At Sea-pac this year I had heard good reviews about this TIDRadio TD-H3: clear and good sound, and a nice compact radio that they had deployed to a local organization.
Great features
- USBC charging battery, programming cable, no mess of cables and chargers to remember.
- Works out of the box with CHIRP-next latest version.
- Easily programmable with step by step instructions with Repeater-START premium. (40% off this weekend)
Not so great features
- Chinese radio app with bluetooth, did not work for me and did not list TD-H3 in list of radios.
- App wants you to set up an account (chinese server and app Odmaster.)
- Somewhat clunky interface compared to Yaesu/others (well, I may be biased as I learned on Yaesu radios 🙂 )
When you choose a radio, I would suggest looking at what common digital radio repeaters are around you – if DMR, get a DMR digital, not one like this. If Yaesu wires digital repeaters are nearby, get an FT-70 or better, with Yaesu digital features. With Repeater-START premium, you can tap the help button on any repeater and see which radios are greyed out – those are unable to use the digital mode or frequency. So you will not waste time getting the radio up and trying to set on a radio that doesn’t do that mode or band!
Update – according to this video and some reports, the radio may be damaged, fail when charging with the battery while ON the radio.