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I would whole heartedly agree. Dam those are pricey! 😁

I know the 77 well. That said, it is limited in modes, TX power, frequency range and other modern digital capabilities. The 77 is a solid rig, but to do the things you can with more modern radios, especially SDR radios, the 77 is left a lot wanting. That said, in a EMP or CME event, the 77 might be the way to go. 😊

@@brianc0620 um , thank you for your response . Yah , I relize that . But has anyone really messed with it ? Um , the newer radios are capable of clocking a signal . And it takes a computer to program and decode the cypher algorithms . But I still say , the simpler you keep it , the less problems you’re going to have in your troubleshooting routine . I’m sure you realize that now .

No disagreement there.

Agreed, that’s true of most things! 😊

I was even thinking of writing that to their sales and marketing people. Both the g90 and 6100 are solid little rigs. Looking at the number of after market accessories for them, if xiegu took those ideas and added them to a dedicated rig, they would rule the market in that space. Same hardware and software, in a different box.

I’ve got an old X108G and it’s often on the bench, but it’s reparable and Xiegu was “somewhat” helpful in helping me get it working. I reckon it would be nearly 10 years old. Being the kind of bloke that likes to buy other people’s _broken dreams_ I’ve looked at picking up a G90 used, but I haven’t seen too many of them come up. Usual sign that they are a good radio. I did pick up a super cheap uSDX for $135 aussie delivered. Worked ok for a few moments. Then I tried to see what it would do. While it did allow me to transmit in the 2200m band and I had output in the 70cm band, it worked for about 2 seconds on Keydown before the screen went black. Never was the same. But that’s a tank of 98 these days $$ wise. It’s not 4 figures. I wonder if some keen and clever hams could reverse engineer these radios and open source a variant that worked. The mcHF is a good example of a functional SDR radio that’s _open sauce_ it’s been grabbed by the B callsign people and variants made and sold, and often you can pick up a clone for close to the cost of the parts from mouser / digikey / element14….however the components they often use are not up to the quality of mouser / digikey / element14 But looking at the price of these radios….thank you for doing this, so I don’t have to :-)

You’re welcome. Glad they are helping people not make a wasteful mistake.

Thanks man. Just trying to be fair. They are a young company, like anywhere, have their growing pains. Now, if they could just return the favor and be fair with their customers also. By not screwing them over with lies and deceit, that will be wonderful.

What radio did you purchase ??

@@MidlifeRenaissanceMan TBR-119

@@brianc0620 I was actually asking the OP what Japanese radio did he get :-) But I will say thank you to you for doing this so I don’t have to :-) I saw those radios and thought _hmmmm _*_B_*_ callsign technology_ Has all the potential to be good, but probably plagued with problems that will never be solved due to a serious design flaw or three that they’ll cover up….because of the *_B_*_ callsign business culture_

@@MidlifeRenaissanceMan exactly. I just added the 171 the the shack. Same as the 119 but much lighter Still testing that as we speak.

Agreed

I 100% agree with everything you said. These things are generally a mess and not trustworthy at all. They keep defending and deflecting. Not taking ownership. Also if they were a serious company, when these require repairs, they would send us a shipping tag on them, but they expect us to do all this. It’s as if they don’t realize this is how the real radio manufacturers handle these issues. Once again proof that they are such inept, fraudulent and incompetent wannabes, it’s a joke. But the joke is on us for purchasing apparently.

I hear you. Extremely disappointed and frustrated with the entire interaction. As you say, I will not endorse or recommend these to anyone. They have a great amount of work to do, if they want to fix the damage they have done to their reputation.

Exactly Dan. Couldn’t agree more. I got mine for the exact same purpose. However I just can’t trust them. Every time they fix something, something else breaks or the ‘fix’ is a partial fix, more like the introduction of a new bug. That’s why, until they make an “honest” attempt to genuinely fix these things, I will do my best to dissuade anyone from buying any of the three model radios that they produce. If they fix them, to a point of trustworthiness, I will immediately make a new video, speaking of their “wonderful attributes”. I’m unfortunately less than optimistic.

There are basically two antennas. One is a GPS antenna, that I got from Guohe. The other Tape antenna is from MilSim style PRC - 152 radios made by TRI and TCA. They are surprisingly good antennas with excellent SWR. So that’s why I love using them for this radio, as they are also TNC connectors.

