Everything you’ve come to expect from a CCR, unfortunately.

Andres – M0FXB – from YouTube did an unboxing of this radio from TiD when it was in beta. I enjoy watching Andres videos and I grabbed one up for under $40. This is how it went.

First, it took almost a month for a carrier pigeon to deliver it from China to New Hampshire. While I’m used to long shipping times from across the world, this was post-Covid and before the Tangerine Tyrant instituted his moronic, damaging tariffs. It did finally arrive in a plain cardboard box, no manual. Understood, it was a bata radio, aka pre-release. I had heard good things about TiD’s H3 (standard model) so I was looking forward to this radio, especially since it is quite a bit smaller than most (outside of the new Baofeng Mini). There’s three versions of this radio: GMRS, HAM, and Unlocked (both). I have the Unlocked though most of what I have to say should apply to all the versions since it is just a firmware switch.

Let’s break it down and see where this goes.

TX\RX: RX sensitivity is very good. The speaker decent for such a small radio and TX clarity has gotten good reports. Purity is no better than most pre-Covid CCRs across multiple firmware updates (more on the FW thing later). Yeh, kinda dirty, flirting close to -60db. I measured 5.5W on 2m, 4W on 70cm. It is advertised to do 1.25m as well – and it will receive it fine – but TX is less than 1W. It also can receive AM Airband, a nice touch. And yes, the unlocked version can be put into only GMRS mode to be legal for that service.

This is a small radio, about half the size of a UV5R and a little more comfortable to hold because of the round edges. Screen is bright and clear, even in direct sun and since a recent firmware update allows the option of a “classic” display mode, the characters are large and easy to see. One of the better screens in my collection.

Considering its size, battery life is on par with the standard-sized CCR and can be charged via USB-C.
Carefully. There’s a flaw in early battery charging circuit that if you charged the battery while it was attached to the radio, it cooked the radio. Fortunately the battery isn’t one that is screwed on so the workaround to prevent this is to charge the battery off the radio.
Pain in the ass. The first of a few PITAs with this gem.

It has Bluetooth. The advertising talks about connecting to a phone or computer and talking over “the network.” using the ODMaster app. If you think this means it can do DMR or that it has a BT TNC for digital work modes….
NOPE.
You can talk on “the network” with just your phone, no radio involved. Or use Whatsapp or any other messenger because that is what this is like. If you want to do RF to internet, Internet to RF, or remote control over the internet, get a better radio. Apparently the H8 can do it, the brilliant VGC N76 and clones can..
You can connect to phone or PC to use the BT for programming using the Odmaster phone app or website as well as for audio, certain BT hand mics and pretty much any BT speaker. You can use your phone as a PTT if you want, or pick up phone calls from your phone on the radio (you still need to use the PTT). You can also use USB-C for programming in the Windows app but not online firmware updates, those require a standard K1 programming cable. It works with CHIRP, which is nice. While the web app and phone app are not complete crap, they still are more fiddly to use than simple, intuitive CHIRP.

Firmware updates can be done using the Odmaster website (registration and login required) or a version-specific stand alone windows EXE. If using the Windows EXE, be prepared for it to be flagged by your antivirus as being infected.
Because it is.
I’m not implying any racism with this, given the fearmongering out there about Chinese software and security, I believe it does have the Trojan it is flagged for (one of several). This is a simple, one-file, no install EXE. It has one job: connect to a COM port, open a radio, upload the firmware, confirm, and disconnect. The firmware BIN file is shipped with the EXE. It is a local file. So, in theory AND in practice, the EXE has zero reasons to connect to the internet.
But it does.
And a good firewall will catch it as it does it on a random, non-standard port, if your AVS didn’t already flag it. Cleaning the file renders it non-functional but blocking its access to the internet has no effect. Therefore, the alleged virus was compiled with the code and is accessed by the code, but is not required by the code to do its job. What it is connecting for, and what it is sharing, I do not know. I considered packet sniffing it but didn’t want to take the risk of it on my network and honestly, I don’t care enough about the radio to be that interested. I did any FW updates (and there’s many of them, mainly because the last one broke something important) on an isolated system with no network access, it doesn’t even have a NIC.

Before I get to more FW discussion, 3 out of the 5 H3 Plus radios I’ve encountered, if something, anything is plugged into the K1 port, the up channel key becomes the 4 and the 4 the up channel key. Down channel and 7 are not affected. Today while testing it for this post, now it does it with nothing in the port. I’d consider maybe a hardware issue but this seems to randomly appear\disappear with firmware changes.

I’ve done 11 FW updates on my radio. Each one has fixed something minor plus a major thing that got broke by the previous update and broken something else. One FW update bricked everyone’s radio. They did turn a fix around in 24 hrs, it was convoluted and – unlike normal updates – could only be done with the USB cable. Support communication was fair in the beginning, now questions just go into the void. The FB group dedicated to this specific model makes Yelp one star reviews sound flattering.

I have had so many frustrations with this radio that it is not in my rotation of use. I’d rather grab my 10 year old UV5R and piss off the Sad Hams complaining about spectrum purity than depend on this radio. Even on GMRS, where most of the issues appear to not exists, I don’t trust it. I don’t even leave it monitoring GMRS for the wife when I’m out and about – she cares for radio as much as she cares about who qualified for the latest NASCAR race (zero damns given) – because it is that unreliable.

TL:DR – I had high hopes for this radio considering how many people like the standard H3. Unfortunately, they are related in name only. I had hopes for TiD to come in strong, but they are more like pre-Covid Baofeng. There are a few worse radios out there, though outside of the original UV5R, I’m struggling to think of one. Save your money and sanity. Get an H3\6\8\9 or one of the many other CCRs out there or if you need a decent GMRS HT, the UV5G Pro is a damn good unit. I’ll be reviewing that soon.

Author: Scott

General class operator