TIDRadio TD-H8 Two Way Radio – Review and Comparison to the TD-H3
[Music] hello MJ7NLK here and welcome back to the channel in today's video we are looking at the tid radio h8 which is a handheld two-way radio and it is quoted as outputting up to 10 watts it has Bluetooth for wireless programming is dualband UHF and VHF supports tones and codes and can receive broadcast FM radio this radio is sold in two different variants a ham version and a gmrs version however it doesn't matter which version you buy as you can switch between the modes using a secret key combination which we'll be covering later in the video the h8 costs around £37 and can be purchased in bundles with extra batteries lapel mics and a 771 antenna all for under £50 pounds at checkout enter the discount code NLKMedia that's all one word to receive up to 10% off or use the affiliate Link in the video's description tid radio were also kind enough to send me a box full of accessories which we'll take a look at a bit later as well but before we continue here is a quick message from this video's sponsor PCB way PCB way are makers of prototype pcbs of all kinds they also offer services like PCB assembly CNC Machining 3D printing sheet metal fabrication and injection molding manufacturing times are exceptionally quick and delivery is super fast I've used their services on many occasions and PCB way get an nlk media thumbs up for quality and service check out their website PCB way.com for more information or follow the link in the video's description thank you PCB way for supporting this channel so putting the price into perspective if you haven't watched my video on the tid radio H3 then check it out in that video we introduced a pricing scale the H3 costs the same as two takeaway pizzas so continuing on with that scale the h8 costs about the price of of three takeaway pizzas plus a chicken nugget stupid scale I know but it's astonishing what you get for your money I received a jewel pack of h8 radios I opted for the Ghostbusters Slime green and Crystal variants of the radios and as you can see the postal system were not kind to the boxes but it's not tid radio's fault it's the same generic brown box that the the H3 came in but for this price I'm not going to complain the Box looks like it's gone eight rounds in a money-making staged and rather boring fight with Jake Paul moving on inside the Box we get a couple of antennas a user manual not bad contains most of the uh essential information that you need to know and a section on the Bluetooth programming which is nice to see we have a couple of desktop Chargers a couple of very nice and particularly attractive wrist straps USB cables a couple of UK plugs belt clips and the radios the CES the Slime green Ghostbusters version and the Crystal Version that is what you get inside the Box let's have a look around the h8 on the right hand side we have the headphone and microphone Port which is covered by a water resistant cover which is nice to see this is your conventional K connector and there is no USB socket on the radio itself so you have to use a conventional programming cable to connect this radio to a computer unless you're using the wireless functionality the mounting Point here at the top for the wrist strap is nice and substantial it takes a good chunk of the casing Which is far better than the H3 which has a small tiny piece of plastic on the top which could easily break on the top we have the SMA male antenna connector a alarm button a flashlight and the onof and volume control I would much prefer to see losing the flashlight and adding a channel selector here that would be my preference on this side of the radio we have a nice decent sized and clicky PTT button that's nice and we have two programmable buttons here you can also program this button in the software on the base of the radio we have a USBC connector for charging the battery and a indicator light the battery is relatively simple to take off by removing this clamp and then the battery lifts up and comes out now it's nice to see on the h8 that the mounting for the belt clip is on the radio and not the battery on the H3 the belt clip is part of the battery so the more batteries you have the more belt clips you need that is a pain so don't have that problem here so when charging the H3 this draws about 0.9 amps when plugged into the desktop cradle but when plugged directly into the battery draws about 1.2 amps and I noticed exactly the same on the h8 so if you want it to charge quicker don't use the Cradle before we look at the h8 features let's compare it more closely to the H3 the H3 has a 1.44 in screen and the h8 has a 1.77
