I have several of these for use on the ranch. If you have more than one, I really love the cloning feature. Hold down the monitor button while turning them on. Once you see the ready to copy message, clicking the monitor button on the radio you are copying from only takes minutes to create quick clones.
Great radio for what it is and yes the antenna must be upgraded. The aftermarket firmware makes the radio even shine more. The NICMOD firmware is great, it adds more info on the screen which can be customized and even adds a band scope screen. With the aftermarket firmware it adds the capability of channel groups, better filtering, SSB, real-time controlling via PC and much more. Again its a basic entry level HT but does the job adequately. 73's VA7LFD
Not to mention you now have an activity scanner when attached to the PC. You can scan all the local activity and add it to the radio right from the programmer. Being able to control the radio from your PC is so cool!
Another good thing about Od Master Bluetooth software is that if you have repeater book on your phone, you can directly send repeater data into the software from repeater book without having to type everything. Then into the radio. Get into a new location and add more repeaters. I have had TiD radio H2.s for over a year. They are my only handhelds and have used the OD Master software, very convenient. The radios work well also.
Great radio, glad to see it getting some coverage from your channel. You are 100% right about the antenna, got a signal stick and haven’t looked back. I know a lot of ppl complain about the airband transmission but it both sides sound pretty good in my neck of the woods. I might try and post a video.
I really like that i can clone the radios with just the push of a couple of buttons. It was useful when i was setting up multiple radios for our offroad club.
I like mine. I didn't have any issues getting out with the stock antenna, but after I got one of those Abbree foldable 42" ones, I was (just) able to hit a repeater nearly 50 miles away on VHF, and that was one nestled into the Cascade foothills near a place called Silver Falls State Park. Quite surprising. I've also had a couple of good line-of-sight simplex contacts when hooked up to the magmounted dual band antenna on the car. Occasional signal reports mention static though. Also, I discovered that technically it can be unlocked to transmit on 1.25m, not that I actually tried to. In fact it appeared to be pretty deaf on that band, although that could be because of the antenna. Might also mention the popular Marcus Dudley (NICSure I think) firmware for it, which I've yet to try. Adds a lot of functionality and (depending on taste) a better display.
I have 2 of them, they work great on 220-440 and 2-meter with a good little tri-band antenna mine is a RADODDITY RD-301 a cheap but verry good antenna for a small size set up.
I have 2 of these and like them a lot. I have mine in open mode, and they work on 220 as well as 2 meters and 440. I run a tri-band Nagoya antenna. The bluetooth programming for repeaters is awesome if you travel like I do. TX audio gets unsolicited compliments on the factory setting. You can see the display in bright sunlight, unlike the UV-17 and UV-21 Baofengs. My only complaint is 199 memories... I wish it would do 999 (not 1000)! 😂 So I could program it for the areas that I travel to most frequently. You never know when internet is down and you can't access to program locally via the bluetooth app. I don't really use air band, but it does work (I am near Alliance and DFW airports). NOAA and FM radio work well, and you can program FM stations into memory, which is nice. WBAP 820 is simulcast on 93.3 FM (for emergency news). Great little HT's for the money, and great to know they are clean on TX. Thanks for the review, and 73! Brett K5WXP
@@nimblehealer199 the main reason I got this was to just have one that would do both. it came with what I believe is a rebranded nagoya antenna and it works fantastic.
It is a great radio for my "Hillbilly 911" concept of monitoring the other services for emergency traffic during critical incidents too. FRS/GRS, MURS, and Marine. The radios non-radio people tend to have lying around.
I have one (got it free from TID), I found Bluetooth programming confusing at first, so I moved to the the old trusty Chirp for initial programming. It has great battery life. The one test I want to do before I give a full recommendation is if it desenses as easily as the Baofeng. If it does not, this will be my recommended budget radio for beginners. One initial test seems to prove it's better, but I am hoping we can do a better test at our club meeting next week. I have not had a QSO on mine yet (similar holiday reasons), but I can at least hit the repeater around town. The scanning seems to be quicker than the Baofeng as well, but I have not run them side-by-side on that. I also have not tested the GMRS mode yet either, I know that you can switch it into GMRS mode. I'm hopeful I can use this as my cheap EDC. I'm also working on getting the TD-H8, I know I won't get 10w, but to see if there is any additional improvements.
Like its size and versatility. I like it shows the name of the channel and the TX/RX frequencies . Excellent for the money. Got my dad one for back up in the bush since there are areas that don’t get good cell coverage. Just used chirp to program all the repeaters near him and some simplex frequencies.
I picked up a pair of these on a black friday sale. Great radios AND can be unlocked to do GMRS as well. Not that I would EVER use it for ANYTHING other than listening on GMRS or risk the wrath of the mighty FCC! ;) As an low cost upgrade to a UV5R, you get 2m, 70cm, Air band (listen only), GMRS (Listen only ;), NOAA Weather, AND Bluetooth programming? Absolutely a no brainer as a low cost travel radio.
When I looked to purchase one, it was listed as GMRS. Then there was one listed as Dual Band HAM. lol. Upon further investigation, I found they are the same radio just shipped either locked to GMRS or Amateur. (You can elect to do the third option with a simple 2 button press while powering on to select “Normal” operation. I’ll let you guess what “normal” mode means 😂.)
I have a GMRS one, it's the same radio with a different FCCID. So, technically, it is certified for GMRS Tx. I unlocked it into "Normal" mode and installed nicFW, it opens up so much, like now it will allow me to set AM reciever mode on custom channels, which means I can go into 11M/CB bands now with the right antenna. It'll tune to CB on the stock firmware, but it is locked to FM. Of course, I've programmed it to not transmit on anything outside of GMRS, I'm not licensed for Ham and it's not licensed for MURS/CB/Marine, but the sheer range of frequencies it will recieve, even on stock FW if you don't care about AM outside of air channels, is absolutely insane.
