Midland MXT400 not a disappointment?

[WRXX268]

After kind of viewing the GMRS community from a far for a while, wanting to hop in with a higher wattage radio with a good set of bells and whistles, I recently purchased a Midland MXT400. The Midland website had a good sale on a bundle with everything I needed to install for only 30 ish dollars more than the 15 watt model in the same bundle. I was apprehensive about buying the MXT400 at first as I have read in several places that the 400 lacked features that without, a radio is no more than a toy. Features like split tone and wide band were often reported as missing on this radio or only programmable via PC program and cable, both of which were reported hard to find. I was willing to program with a PC and a cable and found where to get both pretty quick. The radio came and was easy enough to install. After fiddling enough with it in the PC software, I've come to find that both wide band and split tone can be accessed in the menu on the radio with no programing required. This is where my question comes in. While there are some things missing that I'd like, like tone scan and NOAA weather radio but other than that, this radio seems quite capable. Maybe it's my lack of using other radios as I am new, but I wonder why there is so much negative talk around this model. Anyone have insight?

[back4more70]

5 minutes ago, WRXX268 said:

While there are some things missing that I'd like, like tone scan and NOAA weather radio

I have some radios without NOAA, but I just added the channels.  Easy enough.  I do like the weather alert feature on the radios that include it though.

[KAF6045]

2 hours ago, WRXX268 said:

Maybe it's my lack of using other radios as I am new, but I wonder why there is so much negative talk around this model. Anyone have insight?

Midland updated the firmware of the MXT400 a few years ago to give it GMRS wideband capability. Prior to that, all of their MXT mobiles were NFM-only ("we expect most of the users will be talking with people using NFM FRS radios" [essential concept given out, not an exact quote]). The MXT115 is NFM-only, still, as I recall -- though it has allowed separate Tx/Rx tones "on the repeater channels" for a time.

Tone scan is something rather new -- remember that originally a GMRS license listed only two frequency (pairs for repeaters) and those were the ONLY frequencies with repeater capability one could use; and a radio shop was required to go into the radio and install crystals or set DIP switches to lock the frequencies in place (technically, one could use the -- at the time FCC specified -- emergency frequency FOR EMERGENCIES; but since many radios only came with A/B select switches it used to be recommended that one of the two frequencies on the license be the emergency frequency, and that then became a general use frequency on the license).

Given the two frequency limit, the odds were good that one knew the tones for the repeaters of interest -- most all GMRS repeaters were operated by businesses or government entities (this was when such could get a license for such, not the current "individual" mandate) and one pretty much had to ask the repeater owner for access. These repeaters often had multiple sets of tones configured, so different groups of users would not be heard by other groups -- of course, one still had monitor before talking to ensure they weren't going to step on a different group.

[RayP]

On 7/19/2023 at 10:42 AM, WRXX268 said:

After kind of viewing the GMRS community from a far for a while, wanting to hop in with a higher wattage radio with a good set of bells and whistles, I recently purchased a Midland MXT400. The Midland website had a good sale on a bundle with everything I needed to install for only 30 ish dollars more than the 15 watt model in the same bundle. I was apprehensive about buying the MXT400 at first as I have read in several places that the 400 lacked features that without, a radio is no more than a toy. Features like split tone and wide band were often reported as missing on this radio or only programmable via PC program and cable, both of which were reported hard to find. I was willing to program with a PC and a cable and found where to get both pretty quick. The radio came and was easy enough to install. After fiddling enough with it in the PC software, I've come to find that both wide band and split tone can be accessed in the menu on the radio with no programing required. This is where my question comes in. While there are some things missing that I'd like, like tone scan and NOAA weather radio but other than that, this radio seems quite capable. Maybe it's my lack of using other radios as I am new, but I wonder why there is so much negative talk around this model. Anyone have insight?

Midland FRS/GMRS radios, IMHO are junk.  Their design engineers from what I have seen, apparently never used an FRS/GMRS radio, or talked to anyone who did.  Let's start with their ht's. AFAIK, none of them are repeater capable.  Last time I checked, their "go-to" ht battery was a whopping 700mAh.  You would think that a company that pushes its stuff as being for people enjoying the great outdoors would offer something considerably greater (at least 4×) for portables than 700 mAh.  This includes their "Base Camp" radio.  I guess they figure you won't wear out your hand OR the hand crank charging it back to 700 mAh.