in screen I prefer the button placement on the H3 but I prefer the button size of the h8 and the reason why I prefer the button placement is when you're holding the radio your thumbs are pretty bent to operate the keypad at the bottom where this is a lot more comfortable now let's just see on the the h8 how much that weighs without antenna or anything else 287.3 and the H3 227.48 not that that really matters but the belt clip is on this radio and not on this one but that gives you an idea of the weight difference it's not much but this is a bigger radio I've put some other radios out so you can compare them for size this is the Anytone D878 very popular radio uh an Icom ID 52 uh Motorola R7 gives you an idea on the size difference here so the h8 it's quoted as 10 watts the H3 is 5 Watts both radios are switchable between ham gmrs and unlocked modes they both have 2,500 Mar batteries support wireless programming support dual watch um Noah weather channels ctcss and DCS tones and codes Channel and frequency scanning and Vox they both have 199 Channel slots bit of a weird number don't know why they didn't make it 200 they have adjustable mic gain they both display the transmit power on the screen they both have a flashlight so they're they're very very similar now what is the the h8 missing that the H3 supports the Dual PTT buttons I thought this would be a gimmick but it's actually a nice feature and it's quite useful the h8 doesn't have that the frequency clone or scan option it doesn't have that if you hold down the number one key on this radio when it's on it will switch into a special mode and it will pick up the free frequency and the ctcss code of a nearby Radio that's transmitting this doesn't have that option it does have an option in the menu to scan for ctcss codes but it's slow and not as good as the option in this radio the wireless radio config cloning I can't seem to find that it doesn't support that as far as I can see and it doesn't have airband receive the H3 has air band this does not USBC programming Port this has it this doesn't and this has an built-in chip so you don't need any special programming cables you can just use any old cable and plug it in what does the h8 have that the H3 doesn't have well a second side button a top alarm button a more substantial wrist strap mounting bracket if you like like to the case the belt clip being mountable to the radio has a slightly larger screen and button size and can output more power but that's about it the big thing that's missing is that number one press option here for scanning frequency that has been really useful and I've used it quite a lot on this radio this one doesn't have it so looking at the general radio operation it's pretty much the same same as the H3 but there are some missing options in the menu or rather options that aren't supported on this radio and that's option 46 to 56 46 on this is scramble 47 is deck code 48 is AM radio which turns on your airband um these are not options that are available on this particular radio the vfo button here switches between Channel and frequency modes and it's the same as the orange button on the H3 BL is your Bluetooth on and off and ab switches the vfo to and the Green Arrow will display which vfo is active that's nice and simple um the menu button takes you into the menu system let's just get to the start so zero squelch if you want to get into to that option you just push menu again it drops you down and then you use the up down buttons to change the value as you require when you found that option you push menu it says confirm and then you push exit to come out very simple on the keys themselves you have some blue writing here these are shortcuts so the star key if I push that it will come up with d TMF and I can put whatever I want in here and when I push the PTT button it will play that back and transmit that's how you do DTMF on this radio if I long press this button it will scan scanning begin and that enters scan mode so we can scanning stop we can stop that four 4 n four z0 let's just go back again the second quick button here is your key lock if you long press the hash key it will lock the keypad the other buttons are your numerical keypad and if you click on those it's going to enter a frequency so those are only active when you push the menu button so if you push menu and I want to go quickly to timeout timer I can push nine and that will take me to the timeout timer so that's what the blue writing on the 0 to9 Keys refers to nice and simple you can also quick jump to a menu option so if I come out the menu push menu if I want option 44 you just put in 44 and it will take you to that option so that's also a nice shortcut now looking at the side buttons on the radio we have various options on these the button one this one here if I short press this it will activate the flashlight as you can see and I'm going to push it again and it will make the flashlight flash so please look away if you're sensitive to that okay that stopped so that's your flashlight exactly the same as the H3 and it's on a par to the flashlight on the H3 they're both very bright now if you long press button one it will go into monitor mode and break the squelch so that's fine the second button here if I short press this button it will go into FM radio and let's hope it's not on a commercial Channel which is going to get a copyright strike no it's not good so FM and then you can move between your um or choose tune your radio in to whatever you're particularly wanting and then push it again to turn it off if you long press that button it will enter your Noah weather channels which is not supported in Europe