GMRS Midland Micromobile Review, MXT275, MXT400 Radios

Hello everyone, welcome back Eric with amateur radio concepts in our little mini-series here, part 2 on the general GM RS mobile radio service. Now, if YouTube recommended this video and it appeared on your side, you said what the heck is this, maybe or maybe not. If you are interested in

gmrs

radio, I encourage you to first come back if you have it and watched part 1 in general mobile radio service and the link is in the description, you can check the theory and topic about GM RS, but for those I saw the first part, we are talking about the second part, which is a couple of different models of

gmrs

radios

from the Midland Micro mobile series.

Now I picked up two and looked at them quickly in the first video, but today in this video we're going to talk about These

radios

take them apart and show you exactly what they are and the reason I bought two different ones was because I wanted to give you an option or two in the video and show a couple of different things instead of a radio. It will now show Midland. In the video, I'm going to browse the site and show you several of their different models and talk about them, but in the meantime I bought two of these and was interested in each of them for a different reason, so I'm undecided which one I am.

I'm going to put in my vehicle but we're going to go over each one of them and I'll show them to you. I'll tell you right now why I bought them first. We have the MXT 275. This is the 15 watt mobile Micro, very compact. I like the compactness. because I'm going to have multiple radios in my vehicle so I think this one will be good for the fact that I could hide the little bass unit under my dash or in my dash or under my seat and control everything from the remote keypad. something like that that was one of the reasons I saw this and it stood out to me now it's 15 watts okay they both have the same amount of frequency channels this one with 15 watts so in my head I thought it was well, 15 watts with a 6 DB Antenna made by Midland.

I'll get good or decent results, actually better than a 5 watt handheld, but then I thought like everyone else in the radio world, they want the whole idea of ​​power, extreme power, they want the best range for service, then you have their most powerful line, the MXT 400. Now this is a 40 watt radio from Midland and this is an all-in-one unit very similar to this one, except for the differences. Now you can control everything from the front of the radio. suppose they both have the same number of channels, the same frequencies for gmrs, you can do practically the same with both, the only difference is that this one has more power, but this one can be controlled from a remote keyboard, so it depends on your installation in your vehicle how you want to configure it and again we will show you the website and go through all the other small models that they have that are quite compact and stylish, they have 5 watt models and they actually have portable devices.

I don't have a handheld, maybe I'll go with one of those if I can get one and justify the cost of another video, but until then let's go over each one and just so you know, in radioland without getting too technical because on this channel I don't like to be technical because I want the newcomer to feel comfortable understanding simple terms, so this is a 15 watt radio, now 10 watts more than a 5 watt laptop, true, but to make a substantial increase, Yes If you want to double your power, going from 15 to 20 watts won't really give you a significant increase.

Okay, doubling your power to a 30 watt unit will result in a substantial increase. It will effectively double your power, resulting in a significant boost now. 15 to 40 yeah, I'm going to do an increase, but if I had 30 watts to go to 40 watts, I don't want to say, yeah, it's 10 more watts, but you really want to double your power for an efficient gain, so right here. I'm going to more than double the 15 to 40, so I have to decide if I want more range or I want the compact. We'll talk about both very quickly in the video and also thanks to the FCC for delaying the process of my gmrs radio a round of applause please.

I'm waiting for my license here and I guess after the government shutdown it's taking over a week so it's still in pending status so we're going to wait in part. three I'll show you in my vehicle which one of these I decided to put in and I'll talk to a couple of people there once I get my license and I'm legal to talk on the air we'll make a couple of contacts we'll see a couple range tests and you know, at that point I'll decide if I need the extra power or I want the small compact version, for now we're going to start with the MXT 275, let's open this up and this is what I'll do.

It's a little more than interesting than an unboxing video because I don't do unboxing videos anymore, but there are some facts you should know about why you would buy a Midland brand GM RS Micro mobile or indeed any brand of gmrs radio, but there is a big factor to consider when purchasing an FCC type exception radio rather than using something like a Bow Fung handheld which is not an accepted type, so for those who want to be legal and spectrally clean, there are One reason they put his name here is because the FCC has allowed him to because he is now an accepted type.

