What radio do you have for your car / truck?

[RCM]

Kenwood TK-8180H in my vehicle and my wife's van for GMRS, Yaesu FTM-400XDR for amatuer use in my vehicle as well.

Sounds like a nice setup, Jeff.

[explorer0863]

I've been recommending to locals that they reconsider the MTX series because it don't yet allow for carrier squelch on repeaters. Since we have multi-tone repeaters around here, that means that Midland users cannot hear traffic accessing with other tones. Our repeater is set to output one tone regardless of the tone used to access it. This is specifically for the local Midland users. If Midland fixed this problem, I would have no problem recommending the MTX-400. Until then, I cannot as it makes the series useless on most of our local repeaters.

This post is from 2018. Regarding the comment about the MTX-400, is that still the case in 2020? Midland haven't changed anything yet?

[mbrun]

I have yet to hear anyone report that Midland has upgraded the radio. I contacted them by email expressly about this about 4 weeks ago and they have chosen to ignore my inquiry. I would imagine they would make a big deal about it on their website once they have upgrade the radio or chose to release the upgrade as a new model.

 

I personally anticipate two radio purchases in my future, one for home, one for car. I will not be purchasing a Midland until/unless they support wide band, separate RX an Tx codes, and expand the radio to include the capability to store many combinations of tones to go along with the available frequencies.

 

Michael

WRHS965

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Hans]

This post is from 2018. Regarding the comment about the MTX-400, is that still the case in 2020? Midland haven't changed anything yet?

AFAIK, Midland has not addressed these issues. I am of the opinion that they do not care one bit about their customers.

 

I share the same sentiments as mbrun posted above... I wouldn't touch their products until they address the issues. YMMV

 

(Edited for typo.)

[mire]

Kenwood TK-8360-HU-K in one vehicle, TK-8180H in the other. TK-880 as a backup, TK-890 I might use as a base station in the future.

[JCase]

I know some members might cringe when I say this however, BTECH recently released a GMRS specific mobile & handheld.(two handheld models) that are supposed to be FCC certified and so far have received pretty positive reviews from users (most being licensed, experienced GMRS and HAM users) posting reviews on YouTube.

For the price, both for the radios and the accessories, the warranty and customer service, this might be worth considering. Especially as a starter radio. I have been told by my Retevis seller that they too will be releasing there GMRS specific version soon as they are currently in the process of attempting to receive FCC approval.

 

Other than the already mentioned tone code issue for the Midland brand GMRS specific radios, the MTX115 is known to suffer a significant receive problem limiting its range and I’ve never heard if that was ever corrected. The problem was limited to the MTX115 model only and didn’t effect any of the other three or four models that they offer.

 

Good luck with your choice !

[Hans]

I know some members might cringe when I say this however, BTECH recently released a GMRS specific mobile & handheld.(two handheld models) that are supposed to be FCC certified and so far have received pretty positive reviews from users (most being licensed, experienced GMRS and HAM users) posting reviews on YouTube.

For the price, both for the radios and the accessories, the warranty and customer service, this might be worth considering. Especially as a starter radio. I have been told by my Retevis seller that they too will be releasing there GMRS specific version soon as they are currently in the process of attempting to receive FCC approval.

 

Other than the already mentioned tone code issue for the Midland brand GMRS specific radios, the MTX115 is known to suffer a significant receive problem limiting its range and I’ve never heard if that was ever corrected. The problem was limited to the MTX115 model only and didn’t effect any of the other three or four models that they offer.

 

Good luck with your choice !

I agree. I would take BTECH offerings over the Midland offerings.

[marcspaz]

I agree. I would take BTECH offerings over the Midland offerings.

I find it pretty entertaining how people's experiences vary. Even my own experiences vary inside the brands.

 

My gen 1 MXT400's were trash. One caught on fire and the other would overheat after a few minutes. Midland replaced them with gen 2 units and I have had fantastic performance with my replacement MXT400's.

