GeeTee

Also, keep in mind, as you switch between GMRS and Ham, the memory channels and custom programing gets completely wiped. While you can switch between the two on the fly, keep the phone handy so you can quickly reload your settings after the switch. Wow! Thats REALLY great to know! Maybe I'll just talk to the "Minister of Finance" (My wife) and see if I can just keep these for GMRS, and buy the other set for Ham. They're much more affordable than back in my Ham days. I remember saving up for months just to buy Yaesu or Icom radios. marcpaz I appreciate your patience with me on this one. You've taken a lot of the frustration out of dealing with this. Do people still say "73's"? If they do, sending them your way! Have a blessed Sunday!

Posted 9 minutes ago My bad... I did mean PTT/*/Power on in the original post. (Humble apologies). I've been using the mobile ODMaster app to make changes. I downloaded it from the Google Play store a couple of days ago, so hopefully its the most up to date version. I did purchase a transfer cable so I could use the website to update from my pc if needed. What you're saying makes sense. Being new at this I may have inadvertently loaded the wrong firmware in the mobile app. I was going to try that cloning suggestion you gave me last night and use the unprogrammed radio to restore the one I've been playing with. I do want to have the capability of using Ham and GMRS at some point so I am going to return these radios. However, you've piqued my curiousity, and I am going to give your most recent suggestion a shot here in a few minutes. I greatly appreciate all the help! I'll let you know how it goes!

Quick update... I did confirm that somehow I did manage to purchase the GMRS "only" H3 Plus radios. The site says that the GMRS only version can be verified by a "G" in the FCC ID number which these radios have. That explains why I can't switch modes like the regular H3 and the Ham version of the H3 Plus. At this point I'm just going to return the radios and buy the Ham version of the H3 Plus. I was hoping at some point to get my Ham license back and use these for both Ham and GMRS. I still don't have a reason for why the first radio would boot up as an H8 instead of an H3 Plus. However, it's a moot point now. Thanks again for trying to offer assistance!

Ok, maybe I'm doing a poor job of communicating this..... so, lets start over. 1. Yes, I agree that IT is not radio... However I was a General class HAM operator for many years before I got out. Granted that was 20+ years ago and things were a whole lot different. Hell, I'm from the days of working alongside my dad swapping physical crystals into radios to get new frequencies. (I'm over 70) 2. I have stated that the hardware and firmware versions are identical (and the most current versions according to Tidradio website) on both radios. I never performed any firmware upgrades. I only programmed some additional channels and made some button changes (using ODMaster). 3. As for programming each of the 41 items in the radio setting menu, I used parts 1 and 2 of this video series from Youtube to manually adjust each radio setting. 4. I have attempted the PTT/*/power on process on both radios without success. I hope this makes things a little clearer. I just read on another forum that there are 2 different models of the H3 plus? One can change modes using the process described above. The other is GMRS only. Interestingly, when I connect to these radios via ODMaster, it will only read from the radio if I connect using the TD-H3 GMRS setting. Could this be the issue all along? Could it be that I am following instructions that were meant for the regular H3's that do not apply the H3 Plus GMRS only radio? Thanks for trying to help me I know this isn't exactly the perfect medium to try and convey what's going on. A phone or video call would probably work much better.

Thanks for the quick reply! I didn't want to write a novel on the first post, but I (think) have already done what you suggested. Does using the factory reset from the menus accomplish the same thing? I did the factory reset and wiped everything so it looked like it did out of the box. I then followed all the steps I did previously and went item by item through the menus to personalize the radio. The only thing I can say is that when I powered on the 2nd radio a few mins ago, it boots up with the TidRadio logo where the other one says welcome to H8. It seems I did screw the pooch somewhere. Where would I get this configuration file you speak of? I don't use Chirp but do use ODMaster to set up the radio to my liking. (buttons and adding some custom channels to monitor) As I think I mentioned, I checked the firmware and hardware version against the TidRadio website and the 2nd radio (which I haven't touched yet) and they match. I hope all of this makes sense? Is Chirp better than OD Master?

Decided after a 20 year absence from the Ham world that I would ease my way back in by trying out GMRS radios first. I picked up a couple of Tidradio TD-H3 Plus radios from Amazon because it sounded like they had all the features I wanted. I've lost track of how many programming videos I've watched, but I recently ran into something I am just stumped on. After much trial and error I thought I finally had everything set up the way I wanted. However, when I powered on my radio this morning I noticed that it now says, "Welcome TD-H8"????? The firmware and hardware versions have been verified as the latest for my H3 Plus. (Not an H8) As far as I can tell from numerous searches is that I must have fudged a setting somewhere? Does anyone have any idea as to why my radio would suddenly think it's an H8? Another question I had was that this radio was "supposed" to be switchable between Ham, GMRS, and Normal mode by using the BT, star keys and then turning on the power knob. I have been unsuccessful in getting it to come up as anything but a GMRS radio. Could this be related to the H8 displaying? It's also frustrating as I am a reitred IT specialist, and feel like I should be able to figure this out on my own. Any help you can throw this old man's way would be greatly appreciated.