2025-03-28 — IP400 Software v1.0 Released, Write for The SARC Communicatord, Excerpts from ARDC 2024 Annual Report, TIDRADIO H3 5W Multi Band Portable Radio
The H3 is a great radio, I somehow have purchased six of them, half are running nicFW. Hard to beat for the price. I don't think I'll ever buy another radio without USB charging.
The H3 wasn't previously on my RADAR, but now it's warranted to get a few for experimentation. I'll be curious to read the docs of the Nicsure firmware.
Tom - The story is updated with your (and others) information on the H3. As I said in the update - My thanks to Tom Salzer KJ7T, Joe “Uncle Milburn” Hamelin W7COM, and Ren Roderick KJ7B for rescuing me from an incomplete story.
Joe - Um, yeah, it was part of the culture of that era. That's not a defense, merely a passive observation that 73 was one of many such offenders. That's another reason I'm so glad that The Communicator is out there now to recommend to new and potential Amateur Radio Operators.
Joe - The story is updated with your (and others) information on the H3. As I said in the update - My thanks to Tom Salzer KJ7T, Joe “Uncle Milburn” Hamelin W7COM, and Ren Roderick KJ7B for rescuing me from an incomplete story.
It would be great if all information was available for free. I love my small Lopez Island library (our SJCARS club purchased the ARRL book set for anyone to read).
Let’s look at what we have from ARRL. For $59/year we have 30 publications online. That’s about $2 each. And QST goes back 12 years, less for the others. We also get latest news.
CQ Magazine in digital form was about $7 each before they folded.
QST writers get paid. That’s fair. I’m retired and do some volunteer work. Some people like to write for free or have other ways to put turkey on the table.
ARRL is not just magazines. It provides other services. None of us agree with everything they do, but I don’t want to get into that.
To me, ARRL membership information is a good deal.
PS: Great stuff every Friday Zero Retries, even if I don’t understand all of it. I learn about what’s forward in radio.
Brian - Thanks for the kind words about Zero Retries. My observation and fear is that in putting ARRL's periodicals behind a paywall, from the perspective of this generation, those are invisible. Thus, from the perspective of this generation, ARRL is merely a publisher of books about Amateur Radio, and there are many, many other such publishers. Thus they have no reason to enter into a membership with ARRL, and "other good works aside", ARRL's revenues will dip below the threshold of viability of ARRL as we know it (and it wants to be - staff, HQ building, services, etc.)
Re: alternative firmware for the TIDRADIO H3, I think you are looking for the Nicsure firmware. Try this: https://nicsure.co.uk/
The H3 is a great radio, I somehow have purchased six of them, half are running nicFW. Hard to beat for the price. I don't think I'll ever buy another radio without USB charging.
-Joe w7com
The H3 wasn't previously on my RADAR, but now it's warranted to get a few for experimentation. I'll be curious to read the docs of the Nicsure firmware.
Tom - The story is updated with your (and others) information on the H3. As I said in the update - My thanks to Tom Salzer KJ7T, Joe “Uncle Milburn” Hamelin W7COM, and Ren Roderick KJ7B for rescuing me from an incomplete story.
Teamwork. We're all in this together, whether we have just a toe in the water or we're over our heads. Always happy to contribute where I can.
Thanks, Steve. And I even got a vacation to Mexico in as well!!
Stay tuned.
Martin - Thank YOU. I owe you a debt for taking on IP400. I'm so looking forward to testing the initial units in a few months.
I went to DLARC and read some of the 1970s 73 articles.
Boy howdy, hams a bunch of mysongistic letches back then!
Joe - Um, yeah, it was part of the culture of that era. That's not a defense, merely a passive observation that 73 was one of many such offenders. That's another reason I'm so glad that The Communicator is out there now to recommend to new and potential Amateur Radio Operators.
More links for nicsure and the Tidradio TD-H3:
https://github.com/nicsure
https://www.youtube.com/@nicsure
V2 Manual: https://github.com/nicsure/nicfw2docs/blob/main/TIDRADIO%20TD-H3%20User%20Manual%20for%20nicFW%20V2.pdf
It seems that the forums are down at the moment, not sure what's up with that.
-Joe w7com
Joe - The story is updated with your (and others) information on the H3. As I said in the update - My thanks to Tom Salzer KJ7T, Joe “Uncle Milburn” Hamelin W7COM, and Ren Roderick KJ7B for rescuing me from an incomplete story.
It would be great if all information was available for free. I love my small Lopez Island library (our SJCARS club purchased the ARRL book set for anyone to read).
Let’s look at what we have from ARRL. For $59/year we have 30 publications online. That’s about $2 each. And QST goes back 12 years, less for the others. We also get latest news.
CQ Magazine in digital form was about $7 each before they folded.
QST writers get paid. That’s fair. I’m retired and do some volunteer work. Some people like to write for free or have other ways to put turkey on the table.
ARRL is not just magazines. It provides other services. None of us agree with everything they do, but I don’t want to get into that.
To me, ARRL membership information is a good deal.
PS: Great stuff every Friday Zero Retries, even if I don’t understand all of it. I learn about what’s forward in radio.
Brian - Thanks for the kind words about Zero Retries. My observation and fear is that in putting ARRL's periodicals behind a paywall, from the perspective of this generation, those are invisible. Thus, from the perspective of this generation, ARRL is merely a publisher of books about Amateur Radio, and there are many, many other such publishers. Thus they have no reason to enter into a membership with ARRL, and "other good works aside", ARRL's revenues will dip below the threshold of viability of ARRL as we know it (and it wants to be - staff, HQ building, services, etc.)
The Tidradio TD-H3 is on Amazon for about $43/pair, with the coupon.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXMJM2KG