I started my Believe It or Not channel years ago following the lead of Fung and the Chinese radio craze. I never criticized anyone for wearing one. I used a lot of them. I've made hundreds of videos about them, but with everything going on now, you know GMR is a little more tight-knit, so I don't want people greeting me on the radio and saying, "Oh, you're using one of those handheld devices." Chinese, again, you might be able to get it. Far from it, but number one, they are not as powerful as these and number two, they are just not as clean, so consider that when you want to get into gmrs with the cleanest signal and the most effective power, effective power, a brand that be The type accepted as the Midland mobile micro will definitely be much better.

Let's start with the MXT 275. One more thing on this radio that I didn't know is that this one actually comes with a little antenna that I saw in what is included. Of course, I have a better and higher gain antenna for this, but in the situation where you don't want to use a big antenna or are strapped for money, you can use the supplied antenna, but let's clarify this again. the Micro mobile MXT 275, the manual for this thing is not Chinglish, it is a US manual with phrases like the fuse block is usually the most convenient connection point, the positive wire of the power cable is also can connect to accessory terminal and to a fuse block or ignition switch etc. talking about radios in a time when they had very poorly written trans manuals quick start guide in the manual great now look at the size of this little thing it's almost cute is the word it's your very small 15 watt mobile Micro it's okay it's okay it comes with a mobile mounting bracket and in fact from what I understand Online this mobile mounting bracket is as let's see how would I do this, there you go, it's like a quick guy, check it out, okay, so if you want to get your radio out of your vehicle for theft purposes or you just want to have it. out of the sunlight or if you want to put it in a friend's vehicle who has one, you have like a quick mount, slide it in like this so you have a fixed amount on your dash or under your seat, whichever way as you go, this has the Microphone Port here to make it look like an RJ45 microphone port and also a USB.

This is a charging port for cell phones, tablets, electronic cigarettes. ISO 239 connector on the back. It has an external speaker connector on the back and the power cables are very simple. on the right, a very small and compact 15 watt radio, here is the microphone and the microphone, as I said, is a little bit larger than the standard microphone because it has all the advantages of operating a radio remotely. Well, and that's an 8 for some reason. like a pretty long microphone cable, omg it feels longer than normal. I guess it's sturdy and also what is this here, it says USB, it has a little USB, it's like a little dust cover, so you put your antenna in there and then you have. we go there, you go to the USB, so it's like a little dust cap, okay, okay, and then we also get this thing that looks like velcro, okay, several pieces of velcro that are for Velcroing your stand to the board, for which is not permanent, so if you don't do it.

If you want to screw the holes in there, you can mount it with the velcro, very cool. Here is a small little antenna that comes with it and your results may vary. Okay, this is a small antenna, typically zero clearance, it's cut just for the UHF frequency of your gmrs. I can see it being a little Magma antenna if you like to be discreet let's say you're only using this about a square mile or you know half a mile whatever this is effective for 15 watts and it handles your 15 watts but it's actually a small antenna now that may be of interest to someone when they talk about compact, they don't want all these big antennas on a vehicle like mine, okay, it has the PL 259 and yes, there is the PL 259 and it's okay.

It probably has about 14 to 15 feet of cable, so you can use that if you want. It's me again, one reason why an external antenna is better, so it comes with a fuse, some screws to mount well and your power cable, which is a fused power cable and this one has a cigarette lighter in the end so you can plug it right in because that 15 watts doesn't actually use that much power, that's another good thing for people who want to be compact, maybe they want to not want to run wires in their Prius or they don't want to run wires in a car for rent.

They are a travel car. Any plug into the cigarette lighter. Plug this directly into the radio. You're ready to go and I. I guess this here has a double stick tape, this is for your microphone stand, so you put it on a board, you click your microphone there and you know again, you have your microphone hanging like this, it's okay and it's easy to see, but I will make them see. I have the radio if you want, put it under the seat. I have it on here quickly just to show you the blue and black illuminated LCD screen and turn on the top channels to turn the volume up and down. the middle and your man you with some other features like key lock here scan monitor if you have all the NOAA weather channels pre-programmed from NOAA here so you can have your NOAA, that's great for people for Skywarn for the preppers out there For people who are in the desert if you want to hear what's coming with the hurricane season from the local weather wherever the zombies come to your door, you can know if it's going to rain for the zombie apocalypse.

