UPDATED Midland MXT115 GMRS Review - NEW Version Of The MXT-115 - Midland Responds To My Review

[Music] today i'm doing an update on the midland mxt115 15 watt mobile gmrs radio i reviewed this radio a week or so ago if you haven't seen that video already you can watch it right there well the boys at midland headquarters based in kansas city the heartland of the united states they watched that video and they were not impressed so midland reached out to me and they responded to every one of the nitpicks and criticisms that i had about the mxt 115 radio i pointed out a few flaws and so not only did midland respond midland sent me a new mxt115 radio so i'm going to go over the new i say new because this is a newer version when i ordered the previous mxt 115 radio i paid with my own money i ordered it from amazon and amazon shipped me the older version midland just started shipping this new version so i'm going to go over the differences between this newer version and the previous version because there are several improvements both versions cost 149 affiliate link below and you may be asking yourself why would they ship you an old version if they have a new version well it is a brand new version and apparently amazon is depleting their stock of the old version so if you want to be sure you get the new version you can go directly to midlandusa.com otherwise amazon should be shipping the new version soon someday eventually so i'm going to go over the differences between the old version and the new version this isn't going to be a complete review of the entire radio i'm going to focus on the differences so if you want a full review including the issues that i found watch that video that i showed you previously and one other thing i have received a lot of hate comments recently i always get hate comments usually the hate comments are complaining about me complaining about stupid comments and it's usually these stupid people that are complaining but i hear you and i care deeply about how you feel when your feelings get hurt so in this video i'm going to be nice i won't be making fun of stupid comments stupid people making comments stupid people complaining about me making comments about stupid people i'm not going to do any of that until the end of the video because without stupid people making stupid comments youtube would just not be as entertaining many people come to youtube just to see how stupid some of these people actually are i don't mean you not you you are my favorite viewer we're talking about all the stupid people not you and just to be clear midland did not buy me off by sending me a new free radio to review or sending me a bunch of clothes and goodies and swag they've seen my videos they know i cannot be bought so they must be confident in the new mxt 115 the new version because they know if i don't like it i'm not going to sugarcoat it like some of those other youtubers i don't even know if we can trust those guys so let's get right into it you're not going to find any of that fake enthusiasm here either it's the number one way you know you can't trust those other youtubers so this is the new midland mxt115 15 watt mobile gmrs radio you do need an fcc gmrs license to use this radio if you're going to be talking if you're going to be listening no license is required our airwaves are free given to us by xenu for anyone to use but if you want to use them in the united states you've got to pay the fcc so if you don't already have your fcc license click there there's a step-by-step instructions on my website on how to buy your gmrs license 15 channels we're going to talk about why there's only 15 instead of 22 8 repeater channels 10 weather channels fast usb c charging another difference between the older version and this newer version when you buy the midland mxt 115 you will receive so i'm going to show you what you get in the box this is not a unboxing video as i've said many times unboxing videos are stupid but i will d-box the contents of the box and show you what you get in the box when you buy the box from midland you get the user guide you get a sticker for you to stick on your closet wall or your vehicle you get a power cord which connects to the radio one of the nice things that i did like about the mxt 115 is that it comes with a cigarette lighter so you don't have to permanently install it in your vehicle you don't have to drill holes or anything you can just stick that in the hole [Music] and you're good to go comes with a microphone mount some tiny little screws i i think for the microphone mount i'm not sure comes with this little sticky metal plate we'll talk about that that's for the antenna you will get the microphone we're going to talk more about this microphone and you will receive the radio itself the midland mxt115 15 watt gmrs mobile radio it's got a mount on it and the plug which goes there so everything in the box with this new version is 99 percent the same as the previous version the one thing oh let's take this off get that off the main difference and the way to tell the difference to know if you've received the new version or the old version is the usb charging plug on the old version this was the old style usb-a or whatever it's called plug this new version is usb-c which is the smaller plug it has the dust cover which maybe you can see right here that plugs into it that will most likely be lost within 30 seconds of unplugging it the previous version with the usb a larger plug it had the dust cover was affixed to the microphone wire so you couldn't lose it so if you're not sure if you have the old version or the new version smaller hole newer version you will receive an antenna with a wire this is not really a what i would call a cable this is a wire in the previous video i was surprised that any signal even gets out to the antenna through this wire but it does work and we're going to do an actual range test so the antenna has a magnetic mount that you stick on your car or any metal surface your car does not have a metal surface that's what this small plate is for this is a peel-off sticky metal plate so you stick that to the non-metal surface and then that sticks to it however bear in mind that this antenna requires a ground plane to work and what that means is it's got to be on metal so if you're putting this on your fiberglass corvette or on the top of your jeep roof which is fiberglass you can use this but because you're not putting it on a large metal surface you're not going to have the ground plane that's required to effectively bounce the radio wave signals out into outer space the previous one that i had did not work with my power supply brick this is a great little power supply it's like a laptop power supply 10 amps so fairly powerful about the same as a cigarette lighter or 12 volt power port as many pointed out apparently they're not called cigarette lighters anymore and some people feel compelled to point that out in the comment section i do not care so this is gives you the same power basically as plugging into your cigarette lighter my other radio the previous version would not work plugged into this power supply