Midland MXT100 GMRS Mini Review

[VermontOverland]

I think GMRS would have been a much better way to go with most of the overland/4WD/whatever movement instead of ham. I was and would continue to be a ham but I think it's been more trouble than it needed to be and I bet there would have been almost zero reluctance to abandon CB with GMRS, particularly because of the interoperability with FRS. Maybe it still will be but I think a lot of people don't want to buy another VHF radio at this point.

That's been exactly my experience, Dave. I'm a recent ham as well and I can tell you that I would not have gone that route had I known about GMRS. I really just wanted a better alternative to CB and ham seemed to be the choice, but I'm finding that so few people, relatively speaking, are licensed, it's just not viable. But, yes, most will not invest in another radio, which is exactly why I bought the handhelds.

 

[4x4junkie]

CB certainly has it's issues, but the problem I see almost universally is too many people who buy in at the very bottom rung, and then wonder why they can't communicate for more than a half-mile to a mile or so (and/or can't understand each other because it sounds like talking through a pillow). Cobra 19 & 75 radios and two or three-foot tall antennas (and then mounting them where they are blocked by the vehicle) are prime examples of this.
Though you can't get rid of the noise & other signals that often boom in when solar conditions charge up the ionosphere (other than to squelch it out), you will at least generally be able to talk over such noise with a decent setup with a good antenna.


What surprises me is why MURS is not more popular... MURS (like CB) requires no studying nor a separate monetary expenditure for a license and (like ham) is mostly devoid of the noise & static that tends to occur on CB freqs. Being VHF, it will also travel around terrain and pine tree needles better than UHF signals will. I know currently the number of legitimate MURS units available you can probably count on one hand, but it seems if more demand was there, there'd be more available. ??

 

[jeep670]

I am not advocating CB here but its drop in general usage should be a good thing since it is not crowded anymore. Why would everyone want to move to frs/gmrs bands when, given the high popularity and low price of bubble packs, these bands became more and more crowded with soccer moms, mall/city radio chatter and kids playing hide and seek with these bubble packs?
Shouldn't we take advantage of the newly found clear channels on CB? You can drive through the heart of a big city nowadays and have clear CB channels available for comms.

 

[Hillbilly Heaven]

Reason GMRS vs CB is FM vs AM

Also there are GMRS repeaters that can be used if you know where they are and have access to them.

 

[CGS]

Glad to see a review on this radio. I'm really happy that something like this finally came to market. I would love to see these replace CB on the trail. Smaller antennas and higher gain, FM clarity, and similar if not higher range, not to mention no ANNOYING SKIP should really put these ahead of CB. This won't replace HAM for me as an emergency alternative. A 2 meter radio with 50 or more watts and a 5/8 antenna should be able to reach a repeater just about anywhere in NA.

 

[Chris Boyd]

I am not advocating CB here but its drop in general usage should be a good thing since it is not crowded anymore. Why would everyone want to move to frs/gmrs bands when, given the high popularity and low price of bubble packs, these bands became more and more crowded with soccer moms, mall/city radio chatter and kids playing hide and seek with these bubble packs?
Shouldn't we take advantage of the newly found clear channels on CB? You can drive through the heart of a big city nowadays and have clear CB channels available for comms.

The power limits of FRS and GMRS make it unlikely that on conversations and thus interference would travel that far. 1/2watt for FRS. Most of the bubble pack radios limit GMRS to 1w from my recollection. That's just not much more than a mile in clear air conditions.

CB is low band and AM and even if it's really clear on the band, AM still has lower voice quality.

 

[Hillbilly Heaven]

Drive through big cities listening to AM and your ears will end up bleeding hearing all the power line interference. Most people do not know how poor the condition the power line infrastructure is because they are always listening to FM.

 

[jeep670]

All fair points but I omitted to specify I was referring to convoy comms not long range ham.

In terms of noise/interference/chatter volume, I live in Toronto and cb is clear, including on hwy401 which is one of the highest trafficked highways in NA. Other cities may have these problems but AM is clear where I usually travel.

Gmrs repeaters are not yet allowed/used in Canada so people visiting or travelling through the Northern US states should be aware that some of those higher gmrs channels' use is prohibited close to the Canadian border as per FCC.

AM vs FM quality is obvious. Although long distance simplex comms are AM, and I don't hear the ham guys complaining about the quality of sound..

My point was that I better have a clear channel to comm over (on cb) than mall chatter interference (on gmrs).

 

[prerunner1982]

The general offroader and the offroad industry for that matter doesn't understand radio/antenna theory. They throw a 2' antenna on a powder coated mount bolted to a spare tire carrier, and then wonder why they can barely talk a 1/2 mile.

A mobile GMRS/UHF radio for small group convoy/trail comms is certainly better than CB.
First off, the antenna is so small and requires so little ground plane it can be mounted almost anywhere, be out of the way and work well. An aftermarket hard mounted antenna would obviously work better, but a small mag mount is almost fool proof for the wheeler with little radio knowledge.
Secondly the radio itself is smaller than most CBs so it is easier to mount... except for the couple of all in the mic type radios.
Audio quality as already mentioned.
I suppose congestion on GMRS may be regional, but with the recent invention of the cell phone I doubt many soccer moms are using bubble pack radios. With the subchannels available I would doubt congestion on the band would be much of an issue, especially given the relatively short range.