I have 2 of them, last night I checked into our net on 220-, 440- and 2-meter nets from the Walmart parking lot in Greensburg, IN the 220 and 440 tower was only 1 1/2 miles away but the 2-meter tower is about 7 miles away. It's a nice clean little radio.
I bought a two pack of these in black for gmrs back in July. I gifted one to my father in law and immediately purchased a green one. I've enjoyed having them.
@@Baronvaile I’ve discovered that the GMRS version can also be unlocked and used on the ham bands (assuming you’re licensed) they are identical radios.
A friend has the H-3, very nice radio. I bought the new H-8 and it has become my go to HT as Tidradio must think much as I do (scary thought) as it does just what I want it to in a very intuitive to me way. The Only change I wish it had was a knob on top for changing channels.
Another thing to mention about the programming is you can use chirp then download the CVC file onto the OD master website programmer. So if you already have frequencies downloaded for other radios you can just simply transfer that onto the app through the web browser. And of course you can always just use chirp like you would any other radio
I'll have to look into that. ODmaster is not the greatest software to use for programming channel frequencies and only works on baofeng-esque radios. It will be good if there is a better method than buying another device just to clone from one radio to another just to use a phone. It would be better still if T.I.D. Radio would put out drivers so that Chirp could then use their BT protocol and skip a phone altogether.
@MrTsukurou you can use the tdh-3 through their web based programer on a computer but I don't think the Bluetooth dongle programer for other ones is compatible directly on the computer. But basically just go to the website and it will have a layout similar to chirp but still a bit confusing. You can download a CVC file from chirp and upload it to the radios profile. That will allow you to keep it in the radios profile in both the app and web browser to update when you would like. You can keep multiple frequency files under each radios profile which is cool for traveling. For example I have a profile for home and a profile for when I travel to see family. I just open the app, connect my radio then select the file and all done ✅
As compared to my BF radios, I really am happy with my H3s. Although you like the BT feature, I haven't even tried it. As a guy with old eyes,,,, the best thing about the H3 is the very easy to read screen, A/B tests with the H3/BF everyone tells me the H4 has much better audio. As a side note, I use the Abree 771 antennas on mine.
Great review Josh! I order 2 a while back…one ham version and 1 GMRS. On Amazon, there seem to be lots of different bundles, some with different antennas. Have to carefully read the description to see which antennas you’ll get. The ham bundle I ordered came with 3 antennas: short dual band + a longer 771 dual ham band clone + an air band antenna . The GMRS version came with a short GMRS and longer 771g GMRS clone. A few hints and tips: 1) Scan for nearby transmissions Press and hold 1 key. It should find the frequency and tone of a nearby radio and then let you save it to a memory. 2) Wirelessly copy all memories from one TD-H3 to another On target radio, hold down the lowest side button and turn radio on. Should see “Wireless Copy” on screen On the source radio, do the same. Shows “Wireless Copy” on screen. On the SOURCE radio, press the lowest side button again. Should see RED transmit text on source radio, GREEN receivetext on target Copy starts, shows Success when done 3.) If you purchase the GMRS version or reset the radio to GMRS mode, be aware only channels 1 to 54 can transmit. Channels 55 and up will be receive only. That was a surprise :) 4) If you use an external speaker mic plugged into the side connector, you may get a pop at the end of each received transmission. Seems to be a known issue on some units.
I borrowed a radio ( baofeng) from a friend while rock crawling last summer. I set it to figure out which radio would be best and settled on a h3. The friend whose radio is borrowed, later recommended the h3 also. I really like that little radio
Have 2 H3's and the antennas were junk matter of fact on 2m they would reset radio when I hit PTT got new smiley antennas and problem was solved ... FYI button #5 (REV) is used to switch to the input on repeaters ... hit menu button then #5 and your VFO is now on TX side of repeater... it must be a repeater channel of course on your radio.
i have that radio, i had been using it for probably a few months but it ended up dying not to fault tidradio, i did take some risks which i assumed and i consider they were worth it considering the fun and that the price is quite low the risk was merely using custom firmware, NicFW to be more precise, doing the mala praxis of not clearing the eeproom even by doing so, keep in mind, you are risking to brick the radio
I programmed mine with VGF Marine and GMRS I also have GMRS repeaters programmed and a few Ham Repeaters for listening to or emergency communications I hit Jax GMRS repeaters in 2 watts from 26 mikes away.
Thanks for the review. I have two TD-H3s and use it only for GMRS right now.. (I don't have my HAM yet) but I got them with the idea that I could use it for HAM once I got my ticket. But I love these little radios.. and they have surprised me a lot. I think the newest firmware and some of the user-developed firmware out there actually does better on the air-band too.
The Tydradio link you posted goes to an "aviation pack" which contains one antenna. Their regular version shows two antennas--so you may well have been testing their "aviation" antenna.
I updated CHIRP to support recent firmware features on the TD-H3. However, Tidradio ignored my request for access to even newer firmware to continue to update CHIRP support, so I've moved to NicFW and it's generally so much better. And better documented... ♥️
I have a couple of these radios, and I have to say they are really impressive - especially if you upgrade the firmware to the NicSure firmware (plenty of links on the internet) ..... try it and thank me later. 🙂 The antenna isn't really an issue as we all tend to fit after-market antennas to our HTs. My only gripes are that the screen goes blank when the back-light times out and the other gripe is the same as all the cheap Chinese HTs - it is easy to overload the front-end in RF rich environments rendering it deaf! Something to be aware of if using it for SOTA and likely to be operating close to broadcast antennas. Over all, this is probably the best bang for buck little HT on the market at the moment. My daily carry is one of these TD-H3 radios with the NicSure firmware.
I bought two of these , one for me and one for my son. Like you I found the antenna sucks. Mine was resonant around 120MHz. I didn’t have the Juevos needed to load that Chinese app on my phone. Now that best part. There is a guy in the UK that has written firmware for it. You can find a video on it from Tech Minds here on UA-cam. I love his firmware.