or my other regular 12 volt 25 amp power supply i don't know why this one works fine by the way it is very hot in here it's like 120 degrees outside 200 percent humidity so the air conditioner kicked on so i don't sweat all over myself in front of you you may hear the sound it's probably destroying my otherwise perfect acoustical environment so we're going to plug this in thusly we're going to plug these in so one of the things that i did not like about the radio which has not changed with this new version is that the screen it's still a i don't say low resolution it's a simple led type display so it's fine for showing the channels but when you get into the settings you get things like this on the display to show you what settings you're on i don't know i think that's a pt and that says looks like 59 rb roger beep already set mine to on very important setting if you don't know what the roger beep is and why it's important to turn it on you got to watch that video so it's not easy to read the display now once you get it all set up you probably will never need to read it again other than just reading the channels and it is bright and clear which is really what matters but it is small so the big difference with this radio the one that was most important to me probably the least important for the people that midland is actually selling this radio to is that the new version does support split tones for repeaters what that means is if you're using a repeater some require two different tones you the radio has to send a tone to make the repeater listen to you and then you have to program a tone for when you're listening to other people talk so that your radio will hear them that's all it means two tones the previous version would not do that the new version does do that some repeaters do use split tones others do not my repeater yes i have a repeater because i'm a pillar of my community it's open for everyone to use if you want to see more information about my repeater click there it's available now on zello so you can listen into everything that our whole i think it's got a 900 square mile coverage you can hear what our whole valley is talking about using the zillow app where was i before i started bragging about my repeater i don't think this radio is targeted to people that are going to be using repeaters this is a very simple radio i think most people buying this radio are not going to be using repeaters if you need to use a lot of repeaters i don't recommend this radio but that is a huge update split tones now one of the big issues that i had in the full review that i did was that gmrs so this is a gmrs radio gmrs has 22 channels but the box very clearly says [Music] 15 channels so i feel like i've been cheated out of six seven channels so i complained about that so many mobile radios the higher powered mobile radios are not able to transmit let's back up again let me back up my backing up there are some channels on gmrs that you can only transmit on low power it's the fcc rules apparently to make the world safe you can transmit on channel 6 at 50 watts or whatever don't quote me high power but you can't transmit on channel 7 at high power it's like limited to 2 watts so most high powered mobile radios when you go to those low power only channels they just won't transmit at all midland has decided to not even include those channels and i complained about that i thought that was a stupid move if i was designing radios i would include the channels midlands response and the reason that they just skipped those channels is that many people found it confusing and they didn't want people thinking their radio was defective because they didn't know it couldn't transmit and you tried to transmit you can't talk so midland just removed those channels and to be honest the very first time i used a high-powered gmrs radio i went to one of those channels i tried to transmit i couldn't i myself was very confused i contacted support for whatever brand radio it was and they pointed out that i was stupid and i should have known better so not the worst decision on midlands part midland also made it clear that this radio it's marketed toward people there that want to quickly throw a radio in their car for whatever reason maybe they're going off-roading or going on a cross-country trip with some friends and they just need to talk to somebody else so that's why there's no channels 8 through 14. midland decided not to include them to avoid confusion okay fair enough another thing on the box 142 privacy codes codes tones privacy codes great privacy code means i can talk in private right wrong you're not sure what privacy codes are i did a video on that as well check that video out privacy codes are not private i complained about this in the previous video why midland why do you insist on calling them privacy codes [Music] when they're not private midland's response is that privacy code is an industry standard term so they keep calling them privacy codes all other many other most other radio companies also use the term privacy code although i would think that some company would want to stand out above the others and be the first to be more honest with their descriptions even if it's not an industry standard and call them something else like [Music] nuisance codes because that's really what it is it's a non-non-nuisance code because what they do is they make it so you don't hear other people talking other people can still hear you talking what watch that video to understand it so they should be called non-nuisance codes midland take it up with the marketing people non-nuisance codes be the first stand out above the rest be an industry leader so until they do that they're going to continue to call them privacy codes okay the other issue that i had in the previous video is that when you're scrolling through the menu options you have to click the button one selection at a time and if you're setting a for example a code or a tone a privacy to a non-nuisance tone there can there's a hundred or more and you've got to scroll through a hundred of those to get to the one that you want to get to then if you press and hold it will scroll through them but it's it goes very slowly and midland's response was that this radio again marketed toward simple people that just won a simple radio which i can relate to no issue with that they wanted as few buttons as possible and that's the way it is when you have a few buttons you gotta use these buttons i did notice it seems like when i press and hold this to scroll through all the options on this radio it does scroll through faster than on the previous version so that might be an improvement i should do a comparison but i'm lazy i also complained that when you're pressing that up button to go through the codes as i was doing if your hand it's on i'm transmitting don't don't press the transmit button without an antenna hooked up no it won't explode but it's not good it could eventually overheat the radio don't do that where was i before i interrupted myself if you're going through the options and your hand touches the push-to-talk button while you're doing that