Then there are the mobile radios.  Again, far as I know, none of them have dual conversion receivers, which can make a big difference in keeping noise and interference from nearby transmitters on GMRS as well as other sources out of your speaker.  They have some great designs as far as "controls on the microphone" go, but drop the ball with the rest of the package.  With the exception of their current "top-of-the-line" mobile @ 50W, none of their mobiles allow for adding additional channels beyond the packed 22 for repeaters or simplex.  Midland tries to excuse this incompetence by saying it makes the radio easier to use for people wanting to just communicate vehicle-to-vehicle such as off-roaders, which are one of their targeted bases.  What they don't tell you, is giving you the option to add channels would in no way make their mobiles more difficult to use and would greatly enhance their usefulness down the road if/when a customer decided they want to have access to repeaters.  For instance, what if your off-roading buddies and yourself explored an area where the two nearest repeaters were on 462.675, one 20 miles east of your area of operation with a 141.3 PL and one 20 miles west of it with a 173.8 PL.  Depending on where in your area you are, you will pick one up much better than the other.  Should you need help from outside of your group, one of those repeaters will be necessarily how you summon help (breakdown, tow, medical, etc).  If you have one programmed into your radio, to access the other, you will need to program in its tone, first.  If it is an emergency, it will be a pain to have to change the settings, especially if you have not done so before and are well-versed in the procedure.  Having the means to add channels, you can have them both in your radio and changing from one to the other is as simple as turning a knob or pressing an up/down button.  Midland design engineers decided you do not need that convenience.  Ditto if you travel between the two repeaters regularly.  You might live near the 141.3 repeater but drive to work which is in the 173.8 repeater's coverage area.  To be able to use the 173.8 repeater, you will need to pull over and change the settings going to work and again going home to use the 141.3.  Being able to just turn a knob or press an up/down button would be much easier but again, Midland design engineers decided that you don't need that convenience.

[nokones]

There is an easy fix for your two repeater problem. You can either program the two 675 repeater freqs and tones in the custom programming channel slots, 8-14, or one repeater freq and tone(s) pair in one of the 8-14 channel slots, and set the appropriate CTCSS/DCS tone(s) for the other 675 repeater on Repeater Channel 28. Don't forget to set the other parameter settings that those two repeaters require such as the bandwidth/channel spacing setting, etc.

One of the problems that I have with the Midland GMRS radio is that CTCSS/DCS table does not include extra non-standard tones in their table and they have no intention to include them in the future. Another issue with consumer grade GMRS radios is that they don't have a true monitor feature whereas the feature will put the channel receive in a carrier squelch mode to defeat the PL Tone Decoder, and a Talkaround/Direct feature whereas the radio will transmit on the programmed receive freq setting instead of the transmit freq setting when you want to transmit simplex. You have to burn one of the precious channel resources to have a talkaround/simplex channel to do so.

My first GMRS Radio was a MXT400. It's not a bad radio but, you're limited in what you can do with the radio. If you only need to have access to just a handful of channels than it's not a bad radio. The price for this radio with just a few capabilities is a tad high for a consumer grade radio.

I sold my first GMRS MXT400 radio within three weeks after I got it and bought a better quality mobile radio that has the features I was looking for in a mobile radio.

[marcspaz]

On 7/19/2023 at 10:42 AM, WRXX268 said:

I wonder why there is so much negative talk around this model. Anyone have insight?

 

I have my opinion... I have had many MXT400 radios.  At least 5.  They are great radios, but there are 2 generations and Gen 1 was less than stellar for the price.  Gen 1 is where a lot of the bad press came from, too. 

Midland was selling the Gen 1 bundle for ~$460 or ~$480 and the antenna it came with was terrible, the cheap plastic and loop hanger on the microphone, and the narrow-band performance made the radio grossly overpriced.  Then, many people used the Gen 1 in narrow-band on wide-band repeaters, which made it difficult to hear.

 

The early Gen 2 radios were released with a tone scan function and wide-band already enabled, but after a few months, they started releasing Gen 2 with tone scan enabled, but defaulting to narrow-band, again.

 

As an FYI, the tone scan only works when the radio is in the Tone Squelch (TSQ) mode.  If it is in Tone (T) mode, it won't scan.

[H8SPVMT]

Maybe the bad rap is due to a poorly written operations manual that does not spell out all the functions of the unit.  I too had to experiment for the code scanning function among others.

One dislike I do have (due to my own ignorance at purchase time) was the radio was narrow band and not wide band.  It works well with others like units but it was never told to the masses that were required to switch to GMRS for coms on the trails (JEEPJAMUSA). Sure just a simple tweak of the volume control takes care of that until a narrow-band makes a reply!

So far, I have had plenty of time to adjust and learn so it isn't a huge problem overall but there could be other corners that were cut and I'd never know....

 

[back4more70]

On 7/28/2023 at 5:08 AM, RayP said:

Midland FRS/GMRS radios, IMHO are junk.

Midland is the Starbucks of the radio world 

[back4more70]

46 minutes ago, WRXE944 said:

Where do you drink your coffee?

I make mine at home.  Delish and cheap!

[PRadio]

1 hour ago, back4more70 said:

I make mine at home.  Delish and cheap!

Do you make your own radios? 

[back4more70]

58 minutes ago, PRadio said:

Do you make your own radios? 

Sure do.  Two cans and some string.  Privacy tones guaranteed!

[WRXB215]

@back4more70 you are on a roll! Keep it up!