so only for our North American friends and then you have to long press it again to get out of the Noah weather channel mode now the panic button that's on the top or alarm if I push this now you have to be quite careful here you have to long press that button and if you long press it it will activate the alarm now it's not very loud so I don't know how useful this is but it will put the radio into permanent transmit and will transmit the alarm sound and Flash the LED on top so let's let's do that but it's only relevant to the channel that you're in so if I'm on 449 400 this radio is on 4 49400 let's just move it to the side if I long press that button it's not particularly loud but you can see it's transmitting and this radio is receiving it and you have to turn the radio off really and turn it back on before that uh pointless feature is cancelled and that's your alarm before we take a quick look at the accessories that tid radio sent me I have a quick shout out for Jay from Poland thank you so much for your message I will endeavor to make contact with you somehow okay let's have a look at these accessories they've sent me all sorts of bits we have the TD 805s which is a VHF UHF super stubby we've got a few of those get those out we have the programming cable the typical bow Fang style programming cable we have the 771 antenna which is used primarily for airband but that's great got a couple of of those got some headphones and I think these are the ones with a PTT button on them and the earpiece never use these but always useful to have another programming cable another stubby some UK plugs be interesting to see why those are in here USB cable we have the lapel mic let's have a quick look at one of those so tid radio branded with a nice clip metal backing that's nice and a nice clicky PTT and that's uh going back to the microphone socket so that's actually quite nice another one and another one so got three of those couple of charging stations and I think these are the small ones so they must be for the H3 yes they are so got a couple of spare ones of those great and another USB cable that must be for those and some long antennas now which ones are these absolutely no idea and this is a 771 so these must be for air band as well I'm sure these were 7 s ones so these must be the smaller version Let me just get one of these out God it doesn't want to come out right so this is a 771 so we have two different lengths of this antenna so that's really nice thank you tid radio for sending all of those bits and Bobs so I'll pack this mess away and we'll carry on with the h8 I've hooked up a Quang Chang k58 to the Spectrum analyzer so I'm on channel 449 400 or frequency 449 400 so I'm going to transmit and that looks nice and clean hopefully you can see that okay now if I span that on a full span you can see the second and third harmonic that's also being transmitted as well so I mean it's not awful but it's not great we've got second and third harmonic showing up there so I'm going to do the same for both the h8 and we know that the three is nicely filtered but I need to swap this over to this radio and we'll test both of these and see how they fare okay h8 is on we're on 449 400 and let's have a look that is lovely and clean let's just Auto that so we can see the signal as we did before we'll do a full span on that and that is nice and clean we can't see the second or the third harmonic there at all so well done tid radio you've done it again you've done an excellent job on filtering out I don't need to take that off I can then drop the welcome the H3 back on and we're on 449 400 let's have a look at that one tiny tiny bit of the third harmonic appearing there but really not much let's just have a look at this it's just the tiniest little bit there but it's really good on the H3 and and superb on the h 8 so we'll just test this one again there it is you can't see anything further up so well done tid radio really good job so when people say that the uh more budget end of the sort of Chinese radios uh just spit out awful Transmissions um with all sorts of spurious Transmissions going on um not great on the Quang Chang but nice on the two H3 and h8 tid radios next up is a power test so let's look at the H3 okay we're getting about three Watts on the H3 which is what we got last time nowhere near five and let's have a look and see what the h eight is going to do about what I would expect five watts is the power output and that is in high power mode so that's what we're getting 5 Watts on this not the advertise 10 but that's pretty much what I expect and 5 watts is a pretty decent power output for a handheld especially one costing 37 quid right sorry if I sound out of breath I've just had to go up a couple of floors and get past the guard dog at reception so let me uh call in a radio check hello Mr Motorola can I have a radio check please radio check radio check one two 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 radio check radio check there we go let's talk about programming software you have two options on the PC programming front you've got chirp or the tid radio CPS software they both work fine and