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I don't know radios but I do know software, so I'm gonna nerd out for a minute: No, as you noticed, sorting numbers stored in a text field does not always return useful results. Fields in a database have a specific type - numeric fields can only have numbers, text fields can only have text, then you've got stuff like dates, timestamps, booleans (true/false which is sometimes stored as 1 or 0). You can't have combinations of types in a column in most databases so if you have text and numbers in a list, everything is stored as text and the sorting has to go by character value, which is when you wind up with "111" coming before "9" just because of the first character in the string. And if you do manage to squash two lists together and end up with text and numeric values (like [67, 77, "Unlisted"]), the software is probably going to complain that your array can't be converted to a common type or it'll do something weird like calculate a numeric value for "Unlisted" based on the numeric value of each character or turn the numbers back into strings, and then you're back to a weird sort order. It's dumb sometimes and we know it's dumb, but that's how this stuff works. That said, there's three common ways to implement a sort that does what you want it to do: One way is to pad out your numbers so they're always a fixed number of digits ("77 Hz" becomes "077.0 Hz", "251.4 Hz" can stay as is) so that the hundreds digit is always there to be sorted first, making string sorting work correctly. This lets you use pull values straight out of the database without doing anything extra behind the scenes to sort it, but it's still a little janky because most people don't use leading zeroes when writing out numbers and you'll end up with DPL and CTCSS tones mixed in because "071 DPL" and "077.0 Hz" both come before "251.4 Hz". You could flip stuff around like 'DPL 071' and 'Hz 077.0' or put a prefix like 'CTCSS 077.0 Hz' to enforce grouping, but that doesn't always look right, either. Second way is to store your numeric values in separate fields - CTCSS becomes its own numeric column, DPL becomes its own column, and then you use something like 0 for "No Tone" and null for Unlisted. You can tack on ' Hz' or ' DPL' in the display. This works if you don't mind having multiple columns instead of a single one - would probably work for RX/TX tones as long as you don't mind having four columns instead of two (CTCSS Rx, CTCSS Tx, DPL Rx, DPL Tx instead of just Rx and Tx). Last way (and probably the best if you want a single display column) is having a hidden index for the values that is numeric, and then you sort by that index - you could map CTCSS frequencies directly ("77.0 Hz" becomes 77) and assign text values obviously high/low values to force them to be at the top or bottom of the list. Unlisted would end up as 999999 if you want it to be last when you sort by ascending, or -999999 if you want it to be first. That gets stored in a separate table and then you do a little magic behind the scenes to sort the list by index before being displayed. This also lets you do do stuff like grouping - you can stick a numeric prefix on things so they're always together. If you pad out all the numbers so they're 6 digits, you can make your CTCSS tones start with 100 (so "77.0 Hz" becomes 100077) and your DPL tones start with 500 ("071 DPL" becomes 500071), when you sort, your CTCSS and DPL tones will always be in their 100xxx and 500xxx groups. Plus you can do stuff like custom sort orders - giving "No Tone" an index of 0 and "Unlisted" an index of 999999 lets you put them at the start and end of the list, with all the numeric values in between. This looks a lot cleaner and you have more control over your sort order but now you have to maintain a table of index/display values, so if you have a column with values A, B, C and indexes of A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, and someone wants to add a record with value D, you have to remember to add D = 4 to the the index list or you'll end up with a null index value and it gets displayed in an unexpected spot in the list (usually first). No idea what the software currently supports, but implementing any of the solutions are going to have trade-offs. The good thing about GMRS tones is its a fixed list of values so there wouldn't be much maintenance of the index, but implementing it in the first place is probably a bit of a hassle. Dealing with this kind of stuff is why they pay me the big medium bucks. Anyway. That's a lot of text to say "yes, storing numbers in a text field gets weird when you sort them and we know it sucks and there are ways around it but it might not be worth dealing with it". Thank you for coming to my TED Talk and letting me rant about sorting instead of working.

That's a perfectly normal sort order... for a text/string field. It's comparing by character, your descending sort looks for Z-A then 9-0. "9" is greater than "12345".

Neat! I've never been great at soldering, so I guess I'm going to have to learn. I've patched up some wiring harnesses but the few attempts I've made to fix small electronics usually ends up with the magic smoke escaping from the circuit boards. I'm more comfortable with macro level heat, like using a blowtorch to loosen a stuck bolt (and then shearing the head off it anyway).

Out of curiosity, I took a general practice test with zero prep the other day and got maybe five questions right so I didn't think I should waste the test team's time today. I'll study for it and try in a few weeks once I've got that work cert knocked out. Ouch, you're not kidding. I've bought motorcycles for less than some of the base transceivers I saw over at DX Engineering. Though to be fair, one of the bikes was like $600 and was older than me. We bought a bag of split pea soup mix to make with leftover ham from Christmas, and then we forgot to make it.