Josh, one thing I would suggest is looking at the inside collar of the antenna. The antennas that TID uses tend to have their frequency ranges printed there. My guess is that the antenna you were using was tuned for GMRS, as that's most of what I've seen these ship with. Another thing I've found that I love about these radios is the versatility of programming them. You can use bluetooth from your phone or from the OD Master website on your desktop/laptop, and you can use either a USB-C cable or a traditional Baofeng programming cable from inside CHIRP with the radio. I'm yet to figure out a way to use CHIRP over bluetooth with it. 73
Back to back receive comparisons between the two, the H3 seems to have an edge, but that may just be a problem with my Feng. Plan on buying a few more H3's, I like them
A few days ago I was listening to the crossband repeater on the ISS with both a TD-H3 and a Baofeng UV-5R, both with 771 antennas on them. The TD-H3 consistently herd the calls where the UV-5R caught a few through mostly static. Looks like the receiver is much better on the Tidradio.
9:24 If that doesn't sell people on the signal stick, I don't know what will. lol. I'd love to see more stock antennas tested, like ones on more expensive radios.. FT5D, ID52, D75 etc.
I recently picked up a couple of H3's that are locked to GMRS for communicating with the non-hams in the family. They are solid little radios. I am sure the dual band ham version works equally well. I did get an N76 but it was locked to a different region and I couldn't get it to transmit above 440, I had to return it but it's fine. I have an FT-5DR and a TH-D75. I may try the BTech UV Pro version or I may just save my pennies for a DMR radio. Thanks for the videos! 73
If anyone runs into this issue of an N76 or UV-PRO set to the wrong band plan, I’ve read you can enter factory test mode and set the band plan with these steps: In the phone app, connect to the radio, tap the hamburger menu icon In the channel display, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner Scroll to Device Status Tap the voltage value 10 times Should get a dialog for factory test mode where you can chose the country band plans, etc.
@@radioj5249 I heard about this but couldn't get that working due to a lack of a working android device. The iOS app didn't have the same options. I did try an older android tablet but the app wouldn't run on that. Any radio that requires a mobile app is kind of out for me anyway. I should be able to flash firmware or make these changes from a PC. I hate being locked to a single ecosystem.
I don't need the radio ... BUT I just bought one for $30.31 (black case) on Amazon. I will "play" with this one and not be afraid to damage it :-). My main V/UHF radios are the Motorola (XTS5000 FM P25), Yaesu (VX8R FM), Kenwood (TH-D74 FM D-Star, ID5100A (FM D-Star) and AnyTone (878 and 578 FM DMR).
in the past several months, I have had 2 of these. I had trouble with both. Agter programming with chirp and bluetooth, repeater channels wouldn't work. Had same issue with both radios. After repeated attempts to re-program the radios. Same problem occurred. I suspect that unlocking the radios so it can be used on GMRS may be the culprit.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse A few things I really like with the firmware is the scan speed and the ability to press the bottom left orange button while scanning to "skip" a channel if you are tired of listening to a ragchew on that channel. Stop the scan and restart it and that skipped channel will be back in the scan list. If you turn off the screen updates it'll scan 100+ channels in a second. The scan speed is really amazing once you turn the screen update off. The scan groups are also a huge improvement over stock. You lose the bluetooth capability with the ODMaster app, but as your video showed its kinda a quirky app I didn't care for anyway.
@@delta9jms that's a great tip! I have a couple of these H3s and the only thing that has really held me back from enjoying them is the abysmally slow scan speed. I'm definitely going to give that NicSure firmware a try!
Something you didn't cover or test. This radio supports 220 and 500mhz and 300mhz. Didn't try to on 500 or 300 but 220 put out a solid 5watts on both of my h3s
If it only had faster scanning, this would be my choice of "Baofeng killer" too. The Quansheng UVK5 has much better scan speed and most of the benefits of the TID Radio H3. Sadly I've heard they aren't the cleanest in terms of spurious emissions. Have you tested one recently by chance? I'd be interested to see your results.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse@HamRadioCrashCourse how far off were they? If it has been a while, do you think it might be worth testing a new one to see if they've improved? I actually just got a TinySA recently and an attenuator so I can test mine. I'll let you know how it goes. I sure like my UVK5. I hope it tests okay.
Agreed. If you're using it for EMCOMM "hillbilly 911" I think you will want a scanner with all the same freqs on the side. That's what I do, and it basically quadruples your chance of hearing important sporadic traffic.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse I just hooked two Quansheng UVK5 8 radios up to my Tiny SA and both were within legal limits. Maybe it's time to give them another look?
You did not even cover the fact that there is modded firmware for the H3 that makes it SO MUCH BETTER. The NicFW mods made the scanning SO FAST and you can push 1 button to transmit back from the scan with no programming of codes needed. The ultimate emergency functionality! You can scan ALL channels in like 3 seconds. It is a hacked mod so you will have to learn some things to get the radio in the butter zone but once you do it makes the H3 more like a $100 radio.
Josh, have you seen the SMA > BNC adapter sold by Signal Stuff? It has an attachment for adding a “tiger tail” to the adapter. Have you ever performed testing with tiger tails? 73, W1RKB
I purchased this radio as a Black Friday deal. Such as great little radio for the price. It just felt so good in the hand. I accidentally purchased the GMRS "version" of this radio, and it only came with a GMRS tuned antenna. Just wondering if the antenna you reviewed was the dual band or the GMRS antenna? I ended up returning the radio, because I didn't want the GMRS antenna. However, I decided not to buy the dual band "version" of this radio, because, like you, I bought a BTech UV-Pro. I decided that H3 wouldn't get much use. I may end up buying this radio again for my wife.