it it's like the cancel button and you gotta start over midland pointed out that i'm an idiot and they designed the radio to be held in the right hand instead of the left hand for people that are driving because you have your hand on the of course you pull off to the side of the road but anyway you're going to pick up the mic with your right hand and then scrolling through the buttons it is somewhat less likely to hit the push to talk button with your big ham hand on that side fair enough midland now the thing that i mentioned the most about this radio in the previous video was the microphone this is the best feeling microphone i have ever used i've used 100 radios this one is the best it feels it it's heavy and when i investigated why by breaking it open on the previous video i found weights inside steel plates to make it heavier that midland was trying to pull a fast one on us i wasn't sure if it was deceptive if so midland's response to why there are weights in there was to make it feel heavier apparently in their market research users such as myself noticed that a cheap lightweight feeling microphone because there's really nothing in a microphone except a tiny speaker and a tiny little circuit board on most radios it just feels like air and it doesn't feel substantial in your hand because we know you want something substantial in your hand so they added weights to it and it works it feels like a good microphone so they're not trying to trick us midland is just achieving the heft that consumers demand and the antenna that comes with the midland mxt115 i think i referred to it as dinky in my previous video i think i measured it from the base at seven seven inches or so for an antenna that is small and i've seen many experts commenting online not only on my video but on other videos about this radio and this antenna the experts in the comment section saying that this antenna is junk junk and you know they're experts because they use the word junk with no other information to describe why it's junk junk is apparently an expert term so when you see somebody saying it's junk you know they really know what they're talking about in my previous test it actually worked fairly well even though the cable it's not a cable it's a wire and gmrs transmits at high frequencies uhf ultra high frequency 462 467 megahertz at those high frequencies you need to use a really good cable shielded cable otherwise the signal will just bleed out it will leak out in the wire in the cable before it even gets to the antenna so what i did this time was i tested the antenna right here in the studio so you could see now as you can see there is no car in here for me to stick the magnetic antenna on top of so i did the good old pipe pan trick using a small pie pan or cooking as my ground plane so this is far from ideal conditions i stuck the antenna there connected up the radio and i called a couple of friends on simplex no repeaters i called out to my friend chris chris is listening on a handheld and he has a slim jim antenna hanging out his window 10.3 miles away from where i'm sitting chris south fawn tucky how am i coming in there give me a five count one two three four five you're coming in with three quarter bars very strong signal clear uh coming in good uh how am i standing there and do you have your phone so you can record them it's coming in very clear nice i sent you the file ten miles on the junk as the experts call it antenna with no real ground plane just that i then called my other friend still on simplex 13 miles away he was on his mobile radio so he had an external mobile antenna on his car so even though his radio shows the name of a repeater if you're familiar with repeaters in our area he was in simplex and i was talking to him in simplex mode i didn't even program that repeater into this radio so this is simplex direct radio to radio 13 miles away testing one two one two how do we sound 13 miles away audio check one two one two standing by so as you can see despite what the experts say the antenna is not bad it is surprisingly good and there was much discussion and complaint complaint by me about it being narrow band only the new version is still narrow band only and what that means is because there is much confusion and much misinformation and just stupidity i should make a video someday i'm gonna i'm gonna put that on my list make a video the difference between narrow band and wideband most radios are wideband radios midland still making their radios narrowband and basically means if you're talking on a narrow band radio your volume level ranges here to here if you're talking on a wideband radio your volume level modulation modulation level is here to here you got more room for your modulation so what it means is if you're talking on a narrow band radio to a wide band radio your volume in many cases will sound lower when you're talking on the wide band radio to the narrow band radio the volume in many cases not always might sound overly over modulated or clipping just it will sound may not sound good not always it depends on many factors most importantly the modulation level that the person is talking how loudly they're talking and number two the strength of the signal my biggest complaint usually with narrowband is that i'm on my wide band radio because wider is better they're on their narrow band radio i can't hear them with a strong signal i would hear them fine as they get farther away and their signal is weaker the static level goes up and gets higher their voice stays here so when they've got a strong signal the static level is down here i'm not hearing them so badly as they get farther away the static this is static the static level gets higher their volume level stays down here and that's when it becomes an issue with the weaker signal static is loud talking is not loud it's not always an issue but it is often an issue but not always hopefully someday midland will start making some wideband radios and then the world would be complete the tldr for you add tarts the new version two of the midland mxt 115 15 watt mobile radio affiliate links below it is a beginner's radio it's not marketed toward us radio dorks it's marketed to somebody that just needs a radio to talk on stick in the car turn it on push the button and talk to somebody very good radio does the job just fine that's it i think i've covered everything if i missed anything or if you have questions leave a comment below i will do my best to answer if i'm not able to answer don't worry someone else will come along an expert no doubt an expert will come along and try to answer it but remember many most people leaving comments on youtube are complete jackholes and have no idea what they're saying so bear that in mind thank you for watching and oh one other thing that i almost forgot to mention about idiots posting on youtube is it there

Channel: NotaRubicon Productions

Views: 15,616

Rating: 4.9194059 out of 5

Keywords: midland mxt115, midland gmrs, mxt115 review, ham radio, mobile gmrs, mobile ham radio, radio communictions, mxt-115

Id: rN5Mh1eP2Ws

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021