Questions: RV 2 way Radio & Comm Experts

[happy-THOR]

USPS is still a pretty good shipping agency. You should have it by February.

 

[dkoldman]

USPS is still a pretty good shipping agency. You should have it by February.

Remember that Tim Conway character on the Carol Burnett show that walked real slow and would painfully keep going back and forth for the most mundane reasons? Somehow, I feel like that guy has my package, he must be personally walking it to the USPS Sort Center (15 miles), but halfway he realized he forgot his coat; so he is now headed back to Shipping Partner Facility

If the powers to be don't won't me to have a 2 Way Radio that can also be a Ham Radio; so be it, I have my GMRS License and that is all that matters. I have my Certificate and Call Sign too

 

[happy-THOR]

people have been calling me things and giving me signs since before Macaroni invented radios. Sooner or later you will get that radio.
And I do remember Tim Conway's character. Very fast arms and very slow legs.....I was in high school and found it funny enough to imitate.

 

[dkoldman]

USPS is still a pretty good shipping agency. You should have it by February.

Well it looks as if I have a new quote....

Happy being Right does not mean One is Happy :coolsmiley:

I got the below from TidRadio this morning.

I have asked the logistics customer service for you.

They said that the last-mile service provider has received the package and it is expected to arrive in one week.​

So a week from now is 2/2/24. In the meantime, I forgot what I ordered and what I was trying to do

 

[happy-THOR]

Have you considered carrying a flare gun? You'd most likely get fined for setting off fireworks, but at least authority would come to find you.

 

[dkoldman]

Have you considered carrying a flare gun? You'd most likely get fined for setting off fireworks, but at least authority would come to find you.

No flare gun because emergency assistance or help is not a primary objective.

I have planned a fairly large extended family retreet at a State Park. We will have a mix of tents and RVs at a number of sites we have reserved. It just so happens this State Park has no cell service. I want to be able to communicate to various groups as we will have several things going on at the same time. i.e. We have a Clubhouse reserved that may be 1 mile from our campsites. We may have multiple groups going on hiking trips to view the lake, golf etc. I have 4 radios coming and my brother has a few of the very old basic radio (they may be Midland's?)

Given I was going to get radios for my family, I wanted to have the best of everything. They are GMRS I can turn on go to channel like 16 and start talking. They can monitor two channels so we may get creative with that. The USB C charger and lithium batteries ensures we can go all day.

The rest of it like bluetooth, Airplane monitoring, repeater capabilities, listening in on true Ham operators is just a nice to have that may be very useful for me at some point in the future.

I am sure whatever I do, I will NEVER be Happy, but being d kold man ain't all bad

 

[dkoldman]

Finally, the Radios made it!!! So far so good. I got what I expected and more. I ordered 4 radios and they sent me 6 of the 771 antennas. That is in addition to the stock antennas. I got one handheld Speaker, so I can play Good Cop or bad Cop, and 2 extra headphones.

The batteries were charged up out the box and I was immediately able to start using with the wife. My wife loves the size and how heavy duty it feels. Very loud audio. I need to read the manual, but no need to play with bluetooth and wireless programming just yet.

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

Finally, the Radios made it!!! So far so good. I got what I expected and more. I ordered 4 radios and they sent me 6 of the 771 antennas. That is in addition to the stock antennas. I got one handheld Speaker, so I can play Good Cop or bad Cop, and 2 extra headphones.

The batteries were charged up out the box and I was immediately able to start using with the wife. My wife loves the size and how heavy duty it feels. Very loud audio. I need to read the manual, but no need to play with bluetooth and wireless programming just yet.

Gonna need a full report!

 

[dkoldman]

Gonna need a full report!

Chateau, I don't believe the Forum rules will permit me to provide a full report? I mean, Not too long ago I learned that at least one find my contributions "nonsensical"

So therefore I can only provide 90% of a full report. I am not from Ohio, but I believe in dotting all my eyes too.

Here is my 1st attempt of scatter-shooting feedback after 48 hours of ownership.



1. Battery life. They all came fully charged. You are not suppose to leave them on the chargers. So I left them all on for 48 hours monitoring channels 1 and 8 to run the batteries down. After 48 hours 2 are are still at 2 of 3. bars. 1 is blinking 2 & 1 bar and 1 is on 1 bar. I believe the 1 bar one is the one that has been on a Weather station monitoring and the other flashing 1 & 2 bars is on local radio FM station. Not having to use AA batteries is a huge benefit. I can leave the radios on for days without a recharge being required.