Picked up a few radios recently, few Icom HT's, couple of Yaesu HT's, but nothing looks so cool on my shelf as my H3 and H8 both in standard Prison issue clear.
wil you do the park test with the stock antenna ive had good luck with mine i check into a nightly net on a 2 meter repater thats around 30 miles from my house i know other antennas are better just wondering how it compairs to the others thanks for what you do ive learned alot from your videos
While testing a number of allegedly geuine Nagoya antennas, I found a lot of junk or mediocre, but one definite fake (the orange 19") actually outperformed the real thing. Seems like even factory antennas can be less than prime.
Did I understand correctly that this has true dual receive? Or is it the fake dual watch like Baofengs where it only plays the first heard? I have the big brother to this, the TD-H8. It's very similar, but lacks the USB-C programming port, and I think the dual watch is likely Baofengs where it's only one signal at a time. It has the same junk antenna, but 10 watts transmit power.
You "can" us it, but the VNA will show different tuning that won't match how the antenna functions on a radio. Keep in mind, most HT antennas are 1/4 wavelength and the radio and human operator are the second half of the antenna circuit. If you're testing an antenna without the "other half" it will give invalid results.
@HamRadioCrashCourse Good to know, I use mine mainly for rx and monitoring so the spectrum scope is so nice to have on the go, I hope they fix that thing someday in a new version that's as flexible as the uvk5.
i dont like this radio,the receive sucks on both side 2 meter and 70cm,i can open the local repeater but i dont receive the repeater it self,while on my quansheng with the same antenna the repeater blasting in s9+ i might just have a bad one even on the out side antenna it wont receive only static
the problem with these low-cost cheap communist Made radios, when your transmit, the transmit extremely dirty a lot of spers missions and that's a big No-No!
Hi Josh, please stop using the AI autotranslated audio tracks. Its really horrible and we have to manually change the track every time... AFAIK there is no user-side setting to avoid getting the AI track.
You keep asking me to do this and I have no idea what you’re asking me to do. Further, are there no other nations that need the feature? Can you not turn it off on your end?
It sounds like the comments are people outside the US. UA-cam has been trying AI audio in their native language. But it’s doing it in countries like Germany where many speak English.
@HamRadioCrashCourse I have seen some of those AI transportations ,they can be quite funny sometimes and with regional dialects and slang ? It has some learning to do !
@@HamRadioCrashCourse As far as I understand it, the user can only change the track manually after starting it and the track is always preset in his “native language”. I am not aware of any user-side presetting. The creator can actually only change the default setting whether the tracks are translated or deactivate the individual tracks for the respective video via UA-cam Studio. IMHO the AI track is so bad that I recommend that you deactivate it, at least in countries where English is taught at school. The actual content translation is not that bad - but the translation messes up pretty much anything else language conveys.
If the airwaves are constant shouldn’t we the people be able to use them for free and without an unelected overlord telling us what we can and cannot do
You'd probably not like it if someone decided to transmit with 100 watts on the same frequencies your your wi-fi, tv or mobile phone runs on, because he doesn't feel like being told what to do. Airwaves are a finite resource and everyone needs to play by the rules.
The airwaves are finite. In other words there isn’t enough space for all the people, businesses, first responders, etc. that want to use them. That is why almost all services require licenses to operate. Amateur radio goes an extra step because all the frequency access, power limits and ability to experiment that the world wide community believes it’s enough privileges to require users to pass cursory knowledge tests.
I bought two of these , one for me and one for my son. Like you I found the antenna sucks. Mine was resonant around 120MHz. I didn’t have the Juevos needed to load that Chinese app on my phone. Now that best part. There is a guy in the UK that has written firmware for it. You can find a video on it from Tech Minds here on UA-cam. I love his firmware.
I have several of these for use on the ranch. If you have more than one, I really love the cloning feature. Hold down the monitor button while turning them on. Once you see the ready to copy message, clicking the monitor button on the radio you are copying from only takes minutes to create quick clones.
Great radio for what it is and yes the antenna must be upgraded. The aftermarket firmware makes the radio even shine more. The NICMOD firmware is great, it adds more info on the screen which can be customized and even adds a band scope screen. With the aftermarket firmware it adds the capability of channel groups, better filtering, SSB, real-time controlling via PC and much more. Again its a basic entry level HT but does the job adequately. 73's VA7LFD
Not to mention you now have an activity scanner when attached to the PC. You can scan all the local activity and add it to the radio right from the programmer. Being able to control the radio from your PC is so cool!
Another good thing about Od Master Bluetooth software is that if you have repeater book on your phone, you can directly send repeater data into the software from repeater book without having to type everything. Then into the radio. Get into a new location and add more repeaters.
I have had TiD radio H2.s for over a year. They are my only handhelds and have used the OD Master software, very convenient. The radios work well also.
Great radio, glad to see it getting some coverage from your channel. You are 100% right about the antenna, got a signal stick and haven’t looked back. I know a lot of ppl complain about the airband transmission but it both sides sound pretty good in my neck of the woods. I might try and post a video.
I discovered these about 2 months ago, I now own 5 of them, they're such a great value!
I really like that i can clone the radios with just the push of a couple of buttons. It was useful when i was setting up multiple radios for our offroad club.
I like mine. I didn't have any issues getting out with the stock antenna, but after I got one of those Abbree foldable 42" ones, I was (just) able to hit a repeater nearly 50 miles away on VHF, and that was one nestled into the Cascade foothills near a place called Silver Falls State Park. Quite surprising. I've also had a couple of good line-of-sight simplex contacts when hooked up to the magmounted dual band antenna on the car. Occasional signal reports mention static though. Also, I discovered that technically it can be unlocked to transmit on 1.25m, not that I actually tried to. In fact it appeared to be pretty deaf on that band, although that could be because of the antenna. Might also mention the popular Marcus Dudley (NICSure I think) firmware for it, which I've yet to try. Adds a lot of functionality and (depending on taste) a better display.
I have 2 of them, they work great on 220-440 and 2-meter with a good little tri-band antenna mine is a RADODDITY RD-301 a cheap but verry good antenna for a small size set up.
