Imply4907

I mean, if you know someone or a shop that installs aftermarket sound systems, that's who I'd lean on for install help. I've got a friend who does it, so for me, it's no big deal. (Also, my cars are out of warranty). To me, it's not much different than a car sound system. The major differences are (a) power: it seems like a lot of these radios need to go direct to a battery power post and negative to a good ground point (b) antenna cabling: the antenna needs to penetrate the car which might lead to water/weather issues. That's my take. YMMV.

I've heard that the best electronic designs consider operating temperatures and humidity. That being said, YMMV. There seems to be a broad range of experiences. What I've said is probably nothing new to people familiar with electronics.

There's a very accessible repeater in my area which occasionally the users get a little long-winded. But everyone's friendly and generally respectful. They use their call signs. Good order. I also get to use the nice repeater for free! When using repeaters, I do use my call sign often and try to be on the brief side of my transmissions. On simplex, with my family, I tend to be a little more loose with the call sign rules. Some of them are using FRS radios. I'm using the interstitial narrow band channels of the frequency. Fortunately, my area's not too crowded with FRS/GMRS. Add: I've noticed areas like Mooresville (I-77) and Charlotte (I-77, I-85, etc.), the GMRS/FRS frequencies are much more used.

@TrikeRadio Eventually, when I get my AR license I'll try it. Right now I restrict myself to GMRS. I truly appreciate the help and suggestions. I ended up sending back the U5R's and buying two more TD-H3 "GMRS" models for other people in the family. The only thing I don't really like about the "H3" is that when dropped, the battery comes off rather easily. I think for the price and size, the 2408__ software is decent. I see someone saw newer firmware. I'll have to check out the features and bug fixes and decide whether I want to re-image the EPROM.

@SteveShannon By "unlocked", if you mean "Normal" mode, then "no". I am using GMRS mode. But I did find that it worked if I used a slot between 31 and 54. I think I used 42. Hallelujah!

@LeoG, that might have been the issue. I may have overlooked it in the owner’s manual about the transmit channel slot limitation. I will have to find it and confirm. But I was able to program GMRS 1 on slot 43 on the keypad with some CTCSS tones and it appeared to transmit. I’m out on the road and can’t test thoroughly. Thank you for the tip.

I see people install alternate firmware on H3's. Maybe I should consider it? I don't know. I'm pretty new with these radios (not software and firmware, though).

Oh gosh! So I used CHIRP and it programmed the frequencies wrong on the radio! I figured I'd use CHIRP since it's a bit deeper. I attached pictures. I read the radio, inserted a line at slot 22, copied slot 1 (GMRS ch. 1) to empty slot 22. Then I changed the name and added the tone. Wrote back to the radio (I didn't save the image). I noticed I could transmit on 22, but I also noticed that the frequencies didn't go in the way I programmed them. I am on a pretty new version of CHIRP (not the bleeding edge) but not more than 2 weeks old.

That's pretty succinct, @SteveShannon. thanks

Side question, what's the standard way to express when I mean a channel on my radio model vs. a channel within the band? Thanks in advance. e.g. there are 22 GMRS channels in the GMRS band. My TIDRADIO model TD-H3 handheld transceiver (HT) radio has 199 channels (which varies from model to model)

Hi @TrikeRadio and @LeoG I also observed the phenomenon at HT Channel 100, which is clearly outside of the 31-54 range that @TrikeRadio mentioned (he was guessing). But I am going to re-read the posts as I just skimmed over them. I'm interested in the "skip" feature. When using Odmaster, that's not an option. In Odmaster, I use the same frequency for both TX and RX. Has anyone been able to replicate my situation with his/her TD-H3? Best regards, Jim

Thats interesting. Almost like the fact that I have a repeater frequency (radio channel 26) in the line of channels in between my channel 1 and my channel 31 that is interfering with my ability to TX on 31? (thanks for considering my situation!) as a workaround, I moved to the low powered GMRs/FRS channels in the 8-15 range since I use those less. I don’t have any custom repeaters sharing that channel. I’m having a hard time explaining it. last night I used CHIRP over a USB cable and tried a few things with duplex off and what have you before I moved to the FRS channel range that so mentioned in the previous paragraph. BTW, TIDRADIO has not replied to my request. I gave them the URL to this post.

Update: I put an inquiry in to the nice people at TIDRADIO.

It's the HAM version but its running in GMRS mode. I only have my GMRS license at this time.

What I described appears to be a limitation of the TD-H3 and not the 5RM as I just tested a similar scenario on the Baofeng.