I think a few more mobile UHF radios on the market and a few more watts would be nice.

No it won't replace ham radio but I would certainly ditch CB radio in favor of UHF/VHF for trail comms.

 

[DaveInDenver]

AM vs FM quality is obvious. Although long distance simplex comms are AM, and I don't hear the ham guys complaining about the quality of sound..

If you mean long distance as in amateur DX, it's usually SSB. Which is AM transmitted with the carrier suppressed. It's extremely power efficient (for a voice mode) but the quality isn't quite the same as true AM. Not that it couldn't be technically, but that's not the point of doing SSB so we limit bandwidth to increase the power available to get information through at the sake of quality.

My point was that I better have a clear channel to comm over (on cb) than mall chatter interference (on gmrs).

This is a completely legitimate point. I agree with that. Is it worth carrying around a CB, the longer antenna, etc. to achieve that? Maybe, maybe not. Other than a caravan linking up in town there's not going to be much mall and soccer game chatter once you're out on the trail, though.

All of this assumes that we stop using CB and ham and agree to just use GMRS/FRS. I just don't see that happening. I would be in total favor of replacing CB with GMRS, mainly because the radios are smaller and I don't have to run a second radio and antenna to monitor since I already have my ham radio and that's staying regardless.

 

[dstock]

Nice review. I stumbled across this radio a few weeks ago and it definitely caught my interest as it seems all we use on trails or road trips anymore are the GMRS handhelds. Did a road trip from LA to Denver and there was very little chatter on the CB, and when there was, it had zero to do with road conditions, etc. The handheld GMRS units worked great and I didn't even plug in the CB on the way back. The main advantage for me on this unit is the larger speaker, handheld mic, and constant power source which just makes for a cleaner install and less wires and such in the cockpit. I think it could be priced about $50 cheaper but not a deal breaker for me.

 

[dstock]

An interesting alternative, especially for those wanting to keep FCC compliant, Baofeng now has a FCC certified GMRS specific handheld that includes GMRS repeater frequencies which I know someone posted was not possible with the MXT. I don't think there would be much money saved going this route by the time you add in an antenna, handheld mic and a battery eliminator. However, the accessories listed are the same as the UV-82 which is a plus for me as I have one of those also. I might give this a go, initial reviews on Amazon are positive.

https://baofengtech.com/gmrs-v1

https://www.amazon.com/GMRS-V1-Repeater-Scanning-136-174-99mhz-400-520-99mhz/dp/B01LWOLZ8L/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481222742&sr=8-1&keywords=baofeng+gmrs-v1

 

[BigSwede]

I suppose this unit might be useful for some, but the appeal seems pretty limited to me. The unit is not that much less $$ than a basic 2M like a Yaesu 1900, which has 11x the power. And the ham test is a lot less expensive than the GMRS license.

In the end, though, it boils down to what your intended audience is running, if they don't have what you have it doesn't matter which is "better".

It would be nice if the laws were relaxed enough to have a single piece of electronics for all these different bands.

 

[Martinjmpr]

I suppose this unit might be useful for some, but the appeal seems pretty limited to me. The unit is not that much less $$ than a basic 2M like a Yaesu 1900, which has 11x the power. And the ham test is a lot less expensive than the GMRS license.

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IMO the "barrier to entry" in HAM is not the cost or difficulty of the test (as you've pointed out, costs are not high and anyone of reasonable intelligence can pass the test) it's the complexity of most HAM equipment. Even for a relatively "simple" radio like my Yaesu FT-50 (purchased off of CL for about $75) the process of selecting a frequency and setting the radio up for simplex operation can be headache inducing. The GMRS radio described in this post is just the opposite: Turn it on, select a channel and start talking.
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In the end, though, it boils down to what your intended audience is running, if they don't have what you have it doesn't matter which is "better".

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That's the thing about communications - it takes two (or more) to tango. The best radio in the world is a paperweight if there's nobody to talk to on the other end.
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It would be nice if the laws were relaxed enough to have a single piece of electronics for all these different bands.

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Eh, I don't know that that would be either necessary or desirable, law notwithstanding. First of all, there's the whole "jack of all trades and master of none" aspect, that is, anything that is designed to perform a lot of divergent tasks isn't going to perform any of them particularly well, and secondly (and more importantly) as I've said, IMO one of the biggest barriers to entry is complexity and adding a wide range of frequencies and capabilities just adds to the complexity and makes the radio more difficult to operate.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Amateur radio is definitely not plug and play. It was never supposed to be and doing that is a disservice and missing out on a lot of the benefits.

The fundamental difference between GMRS and ham in this case is just being able to understand how FM is typically channelized. It's channelized for CB and GMRS, but it's done so by rule so channel 1 always means the same thing. In ham you just refer to the channel by the frequency, so it's 146.460MHz simplex instead.

The complexity that seems to throw people is understanding repeaters. But this is one of the major benefits of ham radio, all the other hams willing to maintain repeaters.

I think we've pushed ham on people who (I believe) are smart enough to get this but just don't want to bother. Why should they? They just want to push the button and talk to someone. I get it. The overland/OHV/adventure hams probably should have pushed for GMRS instead but it came naturally to us and we didn't think it wouldn't for anyone else.