I bought myself an H3 for Christmas. It's a fun little radio to play with!
I have 2 of these and like them a lot. I have mine in open mode, and they work on 220 as well as 2 meters and 440. I run a tri-band Nagoya antenna. The bluetooth programming for repeaters is awesome if you travel like I do. TX audio gets unsolicited compliments on the factory setting. You can see the display in bright sunlight, unlike the UV-17 and UV-21 Baofengs.
My only complaint is 199 memories... I wish it would do 999 (not 1000)! 😂 So I could program it for the areas that I travel to most frequently. You never know when internet is down and you can't access to program locally via the bluetooth app.
I don't really use air band, but it does work (I am near Alliance and DFW airports). NOAA and FM radio work well, and you can program FM stations into memory, which is nice. WBAP 820 is simulcast on 93.3 FM (for emergency news).
Great little HT's for the money, and great to know they are clean on TX.
Thanks for the review, and 73!
Brett K5WXP
How does one do that program the FM into the H3 via bluetooth?
@georgeg.5488 I believe I had to do the FM radio stations via Chirp on my H3.
@@k5wxp22 thank you for your quick response appreciate you have a good one
I have one and I use it for both GMRS and HAM. I love it.
I also have one, I use it for ham. I have plenty of other radios for GMRS.
@@nimblehealer199 the main reason I got this was to just have one that would do both. it came with what I believe is a rebranded nagoya antenna and it works fantastic.
It is a great radio for my "Hillbilly 911" concept of monitoring the other services for emergency traffic during critical incidents too. FRS/GRS, MURS, and Marine. The radios non-radio people tend to have lying around.
I have one (got it free from TID), I found Bluetooth programming confusing at first, so I moved to the the old trusty Chirp for initial programming. It has great battery life. The one test I want to do before I give a full recommendation is if it desenses as easily as the Baofeng. If it does not, this will be my recommended budget radio for beginners. One initial test seems to prove it's better, but I am hoping we can do a better test at our club meeting next week. I have not had a QSO on mine yet (similar holiday reasons), but I can at least hit the repeater around town. The scanning seems to be quicker than the Baofeng as well, but I have not run them side-by-side on that. I also have not tested the GMRS mode yet either, I know that you can switch it into GMRS mode.
I'm hopeful I can use this as my cheap EDC. I'm also working on getting the TD-H8, I know I won't get 10w, but to see if there is any additional improvements.
Like its size and versatility. I like it shows the name of the channel and the TX/RX frequencies . Excellent for the money. Got my dad one for back up in the bush since there are areas that don’t get good cell coverage. Just used chirp to program all the repeaters near him and some simplex frequencies.
I picked up a pair of these on a black friday sale. Great radios AND can be unlocked to do GMRS as well. Not that I would EVER use it for ANYTHING other than listening on GMRS or risk the wrath of the mighty FCC! ;)
As an low cost upgrade to a UV5R, you get 2m, 70cm, Air band (listen only), GMRS (Listen only ;), NOAA Weather, AND Bluetooth programming? Absolutely a no brainer as a low cost travel radio.
When I looked to purchase one, it was listed as GMRS. Then there was one listed as Dual Band HAM. lol. Upon further investigation, I found they are the same radio just shipped either locked to GMRS or Amateur. (You can elect to do the third option with a simple 2 button press while powering on to select “Normal” operation. I’ll let you guess what “normal” mode means 😂.)
I have a GMRS one, it's the same radio with a different FCCID.
So, technically, it is certified for GMRS Tx.
I unlocked it into "Normal" mode and installed nicFW, it opens up so much, like now it will allow me to set AM reciever mode on custom channels, which means I can go into 11M/CB bands now with the right antenna. It'll tune to CB on the stock firmware, but it is locked to FM.
Of course, I've programmed it to not transmit on anything outside of GMRS, I'm not licensed for Ham and it's not licensed for MURS/CB/Marine, but the sheer range of frequencies it will recieve, even on stock FW if you don't care about AM outside of air channels, is absolutely insane.
I have 2 of them, last night I checked into our net on 220-, 440- and 2-meter nets from the Walmart parking lot in Greensburg, IN the 220 and 440 tower was only 1 1/2 miles away but the 2-meter tower is about 7 miles away. It's a nice clean little radio.
I bought a two pack of these in black for gmrs back in July. I gifted one to my father in law and immediately purchased a green one. I've enjoyed having them.
@@Baronvaile I’ve discovered that the GMRS version can also be unlocked and used on the ham bands (assuming you’re licensed) they are identical radios.
A friend has the H-3, very nice radio. I bought the new H-8 and it has become my go to HT as Tidradio must think much as I do (scary thought) as it does just what I want it to in a very intuitive to me way. The Only change I wish it had was a knob on top for changing channels.
I bought it for a mobile Allstarlink node using a AIOC board and Pi Zero 2W. Works very well. It will also do APRS via iOS as well.
Another thing to mention about the programming is you can use chirp then download the CVC file onto the OD master website programmer. So if you already have frequencies downloaded for other radios you can just simply transfer that onto the app through the web browser. And of course you can always just use chirp like you would any other radio
I'll have to look into that. ODmaster is not the greatest software to use for programming channel frequencies and only works on baofeng-esque radios.
It will be good if there is a better method than buying another device just to clone from one radio to another just to use a phone.
It would be better still if T.I.D. Radio would put out drivers so that Chirp could then use their BT protocol and skip a phone altogether.
@MrTsukurou you can use the tdh-3 through their web based programer on a computer but I don't think the Bluetooth dongle programer for other ones is compatible directly on the computer. But basically just go to the website and it will have a layout similar to chirp but still a bit confusing. You can download a CVC file from chirp and upload it to the radios profile. That will allow you to keep it in the radios profile in both the app and web browser to update when you would like. You can keep multiple frequency files under each radios profile which is cool for traveling. For example I have a profile for home and a profile for when I travel to see family. I just open the app, connect my radio then select the file and all done ✅
As compared to my BF radios, I really am happy with my H3s. Although you like the BT feature, I haven't even tried it. As a guy with old eyes,,,, the best thing about the H3 is the very easy to read screen, A/B tests with the H3/BF everyone tells me the H4 has much better audio. As a side note, I use the Abree 771 antennas on mine.
