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Review on πŸ“» Enhanced DMR/Moto TRBO Ham Radio MD-380 by TYT by Jason Sisawang

Revainrating 3 out of 5

New radios with firmware D014.004 currently do not work with MD380Tools firmware

Current versions of the supplied UHF radio MD-380 (at least from September 2018) are delivered with firmware version D014.004. Radios shipped with firmware D014.004 cannot currently be upgraded to use the experimental MD380Tools firmware. The Tools firmware and the UserDb load fine but the radio does not receive anything on DMR when the MD380Tools firmware is loaded. This is well documented on the KD4Z Facebook page. There appears to be a small hardware difference between these newer radios and older radios prior to firmware D014.004. If you expect to be able to load experimental MD380Tools firmware onto this radio I would wait until the MD380Tools team has updated their firmware to work with these newer radios before purchasing. As of October 5, 2018, there seems to be no fix for this issue, which dates back to at least August 2018. It's a big bummer as it's a good radio overall but would be a lot more useful with the MD380Tools loaded. One more note. You will most likely NOT receive the software CD listed in the product listing (I did not receive it and the seller did not send it to me). You can download the CPS software from the TYT website but their download page is confusing with links to multiple versions of the software etc making it not entirely clear which link is the correct one for that particular radio. If you don't want to upload custom firmware to this radio then this is a good choice for using the DMR. Regards. ============================================== = === =============== Edit: 02/02/2019 - Malfunction of charging station power supply. I tried to contact TYT but got no response. I am currently using a different adapter. The KD4Z MD380Tools team has developed a workaround for a muted DMR reception issue when loading custom firmware on D014.004 OEM radios. Use the 'Nosleep' setting to turn off the radio's sleep mode (see the KD4Z Facebook page for details). This results in reduced battery life, but otherwise works fine. Note. The radio may not work properly in analog mode with the custom firmware/nosleep option enabled, but this is normal for me as I intend to use the radio for DMR communications only. Hooray!

Pros
  • Permanent test results
Cons
  • The list will be long.