Review on Tune Your Talk (TYT) MD-9600 GPS Dual Band DMR Mobile Transceiver 50-Watt Car Truck Radio by Brendan Thorpe

Update 20th August 2019: I now have a working radio after finding another issue with the documentation I found with the radio and the information uploaded. Two methods, 'manual' and 'software', are presented to tune the frequency range of the radio and they are presented as 'tuning options'. It turns out that's not the case; They seem to solve separate problems in the radio, and OBEs are needed. You can use the software to tune the VHF band to 136-174MHz and then read the settings and confirm the radio has received it, but it will STILL overwrite any frequency you program or above 150-160MHz enter. on VHF (a similar limit exists for UHF frequencies). To get around this, you also need to perform a "manual" operation by holding down the first two softkeys while turning on the radio. No user feedback is provided during this process, no confirmation message - just do it and then turn on the radio. After getting the radio working, I tested it and found that it put out only about 39 watts at high frequencies. Strength. The SWR I got was 1.5 so I might want to tweak my antenna a bit and see if that helps. My first review follows below. It turns out this radio has been a miserable experience so far. I'm a little used to poorly written CPS software and confusing user interfaces, uninformative and actually misleading documentation etc on radios imported from China. But this radio took those frustrations to the next level. What I'm left with is a radio that silently receives frequency settings on the 2m amateur band but silently overwrites them internally at 150.0MHz. All the frequencies I tune into through this (my company has 2 licensed frequencies that I have programmed) including UHF work properly. However, all frequencies are rewritten by my local amateur repeaters without the radio or software notifying it. Set the channel frequency manually to 147.5 directly on the radio itself? Okay, no mistake, it's 150.0. This seems to be a common problem and there are several discussions about it on the web discussing different ways to use the factory software to tune radio frequency bands. None of this works. Using the factory software according to the written instructions in the box (main band as VHF, B-band as UHF) renders the radio incompatible with the programming software; They should be reversed, UHF first. (Initially, CPS has no options for VHF, and if they don't match, CPS refuses to record on the radio.) But even specifying the full VHF range, 136-174, is interpreted by the radio as 150-174. 160 after the factory software finishes writing and from now on it won't accept frequencies below 150. I'll keep trying for a while and update this review if I fix it. or send it back.