Wireless copy is so cool! I immediately bought 4!
Great review Josh! I order 2 a while back…one ham version and 1 GMRS. On Amazon, there seem to be lots of different bundles, some with different antennas. Have to carefully read the description to see which antennas you’ll get. The ham bundle I ordered came with 3 antennas: short dual band + a longer 771 dual ham band clone + an air band antenna . The GMRS version came with a short GMRS and longer 771g GMRS clone.
A few hints and tips:
1) Scan for nearby transmissions
Press and hold 1 key. It should find the frequency and tone of a nearby radio and then let you save it to a memory.
2) Wirelessly copy all memories from one TD-H3 to another
On target radio, hold down the lowest side button and turn radio on. Should see “Wireless Copy” on screen
On the source radio, do the same. Shows “Wireless Copy” on screen.
On the SOURCE radio, press the lowest side button again.
Should see RED transmit text on source radio, GREEN receivetext on target
Copy starts, shows Success when done
3.) If you purchase the GMRS version or reset the radio to GMRS mode, be aware only channels 1 to 54 can transmit. Channels 55 and up will be receive only. That was a surprise :)
4) If you use an external speaker mic plugged into the side connector, you may get a pop at the end of each received transmission. Seems to be a known issue on some units.
Also, KS6DAY has a nice video series going over lots of the features and options of the TD-H3
Good to know about the stock antenna! I've always had an NA-701 on mine and it was a great first radio for ham.
I borrowed a radio ( baofeng) from a friend while rock crawling last summer. I set it to figure out which radio would be best and settled on a h3. The friend whose radio is borrowed, later recommended the h3 also. I really like that little radio
Have 2 H3's and the antennas were junk matter of fact on 2m they would reset radio when I hit PTT got new smiley antennas and problem was solved ... FYI button #5 (REV) is used to switch to the input on repeaters ... hit menu button then #5 and your VFO is now on TX side of repeater... it must be a repeater channel of course on your radio.
i have that radio, i had been using it for probably a few months but it ended up dying
not to fault tidradio, i did take some risks which i assumed and i consider they were worth it considering the fun and that the price is quite low
the risk was merely using custom firmware, NicFW to be more precise, doing the mala praxis of not clearing the eeproom
even by doing so, keep in mind, you are risking to brick the radio
I programmed mine with VGF Marine and GMRS I also have GMRS repeaters programmed and a few Ham Repeaters for listening to or emergency communications I hit Jax GMRS repeaters in 2 watts from 26 mikes away.
Have one. I think it's the best under $50... Even under $75.
Have a green one. It's the only one I ever use. I have several Baofangs and other brands.
Thank you so much for making this video. I just ordered a signal stick for improved performance.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video and took my advice to upgrade!
Thanks for the review. I have two TD-H3s and use it only for GMRS right now.. (I don't have my HAM yet) but I got them with the idea that I could use it for HAM once I got my ticket. But I love these little radios.. and they have surprised me a lot. I think the newest firmware and some of the user-developed firmware out there actually does better on the air-band too.
I really like custom firmware on mine. :]
The Tydradio link you posted goes to an "aviation pack" which contains one antenna. Their regular version shows two antennas--so you may well have been testing their "aviation" antenna.
I updated CHIRP to support recent firmware features on the TD-H3. However, Tidradio ignored my request for access to even newer firmware to continue to update CHIRP support, so I've moved to NicFW and it's generally so much better. And better documented... ♥️
I have a couple of these radios, and I have to say they are really impressive - especially if you upgrade the firmware to the NicSure firmware (plenty of links on the internet) ..... try it and thank me later. 🙂
The antenna isn't really an issue as we all tend to fit after-market antennas to our HTs. My only gripes are that the screen goes blank when the back-light times out and the other gripe is the same as all the cheap Chinese HTs - it is easy to overload the front-end in RF rich environments rendering it deaf! Something to be aware of if using it for SOTA and likely to be operating close to broadcast antennas. Over all, this is probably the best bang for buck little HT on the market at the moment. My daily carry is one of these TD-H3 radios with the NicSure firmware.
I bought two of these , one for me and one for my son. Like you I found the antenna sucks. Mine was resonant around 120MHz. I didn’t have the Juevos needed to load that Chinese app on my phone. Now that best part. There is a guy in the UK that has written firmware for it. You can find a video on it from Tech Minds here on UA-cam. I love his firmware.
Josh, one thing I would suggest is looking at the inside collar of the antenna. The antennas that TID uses tend to have their frequency ranges printed there. My guess is that the antenna you were using was tuned for GMRS, as that's most of what I've seen these ship with.
Another thing I've found that I love about these radios is the versatility of programming them. You can use bluetooth from your phone or from the OD Master website on your desktop/laptop, and you can use either a USB-C cable or a traditional Baofeng programming cable from inside CHIRP with the radio. I'm yet to figure out a way to use CHIRP over bluetooth with it. 73
The photos on the Amazon link showed that the only TX band was FRS/GMRS, so I imagine you’re right.
Back to back receive comparisons between the two, the H3 seems to have an edge, but that may just be a problem with my Feng. Plan on buying a few more H3's, I like them
A few days ago I was listening to the crossband repeater on the ISS with both a TD-H3 and a Baofeng UV-5R, both with 771 antennas on them. The TD-H3 consistently herd the calls where the UV-5R caught a few through mostly static. Looks like the receiver is much better on the Tidradio.
9:24 If that doesn't sell people on the signal stick, I don't know what will. lol. I'd love to see more stock antennas tested, like ones on more expensive radios.. FT5D, ID52, D75 etc.