will do the job but they are nowhere near the level of refinement and quality of the Motorola CPS 2.0 software so just set your expectations if you're familiar with that software you will need a programming cable if you're going to go the chirp or the tid radio CPS software route if you want to you can can use your mobile phone you you have the option of programming via Bluetooth and you use the OD Master app which works well and is quite easy to use it's available on Google Play and IOS app store you can also use the OD Master web app to program the code plug and then send it to your phone and then use your phone to write it back over Bluetooth to the radio if you'd like me to cover programming of these radios then drop a comment below and if there's enough interest I'll put a video together on this modifying a radio is at your own risk you will have legal obligations in your region with regards to radio Transmissions licensing and power outputs you should always ensure that you are not causing a nuisance and more importantly not causing any radio interference or distress to others please do not break the law in your region if you don't have a ham radio license then don't transmit on ham banss or you might get into some hot water it's just a bit of fun hopefully offc com won't get too upset right okay this is how you can change the mode or unlock your radio you turn it off and you have a number of options I found six or seven so far you push and hold the PTT button and then if you hold number one so and then turn the radio on the radio will say initialize for 136 to 174 and 400 to 520 if you push menu it will wipe the radio and set it to that mode so well it doesn't really matter this is a fresh one so I'll say okay and that has now removed any restrictions um on those you have a second mode which is PTT and the number two and if I turn that on oops I missed it then that will say um initializing 144 to 148 and 420 to 450 so we'll say no for that then you have ham gmrs and unlocked and to do that you do PTT and star and turn the radio on for ham mode PT TN Zer for gmrs mode and hash for unlocked so let's just do the unlocked hash turn it on initialize unlock push menu and then that will allow you to transmit on say 1365 there's no antenna attached but if I had that in gmrs mode turn that on initialize gmrs that will still allow you to go through the frequencies and receive but if you try and transmit it will make a beeping noise and it will just say absolutely not and then there is another mode which is PTT and 7 and if I turn that on that will say initialize all say okay and then that's blocking on 136 so I don't know what that mode is let's go back to unlocked which is Hash menu welcome and that will now transmit so that's completely unlocked on the frequencies um there is also a test mode which is I believe PTT the second side button and turn it on and then it will say old test mode and it has the version number at the bottom of the firmware um haven't been able to do much else in this old test mode whatever that is so that's how you unlock it the one you'll probably want to use is PTT plus has turn the radio on push menu to accept and that's the radio unlocked so so what do I think of the h8 well for £37 it's a bargain and the Transmissions were nice and clean just like the H3 was I miss having the hold down one key for the frequency scan mode that the H3 has if I've missed it on the h8 and the radio does have this option then let me know in the comments below 5 watts is perfectly fine for a handheld and the difference between 5 and 10 Watt is negligible anyway I would have liked to have had a channel frequency dial on the top of the radio but could and could live without the flashlight in favor of this the speaker on the h8 is smaller and it's not as loud as the H3 but it does have a much Fuller and richer sound the H3 is noticeably tinier and louder but if you're wanting to listen to FM broadcast radio you'd be better off with this h8 I would like to see a hybrid of these two radios everything from the H3 but in the h8 size and form factor dual PTT buttons button pad in the center um speaker on the bottom add a frequency dial on the top USBC on the side which charges and programs the H3 only programs 2in screen bit bigger why not uh and a bigger battery my none d878 has a 3100 M battery uh and as we're increasing in size these two both have the same so I'd go with a slightly bigger battery so that's what I'd like to see out of the d8 Mark III or D9 um but all in all nice and clean on the output and uh decent little radio I hope you found the information in this video helpful if you did then please help the channel out by giving it a thumbs up and subscribing that really does help to ensure that I can continue to provide content please feel free to uh buy me a coffee details in the description below and thank you to everyone who's bought them for me in the past if you have any questions or comments then you know what to do all I ask is that you keep it respectful trolls and nasty nowit alls need not apply well until next time stay safe stay happy catch you in the next one [Music]
2024-11-30 01:23
