I am curious to hear more thoughts about the hardware of these radios. I have a MD-UV380 arriving as it seems to be the only HT still in production that will accept the Open Firmware and I will be testing it as several members of the Amateur radio club and the Volunteer Emergency response group have been impressed with the GD-77s I have been using. They have shown interest in getting them. Also the MD-9600 was a top performer in a recent SET (Simulated Emergency Test) and two members have acquired them and asked me to help them with getting the Open firmware on them and the code plug set up.VK3KYY wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 10:12 amVarious people have tested these radios under laboratory conditions, and Rx performance on the RT3S was measured to be the same on UHF on the GD77 and RT3S.
However, IMO the RT3S RF hardware design is inferior to both the GD77 and DM1801.
The DM1801 and GD77 (and GD77s) have virtually identical RF hardware design
The RT3S has similar RF hard design to the Baofeng RD5R
I own all these radios have have dissassembled them to study the design of the radio
All these radios use the same core RF TRx chip (AT1846S) but the RF PA and Preamp stage(s) is completely different on the RT3S and RD5R to the GD77 and DM1801
The MD9600/RT90 RF hadware is completely different to all the hand held radios
I am especially interested in the ability to calibrate / tune each of these radios.
The aspect of the Open firmware that has impressed others the most is the Scanning performance. Both the speed and option settings. In a search and rescue situation the ability to be scanning quickly and accurately with good control on stopping and restarting of the scan makes for a very agile radio and response.