I recently picked up a couple of H3's that are locked to GMRS for communicating with the non-hams in the family. They are solid little radios. I am sure the dual band ham version works equally well. I did get an N76 but it was locked to a different region and I couldn't get it to transmit above 440, I had to return it but it's fine. I have an FT-5DR and a TH-D75. I may try the BTech UV Pro version or I may just save my pennies for a DMR radio. Thanks for the videos! 73
If anyone runs into this issue of an N76 or UV-PRO set to the wrong band plan, I’ve read you can enter factory test mode and set the band plan with these steps:
In the phone app, connect to the radio, tap the hamburger menu icon
In the channel display, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner
Scroll to Device Status
Tap the voltage value 10 times
Should get a dialog for factory test mode where you can chose the country band plans, etc.
@@radioj5249 I heard about this but couldn't get that working due to a lack of a working android device. The iOS app didn't have the same options. I did try an older android tablet but the app wouldn't run on that. Any radio that requires a mobile app is kind of out for me anyway. I should be able to flash firmware or make these changes from a PC. I hate being locked to a single ecosystem.
I don't need the radio ... BUT I just bought one for $30.31 (black case) on Amazon. I will "play" with this one and not be afraid to damage it :-). My main V/UHF radios are the Motorola (XTS5000 FM P25), Yaesu (VX8R FM), Kenwood (TH-D74 FM D-Star, ID5100A (FM D-Star) and AnyTone (878 and 578 FM DMR).
in the past several months, I have had 2 of these. I had trouble with both. Agter programming with chirp and bluetooth, repeater channels wouldn't work. Had same issue with both radios. After repeated attempts to re-program the radios. Same problem occurred. I suspect that unlocking the radios so it can be used on GMRS may be the culprit.
Just recently received my crystal version that I bought from AliExpress for $25.13 last week.
Put the nicsure firmware on that bad boy and discover the glory of the fastest scanning on a $25 radio you'll ever find
I will try that next!
@@HamRadioCrashCourse A few things I really like with the firmware is the scan speed and the ability to press the bottom left orange button while scanning to "skip" a channel if you are tired of listening to a ragchew on that channel. Stop the scan and restart it and that skipped channel will be back in the scan list. If you turn off the screen updates it'll scan 100+ channels in a second. The scan speed is really amazing once you turn the screen update off.
The scan groups are also a huge improvement over stock. You lose the bluetooth capability with the ODMaster app, but as your video showed its kinda a quirky app I didn't care for anyway.
@@delta9jms that's a great tip! I have a couple of these H3s and the only thing that has really held me back from enjoying them is the abysmally slow scan speed. I'm definitely going to give that NicSure firmware a try!
@@HamRadioCrashCourse The scanning is nosebleed fast and you can transmit back with a couple button pushes.
Do read the nicsure NicFW documentation when you do that. Unlike the original TD-H3 manual, it's actually useful.
This was great! It's so hard to see exactly how these radios and their stock antennas are actually performing. 👍
I keep my td-h8 mobile daily while doordashing… and carry my td-h3… it worth changing antennas
My desk H3 unfortunately died recently - the screen just stopped turning on one day. Was a great little radio though.
Something you didn't cover or test. This radio supports 220 and 500mhz and 300mhz. Didn't try to on 500 or 300 but 220 put out a solid 5watts on both of my h3s
H3 is my favorite radio.
If it only had faster scanning, this would be my choice of "Baofeng killer" too. The Quansheng UVK5 has much better scan speed and most of the benefits of the TID Radio H3. Sadly I've heard they aren't the cleanest in terms of spurious emissions. Have you tested one recently by chance? I'd be interested to see your results.
I have two Quanshengs. Neither pass spurious testing so I haven’t reviewed them.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse@HamRadioCrashCourse how far off were they? If it has been a while, do you think it might be worth testing a new one to see if they've improved? I actually just got a TinySA recently and an attenuator so I can test mine. I'll let you know how it goes. I sure like my UVK5. I hope it tests okay.
Agreed. If you're using it for EMCOMM "hillbilly 911" I think you will want a scanner with all the same freqs on the side. That's what I do, and it basically quadruples your chance of hearing important sporadic traffic.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse I just hooked two Quansheng UVK5 8 radios up to my Tiny SA and both were within legal limits. Maybe it's time to give them another look?
Brotha, you gotta do a video on the Quansheng UV-K5 with custom firmware. The H3 is cool, but the K5 can do so much more👍
I’ve had two for a while. Both spurious emitters. Not likely going to review any of them.
I like this radio, but the keypad is too small for my fat fingers. I'm a fan of the newer, larger Baofeng radios, such as the 5RM and UV-5G Plus
You did not even cover the fact that there is modded firmware for the H3 that makes it SO MUCH BETTER. The NicFW mods made the scanning SO FAST and you can push 1 button to transmit back from the scan with no programming of codes needed. The ultimate emergency functionality! You can scan ALL channels in like 3 seconds. It is a hacked mod so you will have to learn some things to get the radio in the butter zone but once you do it makes the H3 more like a $100 radio.
Josh, have you seen the SMA > BNC adapter sold by Signal Stuff? It has an attachment for adding a “tiger tail” to the adapter. Have you ever performed testing with tiger tails? 73, W1RKB
I purchased this radio as a Black Friday deal. Such as great little radio for the price. It just felt so good in the hand. I accidentally purchased the GMRS "version" of this radio, and it only came with a GMRS tuned antenna. Just wondering if the antenna you reviewed was the dual band or the GMRS antenna? I ended up returning the radio, because I didn't want the GMRS antenna. However, I decided not to buy the dual band "version" of this radio, because, like you, I bought a BTech UV-Pro. I decided that H3 wouldn't get much use. I may end up buying this radio again for my wife.
Check out the new AR26 baofeng, bluetooth, gps, tri bands
Picked up a few radios recently, few Icom HT's, couple of Yaesu HT's, but nothing looks so cool on my shelf as my H3 and H8 both in standard Prison issue clear.