Preparers anyway, it's a pretty strong feeling. microphone here with a long cable, as I said, its volume goes up to 9, it has a pretty loud speaker in the front and at the beginning of part 1 I mentioned how it takes into account channels 8 to 14 that are legal only for half a watt transmit what happens when you plug in a gmrs radio, how do they fix that so you can't transmit? You know, at those frequencies that are limited to half a watt. In fact, if you turn up the channel you will see one, two, three. four five six seven or simplex channels at five watts, then jumps from eight to 14 and goes straight to 15.

These are repeater channels 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 and 22, so, as Box suggests, there are seven simplex frequencies and eight integrated repeater frequencies. The radio blocks eight to 14 due to power limitations. Now, if you go into the menu, there are some options here that are abbreviated, like privacy tones. I think this would actually be a privacy tone, which is the energy level, privacy tones. have your background screen I guess your repeater channel would be I guess it's its silent operation if you want to turn your call channel beep on and off or roger beep call alert tone if you want to turn the courtesy tone on or off.

Very simple, although you don't really have to program this, you would basically go and find out which repeater in your area matches the channel on your radio. Okay, if you go for the gmrs frequencies, if the four, six, two points, 700. is close to you and you find out what channel I'm still doing that channel 20 is 4 6 2 point 700 that's the channel for your repeater that's it There is no programming and if you are not sure you can scan and it will go through all the channels and scanning for activity is pretty easy to use unless you want to go in to set different privacy tones for simplexes and repeaters and things like that.

It is quite easy to use this radio, nothing compared to programming on East R or DMR radio for GM. RS here, so maybe the MXT 275 will go on my vehicle just because everything can be controlled here. I can mount this on the dash with a little hook and that makes it pretty simple for me with multiple radios in the vehicle so it's simple for me and also for mobile devices, by having the speaker here I can keep it closer. out of my head if I have the windows open or if I'm in a lot of traffic and I can hear what's going on, unlike my ID 5100 D star radio that I have. the bass under the seat so I have to use an external speaker which you can get with this radio but I like the fact that I can have everything herein my hand, in addition to the speaker.

Alright, the MXT 400, let's open this bad boy. and he look what we have here, try to turn this one on too right away. I have a mediocre decal that fits well on my vehicle. Support your brand. They seem to have the same set of manuals for the different models, of course Midland writes a pretty good manual. so you shouldn't have any problems figuring this out, so here's the radio. This right off the bat reminds me of a larger radio, like one of the China series radios. that reminds me of a TYT or yes, TYT 9800 or possibly a luetin radio, but again the type was accepted, so maybe They once took this model and of course modified it for the GM RS band and made different fixes to make sure it's not out of band. and we have all that in this one too, I guess the toys are underneath here, okay, the power cord, so the power cord in this one is a little bit more robust, you see down here, you have like a little bit.

I know someone knows the name of that so just put it in the comments, it's almost like an RSC battery, but still the MXT 400 has the standard we are used to in amateur radio, like a Ken Wood or a Chinese radio or something like that, the double page, but I forget it. the proper names for that and that's where I'll learn from you, leave it in the comments, fused power cable of course, and this comes of course with your mat, your microphone mounting hardware, the screws for the well . I don't see a cell phone. mounting bracket here, yes, but I understand you, the mounting bracket is under the cardboard.

I thought it was missing, so yeah, the mounting hardware is here and mud, the mounting bracket is underneath for the mouse. Same thing, you can mount this with heavier spoke velcro. it's not going to work so you can screw this to the inside of your dash somewhere under the seat and this mounting bracket has a quick release here so once you put the screws in the radio you can put the radio in and open it up . okay so here's the Midland microphone for this one and the microphone stand of course the extra fuse for the power cord two screws so we'll turn this one on and take a look at what it looks like on this one. one, so the whole case design is like a heatsink, you have your so2 thirty nine, your heatsink to keep it cool at high powers, your power cable on the back of the external speaker connector here back and that little power plug isn't really used here, but I have seen it on other China models, but what I don't see on the China models is that label that says FCC approval, very important on the front and , by the way, your speaker is a high power speaker up here, okay, high power speaker. you have all the buttons up here, let's turn this on and see what it looks like, okay.