Thanks! I'm excited. There's a couple of amateur radio clubs in the area and I might be in range of their repeaters. I was also reading about POTA, which sounds kind of cool given the number of state parks and USFS land around here. (Not a lot of SOTA activity in Indiana, unsurprisingly.) The GMRS repeater stays pretty active with a handful of locals. I thought the french onion soup thing was funny - I didn't have my GMRS license yet so I couldn't discuss broccoli cheddar soup supremacy.

I've been listening to the old dudes on the local GMRS repeater talk about french onion soup and basketball (separate conversations) for too long and decided I need different soup conversations*, so I took my technician exam today. Got 33/35. Thanks, hamstudy.org! The proctoring team told me I should study for the general while this test still fresh, so that's the next goal. I have a certification exam I need to study for at work, but... that's not as much fun. *the french onion soup conversation was the first thing I heard on the local repeater but the actual catalyst for getting an amateur radio license was I managed to catch some transmissions from the ISS a couple of nights ago. I was reading about how you could contact the ISS on 2m/70cm bands and then discovered the ISS was directly overhead. Ran outside with a HT and managed to catch what I assume were packet transmissions. Now I want to talk to a space station. 8 year old me would think it's the coolest thing ever. 42 year old me still thinks it's pretty rad. Maybe someone up there prefers broccoli cheddar soup.

See, the key is to forget to enter your PTO until the day before you leave, and then nobody knows your plans! Managers hate this one simple trick! (It's me. I'm the manager... who still needs to submit a PTO request.) I'm not stoked about my callsign being publicly tied to my name and address, but that's mostly because I figured it would get immediately scraped and sold off to some less than scrupulous advertising firms. It also just feels weird, like handing everyone at the bar a copy of your drivers license, but those are the rules we agreed to play by, I guess.

Same issue here - I programmed one radio, did a wireless copy to the rest, and at least two batteries were charged in the charging stand while attached to a radio. So all four have the same setup, two were charged while attached and turned on, and no idea which one the dead one was because they all look the same and I wasn't smart enough to number them beforehand. They do seem to be aware of the battery charging issue - at the bottom of the "we're shipping you a new radio" email, they added this at the bottom:

Just as a quick update: I contacted TIDRadio about it and they sent me a new unit. Confirmed the new one outputs 5W with a dummy load and a 771 antenna. If nothing else, their customer support was pretty responsive and got this handled in a reasonable timeframe.

I was actually reading your thread while I was messing with mine and the SWR meter this morning. Seems I fared better than you with 3 out of 4 units working. I'm trying to file a warranty claim on the janky one (I assume they'll get back to me on Monday) since I'm outside of the Amazon return window. I'll probably hang onto mine and use them as loaners or something if I ever get nicer radios.

@SteveShannon Ah, beans. That's what I figured but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something simple. Thanks for your help! @Socalgmrs Interesting, I'll have to read up on that. What's not accurate about the SWR on a handheld and would they typically read high or low on an HT? I got the meter just make sure I didn't have anything Obviously Wrong (like low/no wattage or abnormally high SWR) even if it wasn't particularly accurate. Regarding the repeater, I'm about 25 miles out from it. Listening with a second radio, the repeater acts like like someone kerchunked it (I think that's the term). I'm not sure I have clear line of sight to the tower so I figured there's just too many obstructions for a 5W handheld to deal with. A little disappointing but I'm not too concerned. Gives me an excuse to build a base station sometime down the road.

Hello! I'm new to mobile radios so I want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong before I send my radio in. I've got four TIDRadio H3s, two GMRS units and two ham units that were unlocked and changed to GMRS mode. I've been trying to hit a local repeater unsuccessfully so I picked up a Surecom SW33 to make sure my radios/antennas are actually working correctly. Three of the four are showing a VSWR around 1.4 and an output wattage around 5W with the same antenna so I think I'm just too far out from the repeater to hit it. The problem is the fourth radio (one of the ham units) doesn't show anything on the SW33 when transmitting. Other radios can hear it transmit short range - I've tested it on simplex channels across the house and through some walls but nothing long distance - but the SW33 is acting like it's not doing anything. (Edit: Should note I also tried it with the 50 ohm dummy load that came with the meter and still got no output reading.) Are there other things I can check or change in my test setup or was this radio DOA and needs to be replaced? (Side question: regarding forum etiquette, should I have piggybacked off GrouserPad's similar thread for this or was starting a new thread appropriate?)