@@brianc0620 thank you....I've seen the tri and trc antenna but I get worried with the stuff from china

@@dennisdeville8984 agreed. That has been my experience too. There tends to be a trend of dishonesty. Not all obviously, but a significant amount. False advertising and blatant lying seem to be a thing. That said, I do occasionally find a gem here and there. If you want extremely tough radio hardware, that is surprisingly good quality, TRI and TCA make solid radios. A hair pricey. People call them baofengs in a metal box. Trust me they are more than that. Especially as you can also use military peripherals with them. So for those into the outdoors and want extremely rugged and capable comms, I recommend them.

I had reported these on the WhatsApp group, but no one from Guohetec responded. This version has been out for 4 months now, since December. @guohetec When do you plan on releasing a new binary to resolve these issues? I reported that my compass is not working also on one of my 119s. That has been like that for 1.5 years. Please provide an estimate of when you will release the new binary?

I seriously doubt these people at this point

So @guohetec do you have any updates on when you will be releasing a new binary? It’s been 6 months since the last one.

Thank you. As soon as I have an update I will make another post.

Hey Russell. I love both of my Anytone radios (878 and 578). Extremely capable radios. The 578 is what I have installed in my Jeep. I highly recommend both of them. VHF, UHF APRS, DMR. They rock!!

🤣🤣 Added ventilation

Thanks for the response. It definitely is a work in progress. Small steps forward. The latest version of the software does appear more stable but still has a plethora of bugs. Just discovered one the other day for 2M and 70cm transmission. Transmitting but no modulation added to the carrier frequency. Switch to 6m, TX and back to original, works fine. 😂 I just don’t trust them as a company. So my advice still stands. Stay away from for now. Until they stabilize the software and are consistent on the hardware.

Hey Russell. Not much to be honest. They fixed the software that makes it stable. So it doesn’t crash immediately thankfully. That said, DMR is now working (simplex mode) Power is a bit of a mess. Especially in upper VHF and UHF. The power settings basically do nothing. You have one set amount or transmission power. Funny thing is that that exact same power settings are different in the other 119. They gave different TX power results. So once again, no consistency. Long story short, while the radios are somewhat functioning now, I will not as of right now, in good conscience, recommend them for purchase. Until these things function as promised and advertised, and are consistently doing so, I will not promote them. I am still holding out hope against Hope.

Aloha Brian C., SEMPER FI to my fellow Marine! I finally bought the PMR 171 today and while shopping for an extra battery from the same seller(shenjd) on eBay, I discovered that he also has the TBR-119 for $1,964.89 and I wanted to see what the difference was between the TBR-119 verses the PMR-171 when I ran across your YT video. NOTE:The audio for your video was super soft on my widescreen tv. I already own two G90’s, last I bought from a buddy on JBPHH, two different firmware versions because I bought the first one four years ago. I’ve been wanting to buy the PMR-171 for a year now for the HF, VHF, UHF +Compass+GPS+DMR features w/Battery packs. On my G90’s, I averaged 5,026 miles on one watt of power here in Honolulu. After watching your video on the TBR-119, I’m starting to wonder if I made a good choice or not now. I mainly bought the PMR 171 after it was on the news here two weeks ago that China and the USA would not enter into a conflict until after 2027. It was the realization that both sides acknowledge that a war is going to happen is very concerning and living in the middle of the Pacific, this is the closest military type rig that I could find on the market currently. It’s not like we can go out and buy a new PRC-77 these days. I am interested in the antenna you had mounted on the green case radio in your video. What is the make and model of that antenna and where can I buy one? 🤔

Hey John. Glad it was helpful to you. The games continue from them. They released a new binary in December, after 6 months. It immediately crashed. Bricked some people’s radios. They had to drain the on-board battery on the Q900s to get them back to a state they could reload the old binary. 171 and 119, we just pulled the battery pack. That said, how do you take 6 months to release a “fully tested” firmware update and it literally crashes immediately. What an embarrassing disaster!! They scrambled to release a fix to that and it has since been…… ok. Still has anonymous bugs all over the place and they continue to have issues overall. My advice continues, stay away from them for now. That said…. I did purchase a set of xiegu radios (G90, x6100 and xpa125 amp). I love the x6100.