 

Then, I had 3 BTech amateur radios suffer catastrophic failures inside of a 3 week time frame and the 4th, a GMRS radio, was super dirty and I sold it almost immediately. But my BTech amateur radio HT's are wonderful performers.

 

Anyway, in the spirit of this revived thread, in my Jeep, I have an MXT400, an FT-891, and an FT-8900R. In one of my 1500's, I have an MXT400 and an FT-857D. In my other 1500, I have an MXT400 and a FT-8900R. in my Mustang... no GMRS, just a Kenwood TM-V71A.

[gman1971]

Vertex Standard EVX-5400, on two of my cars.

 

G.

[Hans]

I find it pretty entertaining how people's experiences vary. Even my own experiences vary inside the brands.

 

My gen 1 MXT400's were trash. One caught on fire and the other would overheat after a few minutes. Midland replaced them with gen 2 units and I have had fantastic performance with my replacement MXT400's.

 

Then, I had 3 BTech amateur radios suffer catastrophic failures inside of a 3 week time frame and the 4th, a GMRS radio, was super dirty and I sold it almost immediately. But my BTech amateur radio HT's are wonderful performers.

 

Anyway, in the spirit of this revived thread, in my Jeep, I have an MXT400, an FT-891, and an FT-8900R. In one of my 1500's, I have an MXT400 and an FT-857D. In my other 1500, I have an MXT400 and a FT-8900R. in my Mustang... no GMRS, just a Kenwood TM-V71A.

Has Midland addressed the narrow band and tones issue yet? The latter makes them unusable in our AO.

[JohnE]

4 cars w/mostly Kenwood 8180's 1 CDM and 2 XPR's

mixed use commercial LMR, GMRS and ham.
                                                 

[marcspaz]

Has Midland addressed the narrow band and tones issue yet? The latter makes them unusable in our AO.

 

Not in the gen 2... I'm not sure what is planned for the gen 3. I have heard rumor, but nothing confirmed.

 

I just looked up their certs. The last one was issued in September of 2016. It is listed as 10K5F3E bandwidth on all frequencies, which is a max of 10.5 kHz. There is nothing newer that I have found. Someone else may have better luck.

[wayoverthere]

on topic, current setup is an mxt-115 in the truck (small size is super convenient; midland limitations, less so) into a mag mounted 1/4 wave. it definitely doesn't have the reach my 'base' does, but it also has less antenna.

 

I agree. I would take BTECH offerings over the Midland offerings.

I would agree with Hans on this, but as i learn more, i'm less enthusiastic about it than i was (and trying not to be overly negative out of frustration). my base is a BTech gmrs 50x1 with a 3db whip.  even with the antenna in the attic mag mounted on sheet metal, it's range  outdoes the mxt, both rx and tx. that said, i'm finding it has its own limitations too, primarily in how they locked it down for part 95 certification.  while my wouxun HT allows me to have my local repeaters programmed in their own memory slots in addition to the regular repeater channels, the 50x1 has the preprogrammed channels 1-30 (1-22, plus 15r-22r) as transmittable, and everything beyond that is rx-only (even if it's within band for gmrs), so those extra entries i had for the local repeaters...can't transmit . 

 

I've also seen a few reports of units burning out, even using the antenna they recommend (nagoya ut72, which i've seen many posts saying tends to be around 1.7-1.9:1 swr; the manual mentions no worse than 1.5), and one poster mentioned warrantying 2, and being denied after that.  also, my only contact with BTech support resulted in a response with zero pleasantries, and a tone that seemed more scolding. and pretty much NO help.

 

Likewise, the discovery that there IS software out there that can remedy some of the limitations with the MXT400 helps it narrow the gap that i once saw between the two, and midland seems to be better at the support side of things.  it also doesn't get much more plug and play, at least to get started, but you do pay for it.
 

[Hans]

Not in the gen 2... I'm not sure what is planned for the gen 3. I have heard rumor, but nothing confirmed.

 

I just looked up their certs. The last one was issued in September of 2016. It is listed as 10K5F3E bandwidth on all frequencies, which is a max of 10.5 kHz. There is nothing newer that I have found. Someone else may have better luck.