2. The furthest range thus far has been 1.5 miles. From inside my house to 1.5 miles away inside the SUV. Plenty of houses, trees etc. I have not yet been able to definitive see difference between a High power transmission versus a Low power. I am using Channels 8 and 1 to test FRS & GMRS. I also have the stock antennas to compare with the 771 antennas they sent me as a promo gift.

3. The radios feel very nice in your hand. They have clip on and the headphones and speakers work well. My wife loves the headphones. They just reek high end quality. They feel and look professional.

4. They are Chinese made, but the Manual is one of the best I have seen on any product in a long time. They do miss covering some things... like I don't see anything about how to set AM receiving, and there are some colored stickers that they don't explain what they are for? But they are otherwise very good well written manuals.

5. I think the Menu tree takes some getting use to, but I am learning it. I am making config changes on all 4 units so I am taking it slowly. All 4 are in GMRS mode, so by default I can't mistakenly transmit on a Ham Frequency. If I wanted to, I could press two keys and put in Ham Operator mode or if I want to go Rogue, I can unlock and do whatever the **** I want with no regard to FCC. But I would never do that

6. I have not connected to airplanes on AM nor DFW or Love Field Airports. But I will do some research to try that.

7. The color screens are surreal. The Keys light up in the dark, you can read the screen in daylight.

8. There are adjustments in the menu to change or modify almost everything. i.e. you can change how many intervals in seconds the green light blinks to show the power is on, you can control how long the backlight stays on before going dark.

9. Each phone comes with a Customer Support card with a real number to call. I have not needed yet.

10. it has bluetooth so the programming if you choose to do so, does not require a cable. But you can still use a cable. It works with Chirp, but I would never use because I would use the ODMaster software. See www.walkietalkiesoftware.com

So in summary, after 2 days, I love this product. I will keep at it to see what else I learn. I am sure it will serve the intended purpose of allowing us to communicate at a large Family Retreat this Memorial Day at a wooded State Park with no Cellular communications or WiFi.

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

Sounds excellent! Having a single radio that receives the 162 MHz weather channels, air band, GMRS, FRS and HAM is pretty cool. I hate carrying multiple receivers.

Let me know how the keyboard programming goes. The Baofeng units are horrendous for programming from the keyboard... I use Chirp for all but the basics. Offset frequencies are needed for repeaters, and adding those with the keyboard is very tedious.

 

[savtom]

"fiddle fardle". I like that! I can say that in front of the Grandkids and not get in trouble

 

[dkoldman]

Sounds excellent! Having a single radio that receives the 162 MHz weather channels, air band, GMRS, FRS and HAM is pretty cool. I hate carrying multiple receivers.

Let me know how the keyboard programming goes. The Baofeng units are horrendous for programming from the keyboard... I use Chirp for all but the basics. Offset frequencies are needed for repeaters, and adding those with the keyboard is very tedious.

I am gonna need the help to guide me on the what and whys as I go through this process. It is my 1st radio and after vetting a number of them this one stood out. The H3 is still new and hitting the market. I am seeing more YouTube videos everyday which is in my favor. TidRadio shows out of stock on their Website last I checked. My wait may have been well worth it.

I am following your advice, so I am going slow, I have not tried to program just yet, because I wish to simply learn the basics of FRS/GMRS and the functions of the Air bands, FM and saving my own frequencies. I should be able to listen to other Ham frequencies, but I don't won't to make it too confusing for myself.

Here is a video on Programming the H3 with the Chirp.

Since I have never used Chirp, I didn't even bother to buy the K programming cable (although I believe I can use a data USB C to connect to my laptop for Chirp . When I do get to programming, I plan to use the built in Bluetooth on the H3, but I may do Chirp based on how my learning progression goes.

Should your phone be compatible with TidRadio's 2.0 Bluetooth Adaptor. Here is an option for Chirp & Bluetooth. I know you and many of the seasoned Ham pros don't like this guy, but he is hilarious to me.

Also, All radios are still ON and this morning and the batteries are all at 1 Bar. I suspect they will all go completely dead sometime tonight. Then I will track how long it takes to recharge. 3 to 4 days actively monitoring dual channels on a single charge!!!

 

[happy-THOR]

Thank you for the very short report. It contained very little nonsensical contributions.
It sounds like a good purchase. Enjoy it.

 

[dkoldman]

So the H3 radios went 4 days with low to moderate use on a full charge meaning 3 bars on indicator.

