Radio Compatibility

[WSHH887]

So I'm ready to move up on my handhelds. But lately I've seen posts about one brand not communicating with some others. So this seems to throw another dimension into radio selection. 
 

Are there models that are less prone to such things?  Also, I should mention, at this point in my journey I am not concerned about "unlocking" the radios. When I get to the point of wanting to deal with Ham frequencies I will just get a license and buy appropriate radios. 

[WRUE951]

10 minutes ago, WSHH887 said:

So I'm ready to move up on my handhelds. But lately I've seen posts about one brand not communicating with some others. So this seems to throw another dimension into radio selection. 
 

Are there models that are less prone to such things?  Also, I should mention, at this point in my journey I am not concerned about "unlocking" the radios. When I get to the point of wanting to deal with Ham frequencies I will just get a license and buy appropriate radios. 

no problem unless you start using talk groups, Digital and other special features of a given radio.  I use Hytera which is compatible with a lot of Motorola stuff but not all.  As far as analog use strictly, , no problem with compatibility between different brands.  

[WRDJ205]

1 hour ago, WSHH887 said:

So this seems to throw another dimension into radio selection. 

A lot of these complications are likely related to privacy tones or something similar.   I have radios from several different companies and have not had any issues.  (Wouxun, Tidradio, Motorola, and yes, too many Baofengs)

[dosw]

A true GMRS radio is not that complicated; you switch to a channel (1-22), make sure that neither radio has tones enabled, and then just start talking. If you add a tone (CTCSS / PL, or DCS), you will need both radios to use the same tone. Midland gives its tones different numbers than other manufacturers, so you might have to look up in a crossreference table in the manual if you have a Midland.

 

That's it for radio-to-radio communications. All GMRS radios should be compatible with all others at this level.

 

Then getting into repeaters, you'll need to select the correct repeater channel (sometimes named 15R, through 22R, sometimes R1-R8, sometimes R23-R30), and the correct tones for that repeater. But any repeater-capable GMRS radio will work about the same way, and all should be compatible so long as they support repeaters in general.

 

 

[OffRoaderX]

2 hours ago, WSHH887 said:

But lately I've seen posts about one brand not communicating with some others

This is not an issue. All GMRS radios/brands manufactured after 2017 can communicate with all other GMRS radios/brands, and most manufactured before 2017 can also.

There may be isolated incidents of one radio not talking to another radio, but those are.. isolated...

[amaff]

7 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

There may be isolated incidents of one radio not talking to another radio, but those are.. isolated...

And far more often than not, user error / misconfiguration stemming from not understanding how 'privacy tones' (I know, I know...) work.

[WSHH887]

Appreciate the info. From what I've read I intend to look into Wouxun and Baofengs to start. 

[73blazer]

Dup'd

 

Edited 7 hours ago by 73blazer
Dup'd you can delete

[73blazer]

I personally have experienced this "incompatibility" if you can call it that. They were with Midland GMRS GXT740  radios, probably 2012ish manufactured. While they communicated with the other GMRS radios in our group, the audio sounded...bad...low and more background noise....on both TX and RX when communicating with any other branded GMRS radios (meaning I sounded bad to others using non-midland radios and they sounded bad to me on my Midland)  Midland to Midland was fine.

Yes, they are now old and they still sound bad when comm'ing with my Wouxuns or Kenwood

 

[WRTC928]

4 minutes ago, 73blazer said:

I personally have experienced this "incompatibility" if you can call it that. They were with Midland GMRS GXT740  radios, probably 2012ish manufactured. While they communicated with the other GMRS radios in our group, the audio sounded...bad...low and more background noise....on both TX and RX when communicating with any other branded GMRS radios (meaning I sounded bad to others using non-midland radios and they sounded bad to me on my Midland)  Midland to Midland was fine.

Yes, they are now old and they still sound bad when comm'ing with my Wouxuns or Kenwood

 

I haven't personally experienced it, but I have known two people who had issues with their radios having poor transmit audio when talking to other brands but not to their own radios of the same brand. Maybe they're just a little bit off frequency? They were both using inexpensive Chinese radios, which are known to suffer from spotty quality control. I have several inexpensive Chinese radios and haven't experienced it, so obviously it's not a universal phenomenon. 

[SteveShannon]

45 minutes ago, WRTC928 said:

I haven't personally experienced it, but I have known two people who had issues with their radios having poor transmit audio when talking to other brands but not to their own radios of the same brand. Maybe they're just a little bit off frequency? They were both using inexpensive Chinese radios, which are known to suffer from spotty quality control. I have several inexpensive Chinese radios and haven't experienced it, so obviously it's not a universal phenomenon. 

That sounds more like they were both set to narrow and the other radios were set to wide.

[amaff]

2 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

That sounds more like they were both set to narrow and the other radios were set to wide.

For a while there, IIRC, a lot of Midlands just *were* narrowband without an option to correct / change that. 
Were the rest of the group to set theirs to narrowband it would have likely corrected the issue.

[WRTC928]

4 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

That sounds more like they were both set to narrow and the other radios were set to wide.

That's certainly possible. I didn't examine the radios myself, but both owners insisted they had checked that.