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I get asked now and then about the differences between my DMR radio and the one sold by the manufacturer. In many cases, the questions imply that I am bulk buying cheap radios and selling them at a big discount.

First of all, let’s be clear, you don’t make money competing with the sellers on AliExpress. They have mastered the art of buy low / sell low and with shipping from China is subsidized, there isn’t really much margin. In addition, Americans are not welcome to compete on AliExpress, so there little opportunity to compete.

My strategy was to establish a close relationship with a value-added vendor and act as a product manager to provide a lot of feedback during the development of the radio. Once designed, I continue to push them to add critical features. For example, the DMR chip they used in their DM-4R radio is not capable of VOX, so they decided not to support VOX at all. I run APRS and other digital mode protocols on my analog radios and know that some configurations such as AndroidAPRS don’t have any means of PTT other than VOX. I pushed it and the radio now has support for analog VOX.

I am also pushing the engineers to make the CPS capable of importing opengd77 CSV files. This is an easy way to gain code plugs. Implementing the import requires resolving the incompatibilities between opengd77 and the DM-4R. It won’t support the full opengd77 implementation, but it will produce usable code plugs.

The key point is that my partner Chao and I have established a personal relationship with our vendors and their employees. This allows me greater access to company resources so I can provide high value support to my customers If I get stuck on something, I usually get a response from the engineers within minutes. The engineers are focused on building cool radios and the dialog with them is critical to both of our businesses.

Below are some commonly asked questions and my answers.

• Does the radio support true dual slot TDMA for DMR?

The DM-4R is a true Tier I and Tier II dual slot radio. When you select the DMR mode your choice is Dual slot on or off. If you have an offset programmed (repeater) it will use dual slot independent of the setting. The DMR chip is high quality and implements the full TRBO protocol for tier I and Tier II.

• What is the entry limit for the address book / Radio ID database?

I have loaded 274,000 entries onto the radio. The memory is 25Q128 (16 MB). The address book was a feature requested by me and the requirements were that the radio support the entire database (260,000) at that time. Future versions will double the capacity by adding 32 MB of memory.

• What is the rated battery capacity and are extra/replacement batteries available (and cost)? Your subjective opinion on ‘battery life’ would be appreciated as well.

The battery is 4800 mAH. The capacity is greater than what I have in my other radios. A single charge can last me a few days.

Currently, we do not carry extra batteries, but the vendor will ship us more batteries if we get the demand. I am happy to stock extra batteries if I see the demand.

• Would you call the CPS interface ‘user friendly’, ‘operable’, or ‘questionable’? I’ve seen all 3 from inexpensive radios. What about the CPS leads you give your chosen response?

I personally think that this is a very easy interface to use. It is not one of those complicated tree structured programs that use the old windows 3 modal interface. It has tabs across the top for each function and is straight forward to program. That said, it lacks some important features. There are no edit features such as cut, paste, move, or insert. I am pushing to get these into the next release. I personally have not been hindered by this, but it is an annoyance. The good news is that IRadio writes their own CPS, and I know the programmer working on it. He agrees that these features are needed, but he is working on several radios at the same time.

• Are firmware updates supported and is there a changelog of past improvements that have been made? Is the actual manufacturer of the radio/provider of software & firmware responsive to feedback for challenges or do they update at random? 

I have received 7 updates since the product was launched. Most were to related to issues I discovered. For example, I didn’t like that the offset menus were non-standard. They had “upwards” and “downwards” as options instead of the usual “+” and “-“ I asked them to change this and it was added to the next upgrade. I don’t always get a change log, but when I start sending out updates, I ask for them.

In conclusion, my business is not bulk buying cheap radios and reselling them at the lowest prices. I only work with companies that are focused on value-add and are willing to establish a close relationship with Chao and me. We have spoken with the president of Iradio on numerous occasions and he is quite responsive. For example, I needed FCC certification, and he was willing to work out a deal that included it

Also, my antennas were jointly designed by the engineers at IRadio, an antenna manufacturer, and me. We went through several iterations and IRadio provided me with a proper test set up so I could verify the performance of the antennas. Chao and I also have a relationship with a battery manufacturer for LiFePo batteries. I designed the battery specs and they did their best to meet them. I think my batteries will be unique to the market. As good as Bioenno and less expensive.