ID on it. I just saw all the talk about ID’ing repeaters in the threads and thought I would ask. I’ll stop being a pain and go. Thanks for the replies. 73’s from WHOR500/KG4SAU

Wonder if they’ll also do an h8 plus??

So, are you experiencing this issue with zero output when you’re trying to transmit on 325 MHz? What about when you try to transmit on other frequencies: 2 meter, 70 cm, or GMRS frequencies?

Kind of like forum members that don't work very well.

I think a more proper term would be RF Frequency Storage Location Position Allocations... If we're going to over-complicate things, we need to overcomplicate theshit out of them at least as well as the H.A.M.s Radios operators do.

My wife and I are overlooking the Clark Fork River between Trout Creek and Thompson Falls. We're working on building a house on the property, though it's a long process. As far as I've found, there aren't any GMRS repeaters nearby, though there are a couple of low-powered ham repeaters that I can hit when I'm in town. As for GMRS, we use TidRadio handhelds around the property and have 50w Midland mobile radios in the vehicles.