Thanks for the update, friend.

[Mikeam]

Kenwood TK-8180 in the Jeep JK so far it works great, I like the amount of usable channels for repeaters with the same frequency but different PL codes.

[gortex2]

I bit the bullet and installed the MXT275 in both my JK and JT over the weekend. I still have my APX radios for public safety. I did this for the reason of more and more folks are throwing them in vehicles and it was getting to be a hassle to figure out which frequency/pl tone i needed in my commercial gear each time. Being a lot of folks are not on the this forum or any they still buy the radios from midland and use them out of the box. This has been beaten to death and Im sure will continue for years. But its the best option for my use. I think those that are truly into GMRS will still use commercial gear, however those that use the radio as a hobby for another use will just buy the midlands.

[Hans]

As long as one understand that if you use them in an area where repeaters are split-tone then they will be pretty much useless for hobby or serious repeater use...

That's really the pity because it would be very easy for Midland to fix the issue but they apparently have no regard for their customers. PT Barnum was right, I suppose.

[gortex2]

Correct. I know this and most true GMRS folks do. 99% of the time I use the Midland its on simplex to others on the same radio. I would much rather use my APX than a midland but as said before you need what others have. 

[BlueCrawler]

As long as one understand that if you use them in an area where repeaters are split-tone then they will be pretty much useless for hobby or serious repeater use...

 

That's really the pity because it would be very easy for Midland to fix the issue but they apparently have no regard for their customers. PT Barnum was right, I suppose.

 

Hey, I'm new to this and just learning.  Can you explain why the Midland MultiMobile radios wont work?  

 

thanks

[Hans]

Hey, I'm new to this and just learning.  Can you explain why the Midland MultiMobile radios wont work?  

 

thanks

They are narrow band only while GMRS allows for wide band. This means that the Midland radios will often have lower volume over our wide band repeaters and some of our repeaters here might even have problems passing the signal/opening up/keeping open the repeater (according to at least one repeater owner in my area that had such problems), YMMV.

 

The biggest problem for my area is that you cannot specify a squelch tone different than the transmit tone. We have repeaters that use different tones in than they put out. Often we would run carrier squelch on those repeaters. All of the Midland users here found their radios to be frustrating to near useless. Their transmissions were getting talked over and they were inadvertently talking over others on the community tone (multiple tone) repeaters. I cannot think of one Midland user that still tries to use one on our local repeaters. Most just gave up on repeaters and perhaps even GMRS all together as they just dropped off of the air never to return after they learned why they were having problems using the repeaters. None were happy to have over-spent thinking they were getting a ready-to-go product only to find out it wasn't so ready-to-go and that Midland apparently ignores the issues.

 

(Edited for a typo.)

[BoxCar]

There are several discussions however, for simplicity, GMRS is a wide band service and FRS is narrowband. That means the intelligence doesn't vary as much in narrowband so radios sound softer and sometimes fail to trigger or open wideband repeaters. Midland radios are all narrowband, even on GMRS channels. The other issue is with privacy codes or tones. If a repeater has one tone on transmit and another on receive (split tones) Midland doesn't do allow that.

[BlueCrawler]

Interesting... I have a midland micromobile 115 that they just sent me with some handhelds to test on trails when overlanding.  I've used their handhelds for a while.

 

What would you recommend fo a car mounted system?

[berkinet]

Do you want a GMRS certified radio? Or, would you accept something without certification?

[BlueCrawler]

Do you want a GMRS certified radio? Or, would you accept something without certification?

As I'm new to this, I'm not sure what Certification means... from what I've read that refers to FCC certification... I would say I want to stay with what is legal to use right now... might venture off at some point, but not at the moment.

[Extreme]

I recommend the Kenwood UHF commercial radios. There are lots of them out there used for less than $100, and most if not all of them are legal for GMRS.

..and if I'm not mistaken much less hassle to program than Motorola.

 

d'oh.. already covered.  Tried to delete my johnny-come-lately comment.