I have 3 and plan to get more but I will not buy anything Tid until I find out how to upgrade the firmware!
You failed to mention that the H3 will also work on 220MHz if the menu is set to 200MHz
wil you do the park test with the stock antenna ive had good luck with mine i check into a nightly net on a 2 meter repater thats around 30 miles from my house i know other antennas are better just wondering how it compairs to the others thanks for what you do ive learned alot from your videos
While testing a number of allegedly geuine Nagoya antennas, I found a lot of junk or mediocre, but one definite fake (the orange 19") actually outperformed the real thing. Seems like even factory antennas can be less than prime.
Tid Radio sent me an H3 for review, but then the Canada Post strike happened and who knows where it is now 😢
That is terrible. I hope you get your radio soon.
There's an upgrade custom firmware, "nicsure", for this device.
Just grabbed a tidradio h8 why not
Did I understand correctly that this has true dual receive? Or is it the fake dual watch like Baofengs where it only plays the first heard?
I have the big brother to this, the TD-H8. It's very similar, but lacks the USB-C programming port, and I think the dual watch is likely Baofengs where it's only one signal at a time. It has the same junk antenna, but 10 watts transmit power.
Ohh, good question. I think I jumped to a conclusion that it was a cheater dual-watch. I will check.
shouldn’t the antennas be at an swr if 1.5:1 on both bands to be considered “good”?
Wouldn’t the uvk5 be a better choice at this price point?
I don’t recommend those radios, so no. 😅
trying to get onto your discord server but keep getting told can't join that the invite has expired??
What about the tidradio h8 ???
I am unable to find the handheld test dummy.
It’s a custom unit.
Why can't you just use coax or something in between the antenna and vna. Would that work?
You "can" us it, but the VNA will show different tuning that won't match how the antenna functions on a radio. Keep in mind, most HT antennas are 1/4 wavelength and the radio and human operator are the second half of the antenna circuit. If you're testing an antenna without the "other half" it will give invalid results.
“A bit taller, a tad thicker through the middle”.
That’s too close to home.
I don't know, man, the quansheng uvk5 with flashed firmware is too hard to beat
I have two. Both create serious emissions so I don’t recommend them.
@HamRadioCrashCourse Good to know, I use mine mainly for rx and monitoring so the spectrum scope is so nice to have on the go, I hope they fix that thing someday in a new version that's as flexible as the uvk5.
I don’t think they can. Spurious emissions are generally always related to the hardware.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse haha, yeah, I meant a new quansheng radio, like a uvk7 or something with hardware that doesn't suck so much
a gent from the UK has been publishing alternative firmware to improve the display and provide remote control.. Nicsure is the channel
Ride or die, Baofeng for life!!!!!!!!!!
I literally ordered one an hour before you posted this. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
I can Not watch the Video in original Language. Why?
I have the big tiddy.(h8) Excellent radio. Beats baofengs ass. Although i cant get h8iap to read it.
i dont like this radio,the receive sucks on both side 2 meter and 70cm,i can open the local repeater but i dont receive the repeater it self,while on my quansheng with the same antenna the repeater blasting in s9+ i might just have a bad one even on the out side antenna it wont receive only static
Looks like a prison issue item.
Don’t love mine. Receive not great.
Keepy pile.
Nothing new here... old news..
the problem with these low-cost cheap communist Made radios, when your transmit, the transmit extremely dirty a lot of spers missions and that's a big No-No!
Manuel, I tested this one. It’s clean.
Hi Josh, please stop using the AI autotranslated audio tracks.
Its really horrible and we have to manually change the track every time... AFAIK there is no user-side setting to avoid getting the AI track.
You keep asking me to do this and I have no idea what you’re asking me to do. Further, are there no other nations that need the feature? Can you not turn it off on your end?
@@HamRadioCrashCourseI think 3141 might be an AI . Your audio is 59.
It sounds like the comments are people outside the US. UA-cam has been trying AI audio in their native language. But it’s doing it in countries like Germany where many speak English.
@HamRadioCrashCourse I have seen some of those AI transportations ,they can be quite funny sometimes and with regional dialects and slang ? It has some learning to do !
@@HamRadioCrashCourse As far as I understand it, the user can only change the track manually after starting it and the track is always preset in his “native language”. I am not aware of any user-side presetting.
The creator can actually only change the default setting whether the tracks are translated or deactivate the individual tracks for the respective video via UA-cam Studio.
IMHO the AI track is so bad that I recommend that you deactivate it, at least in countries where English is taught at school.
The actual content translation is not that bad - but the translation messes up pretty much anything else language conveys.
nagoya antenna are trash people. stop recommending them. for like $1 more you can get a diamond or a signal stick.
I didn’t recommend them. I showed why they’re not good transmitters over signal sticks and ZBM2 antennas.
That is kinda harsh .
Are signal stick antennas available in Europe?
If the airwaves are constant shouldn’t we the people be able to use them for free and without an unelected overlord telling us what we can and cannot do
You'd probably not like it if someone decided to transmit with 100 watts on the same frequencies your your wi-fi, tv or mobile phone runs on, because he doesn't feel like being told what to do.
Airwaves are a finite resource and everyone needs to play by the rules.
The airwaves are finite. In other words there isn’t enough space for all the people, businesses, first responders, etc. that want to use them. That is why almost all services require licenses to operate. Amateur radio goes an extra step because all the frequency access, power limits and ability to experiment that the world wide community believes it’s enough privileges to require users to pass cursory knowledge tests.
Hello and happy new year. 73 M0DSK
I bought two of these , one for me and one for my son. Like you I found the antenna sucks. Mine was resonant around 120MHz. I didn’t have the Juevos needed to load that Chinese app on my phone. Now that best part. There is a guy in the UK that has written firmware for it. You can find a video on it from Tech Minds here on UA-cam. I love his firmware.