The manual says the recharge time is 2 - 5 hours, however it took 10 hours before the Red charging light indicator went to green on 2 of the radios. A third one, I picked up off the charger that was still showing Red (charging) at 10 hours; when I turned it ON it had all 3 bars fully charged

The 4th one I just put it on to be recharged. I will take it off after 5 hours regardless of the Red charging indicator and see what the battery indicator reads.

These are 2500 mA Lithium batteries. They may have more capacity than the previous model thus it takes longer than the 2 - 5 hours, or there is issue with the auto shutoff on the chargers. I have 4 of the chargers; so it would be a design defect if the latter is true.

By contrast the Midland Midland GXT1000VP4 has 700mA; so I am not complaining here.

The only other issue I have seen thus far....

I was talking with my wife while driving to a Harbor Freight using a Speaker headset while she was still at home. She heard everything I said on the outbound, but I never heard her (I later found out she was transmitting on channel 8 while I was transmitting on channel on 1) but I still should have heard her, because my radio was set to monitor both? It may be that her Channel 8 power was too low for me to hear? Also, on the return trip as I was still trying to reach her, she said never heard me at all even as I approached the house. I think there was some kind of issue with my handheld speaker because in the house, I could see her radio light up and show Green as it was receiving, but nothing could be heard Her volume was on high. Eventually it worked but nothing I did differently. I suspect the power may have been getting too low to transmit the audio waves because I was trying to run them all down with usage.

 

[TRMott]

I read this entire thread...and feel I learned some things. Now I just need to go ask my husband some questions as he has worked with testing and communications, so maybe he can help me understand what I didn't understand.

*still watching and, hopefully, learning more!
Enjoyed the great entertainment...those Blues Brothers especially!

 

[dkoldman]

I read this entire thread...and feel I learned some things. Now I just need to go ask my husband some questions as he has worked with testing and communications, so maybe he can help me understand what I didn't understand.

*still watching and, hopefully, learning more!
Enjoyed the great entertainment...those Blues Brothers especially!

Whenever I come under attack from another's self assessed "nonsensical" assessment, I have my reasons oops excuses :coolsmiley:

My Grandfather use to always say, "I may laugh and joke", but I don't play

A smile can help us all get through our otherwise troubled days. Enjoy...

I pulled the 4th radio off the charger after five hours, it was still showing Red ( charging) It had only 2 bars on the phone. So it clearly is not finished and the 2-5 hours in the manual is confirmed wrong. I will try again at 8 hours to see if I get 3 bars before the red indicator on charger turns to green. Otherwise 10 hours for full charge is what one can expect for a fully depleted TidRadio H3 battery.

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

If those charger cradles are anything like the Baofeng ones, I doubt they have sophisticated charge sensing ability. They just crank out the rated power, then leave it up to the battery pack to say it's had enough.

Oh, and on that "wrong channel" thing... back in my 30s when working safety for stage rallies and marathons, etc. when initially signing in we always started with an I.D. and signal check request. That covered all the bases.

 

[dkoldman]

If those charger cradles are anything like the Baofeng ones, I doubt they have sophisticated charge sensing ability. They just crank out the rated power, then leave it up to the battery pack to say it's had enough.

Oh, and on that "wrong channel" thing... back in my 30s when working safety for stage rallies and marathons, etc. when initially signing in we always started with an I.D. and signal check request. That covered all the bases.

You may be right about those cradles. The 4th one finally went green right at 10 hours. I suspect TidRadio may be saying 2 - 5 hours because folks will NOT have radios that are 100% discharged.

I will take the blame for not verifying with my wife's radio before leaving. I am still learning. We are talking about using them in the house upstairs / downstairs on a low power FRS frequency.

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

You may be right about those cradles. The 4th one finally went green right at 10 hours. I suspect TidRadio may be saying 2 - 5 hours because folks will NOT have radios that are 100% discharged.

I will take the blame for not verifying with my wife's radio before leaving. I am still learning. We are talking about using them in the house upstairs / downstairs on a low power FRS frequency.

Call me weird... but my wife & I frequently text and call each other in the house when we're on different floors... or the other end of the house, etc. it's easy because we always have our phones with us... well, not the wife. She asks me frequently to call her phone so she can find it! **** getting old!

 

[happy-THOR]

Channel 8 is one of the channels that are designated by the FCC as FRS and not GMRS. Because of that most/some radios will only broadcast using .5 watts of power. All FRS channels are restricted to using .5 watts.


Even if your radio can be programed to broadcast on the FRS channels at full power, I am guessing that it maybe is currently pre-programed for low power

That makes for a much shorter range than the full 5 watts does.