The orange backlit LCD screen shows you the channel readout when you turn it on, now we talk about the channels again, you can see that channels one to seven are yours. simplex or basically radio to radio channels okay and they are governed by five watts per FCC rules so with the power button here it won't let you switch it from low power okay now if you go it will jump from the 8th to the 14th and will continue. right to 15, well it wasn't at the time because it was there, you go to 15. Now these are your repeater channels from 15 to 22 and you can see that you are at high power.

If I push the power here, medium low, it might change. the power level is 15 to 22, but I can't use these due to FCC rules. You also have a button here for tone squelch, digital coated squelch, so you can set your tones here for repeater operation because many repeaters will have different tones or DCS Codes or if you want to use a certain DCS code for your camp or your club Jeep you know in your area to not be interfered with other people from blister radios, you can set your own DCS code as long as all repeaters or all radios are on the same DC, they will all hear each other but will not hear external interference.

Well, here's the call button. I just pushed it and it went crazy. I don't have an antenna connected right now but the call button will send a call and everyone here will know that you pressed the eight pin rj45 call button here you have your volume at the top here and your channels here and one thing to have Keep in mind now look at this, look at the data. If I can get a better look at it on the camera you'll see that little data connector there now this here for data has been on several radios in China that have the same build as this one okay and I don't think this will be useful for gmrs still, but that.

It could be if we talked about remembering in the first part about the text messages and the GPS data that they allow now in gmrs for the FCC, that may be a way to introduce that into the radio, we're not going to talk about that now because I'm I'm not sure what exactly that does, but I know there was a luetin radio and possibly a TYT radio that had the data port and I don't think they used it either, so maybe it's for the future, maybe it's just a version generic and everyone put it. there I'm not sure, but the top speaker here is easy to hear very loud if you turn it up all the way and basically you know no, no programming required, no need to plug in a programming cable and figure out what's going on.

Everything is practically on the radio and a simple dial perhaps a change in a PL tone or a DCS code will put you directly on the air. Go check out the Midland site real quick just because I get a lot of questions and comments from people asking. questions I can't answer all of them and I always try to go to the manufacturer's website if I can to show you what they have and that you can get support here with forums and informative articles that they have here, but I want to navigate the site real quick just to show you a couple of the different things that they have here, so we will go to products and the mobile micro because that is the topic we are here for the gmrs and you look here they have several models like the MXT 400 that I have here and they also have the MXT 275 also have a MX t 115 the only difference between the two is that you see how mine has the remote key poor keyboard here while this one is all built into a radio, if you know they are both the same price it just depends how you want to mount it.

I guess they both draw 15 watts, it's just a difference if you know you have the keyboard in your hand and then they have the little micro mobiles that the NOAA weather stations also have, but this is only a 5 watt radio, but if you really you don't need a lot of watts and you're on a budget, you know, $99 here for one like this. it has a four point five star rating which is pretty good so you know, this one here is a design that comes with a little antenna here and it's designed to keep you in communication and if you're not, you know if it is. are.

You're in River Ranch or somewhere where you're only 1/2 mile away and you don't really need that big of a radio here for your vehicle, so they have several options. Here we go down, they also have packages. If you want to know the mobile micro here with the two portable devices as you see here in the image, you have one package, one on the base and two while they are exploring or wherever, with several different models, this is the one here. the limited edition Mobile Micro the limited edition MX TTR I'm not sure why but it comes with a five watt radio transmit power NOAA weather red faceplate so you know five watts is five watts and again it comes with a small antenna here on the mounting bracket so $84 FCC approved five star rating, you can't go wrong, let's take a look at CBs just because we've talked about this a few times.

I've talked to them about the medium and the CBs I've had in the past, although it seems like they're putting more pressure on the gmrs because they don't have that many and there are a couple of people or four people that want to know how to have one in the vehicle or in a Jeep or anywhere outdoors that doesn't I don't want to have such an elaborate setup, they have a couple of models but definitely not as much as the GM RS, it seems like they are pushing and have an ear to Eddy so this will be among the tuners that They would want this to be great. my go kit this is an all in one for different forms of power it has USB charging it has a hand crank dynamo it has a solar panel it has a built in battery I guess and you could use this as a weather station you know, NOAA weather here, it also has a light on, it's great if you're camping, great if you're in the wild, if you're out in the world and Ernesto waiting for these zombies to show up, this will tell you.