@@brianc0620 Well the xiegu G90 had problems when it first came out. BUT unlike most Chinese companies xiegu actually LISTENED to the feed back they were getting and fixed the problems right away. It seems to me that Chinese manufacturers should study history. In the late 40's and 50 Japanese companies started shipping product to the US. The products were cheap but their quality was crap. The Japanese took them back and worked on the quality for both their domestic and export markets. By the 70s they controlled whole swatches of markets in several categories. Try to name ONE totally American made electronic product??? NOT American assembled but made from American sourced base materials. You cannot. The Japanese companies had the foresight to actually LISTEN to their customers and fixed the problems that their customers were complaining about.

@@John_Henry83 I agree 1000% with that.

Hey brother. Yeah I pulled it…. For now. Basically they asked me for a chance to make it up and fix their trespasses. They said the new software should be available at the end of next month. They have a new customer support person, they are friendly and responsive. I am giving them one last chance.

I heard they'd blacklisted you? If they're changing tact that's good to hear although still very off putting for them to have done it in the first place. Very disappointing this radio doesn't use standard milspec plugs for everything like antenna, 6-pin headset port, etc. Sounds like they should do a refresh with a major overhaul. @@brianc0620

@@brianc0620 Have a Xiegu G90? That is the first build target of my project.

That’s what my buddy was planning 😂

Thanks for the response. My interest is something that can be used for emergency communications, SAR or community help. So radios need to be rugged and somewhat weather resistant. Therefore most ham shack radios are not exactly what I am looking for as they tend to be not as rugged. That said, there are very few rig options in that category. Until there are options, two rigs I am considering are the Wolf DDC/DUC and I am hearing that Xeigu is possibly coming out with a new version similar to the X6100. Looking forward to seeing what options that has.

@@brianc0620 I heard about a Wolf radio that was 100% open source hardware. I like that! Although the builds I've seen were a bit bulkier than manportable. And if Xeigo offered a HF +VHF/UHF SDR that would be very interesting.

@@AquaeAtrae agreed. Love the open source idea. Much more talent can be applied, then the manufacturer can just focus on producing solid hardware. Install a base and functional OS, then people can do as they wish thereafter.

Agreed. Especially with the price tag. It has so much promise, especially from a hardware perspective. Software is just a mess.

Hey Bill. Sorry I don’t fully understand the question. Can you please clarify?

@@brianc0620 Referring to out of ham bands TX, for emergency use.

Hello sir. I have performed QSO on HF with the 119 using the OEM 3m long whip antenna. About 15 mile range and it worked well. I did not use radials or counterpoise, just a ground stake. Other than that I have used a dipole and it worked well too. That said, I was testing 40m on an NVIS wire antenna this past weekend and it was unintelligible. Robotic. I am still troubleshooting that.

He hasn’t Devin. He honestly was getting so frustrated with the bugs introduced, he shelved the radio for now, waiting for a solid version of the software before doing a comprehensive video. I will be adding a quick update video in the next day or so detailing those bugs/issues.

@@ericschuh4330 you can request the Data update cable from the vendor that you purchased the radio from. Guohe will send it to them. That said, the latest version is 3.4.0. It fixed one issue but my DMR does not function correctly now and WFM is is transmitting less that 1W on UHF. So with Guohe, it’s two steps forward, one step back. My advice is to do a baseline of what works and what doesn’t. So after you eventually upgrade, you know where you were. They are hard to deal with to be quite honest. The guys with the Q900 are straight up loosing their mind. There are many more of them than us 119 owners. Guohe will do themselves out of business if they keep up this break/fix drama. Side note: One positive of having the data update cable is that you can run a keyboard directly into the radio for CW and RTTY. CW is literally just type and it instantly transmits. They actually ship the radio now with both cables. Once you get it, plug in the usb dongle with the FW Update Bin on it, hold down the power button for a few seconds and it will start the upload automatically. It will just click once (the power up relays, you normally hear a series of like 4 clicks from the relays).

It is (can be unless something isn’t functioning as described). Solid all in one package. That said……. As it basically is a SDR, software bugs are present. We found recently that the NFM transmission is under modulated. That means that the vocal audio is dim on transmission. Then the WFM side has very low transmission power (wattage) but the modulation audio is good. They have fixed quite a few issues/bugs, work in progress.

They are not good