You know what the weather will be like or a mercy alert system for now taunting the zombies. I'm just saying I know they're out there so I support you either way. LED flashlights and more, and this here, this is a base. camp, so base camps have been out for a few years. I've seen this for a few years and it's like a gmrs radio which also has all the channels with weather radio but it has a dynamo hand crank so it's completely portable they call it the base camp it's kind of a cross between a micro mobile low power and an emergency weather station all in one so you can have it with you when you're camping, hiking or search and rescue. or wherever and if you don't have power, no problem, you can wind it with the dynamo crank on the side.

I'm not sure how long it takes to load it, but it's great, you know, 22 channels in total. privacy codes and all that cool stuff, but one more thing here. I want to check this now. Leave a comment on the video here if you want to see this on video. Okay, for $1099, check this out. This is your portable power. station and this is great. I would love to have this for all the radio amateurs out there. I would love to have this in the field during Aries picnic, you know, at special event stations or whoever is a prepper, check it out.

You have a one hundred and ten volt AC outlet here it says that a one thousand watt pure sine wave inverter with a 100 with nine hundred and twenty four watt hours of power can run a single three watt light bulb for up to two hundred and sixty one hours and an LED TV up to seventeen hours and can be charged with an AC wall adapter, 12-volt car outlet, or attachable solar panel. I have a solar panel in my travel kit. I could load this into the field. I have the fans to keep it cool. USB ports here.

Power port. or the cigarette lighter port here, so cool stuff you know, it even has an LCD screen here that tells you the battery percentage and stuff, so I think I'd like to check it out, although it's a little expensive, but leave a comment and say Hey, do you know what Middlin should allow you? Check this out, it would be great. We'll take a look at the power outlets. It's great for those who want to be completely off the grid and have a little bit of power without a home interface with outlets and plugs and all that cool stuff and of course I've shown you in the past.

I have a weather radio or two from Midland. I actually have this one here and they have a ton of them here, laptops and desktops. I have always made good weather radios, in fact, I found the one I showed you in a weather radio video. I found out when I told you about it it was like 1987. I'm sure Midland would love to see that thing, so both nifty radios. You can see on their website that they have quite a few options for gmrs. You know a couple of things that stand out again if you're going to comment and say you're Bo Fung or baofeng your v5r will do gmrs it's not necessary. buy a radio, keep in mind again everything that has been happening with Chinese radio and the FCC.

These are accepted types. They are spectrally pure. You know there's a reason Midland names them after themselves and there's a reason the FCC allows it. because these are accepted types for communications to meet FCC criteria, so you transmit out of band on a Bo Fung or Baofeng or TYT or whatever Chinese radio you have. You remember I started this channel with Chinese wearables and I was never against them, but with all the people that are talking now, you know, they hate you when you say, well, I'm doing this on one of these arc phones or I pay for things or whatever and people hate me, but at least when I talk to people.

At gmrs when I tell them I have a Midland Micro mobile they will know exactly what it is and I will get all that hate mail you know from people saying well you are using an unapproved radio and believe it. or not, because GM RS is so small and tight-knit compared to ham radio, you'll probably get those police repeaters. I mean, you already have to use them, ask them for permission to use their repeater, so you don't want to abuse it. that and shut them down even further by telling them any information, you're Peter, but I'm going to use an unapproved radio, you know, I mean, if you want a good quality radio and not just that Bow Fung or portable radios are justfive.

Watts 15 Watts 40 Watts, so this is part two on Midland with their micro mobile series. Visit their site for more information. I'll let you watch video three to see exactly which one I decided to put in my. Vehicle. I'm undecided right now so we'll find out if this one will be there at 15 watts or my high power at 40 watts. Well, if it fits in my vehicle as shown in the image. Not sure but Stay tuned for video three on gmrs it will be after this 7:3 thanks for watching kj4 why is the eye?