"Ent, 3" to fastkey switch between AM & FM

"Ent, 0" to change squelch level up or down, or access the Menu with "Ent, Ent" and arrow through to "SQL 026" and "Ent", and arrow up or down 0-10 for the level.

Squelch 4 was the setting it was in, on my receipt, but when you switch between A or B freq band ("tools" on the KDU), and whatever squelch level you put in for that position, will be the squelch level for if/when you go AM Airband in that position, and it stays without any regard to the freq currently set there.




and when you peel off the not-very sticky TRI label on the radio's face (above the display screen and to the left), it says "Harris" underneath ;-)

@GunnyG

Thanks I didn’t realize the squelch setting from the vhf/uhf frequencies was applied to the am band. Makes sense. It doesn’t seem to make much difference if I set it to 1 or 9 though I just get static on all the am frequencies. Can’t seem to find much traffic around here.

I am still having problems with the KDU locking up the radio when setting it to scan memory channels. Trying to follow up with TRI.

With FM mode coming to CB, maybe TRI should put the 10 meter version into production.

Rs

Fuck it. I'll LARP with you guys .

Just bought a 152/KDU package.

I saw it supports "air band" does it include an AM receiver?

I thought the TRI 117 was vaporwear apparently its not.

TRI PRC-117

$800 too

Not in stock.

That site is a lie, their inventory is not live.

We've done this one before, many times...

Oops...

Unfortunately the TRI 117 are not available which I am very surprised at. I was hoping to see them back with all the other new stuff coming out. Maybe someone has some new info on if/when they will be available.

Yes, and receive only.

I'm hearing SeaTac's approach and their inbound aircraft much better on this  than the previous iteration of the -152

That's pretty cool.  I'll admit I was in the "baofeng in a fancy case" camp. That's not a feature you will find on your $28 UV5R.

Grabbed some more batteries and a better charger.

This eBay seller seems to have the best price on LI-ioN batteries and they’re quite a bit newer and higher capacity than the Harris battery that came with the radio, 7Wh va 5.2Wh.

Seller accepted $27.50 per battery shipped.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184963313454?

That is awesome.  I am reconsidering my last two years of radio purchases since members have posted that the TRI receiver is at least as good as the Baofeng offerings. Two used Icom F4061s, an Anytone 778, a hot spot, a GMRS license, and a Baofeng GT5-TP could stay with their former masters in exchange for two of the TRI-152s with batteries and alkaline cases. Just use them on MURS, because with open carry in SC I don't carry a WT anymore and have only used the GMRS repeater once in a year.

I've never bought anything direct from the PRC on ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265241250784?hash=item3dc19c4be0:g:J40AAOSw6T5hIKXv

This says the battery pack is 6 18650's. Does that mean it is no longer compatible with the Harris batteries? Its supposed to be the newest model. I am not sold on having a KDU, but do want to be able to use Harris batteries if that is still feasible.

Also, do I need to look at changing the antenna out right off the bat, and is there one that is preferred?

Thanks for anybody that can help. Trying to find something more solid than a BF.

a) The radio itself is fully compatible with any OEM Harris PRC-152 battery. The TRI battery pack that came with mine is just a cheap clone that won't work with a Harris battery charger (there just aren't any battery charging contacts on the bottom of the battery housing).

b) It's up to you and your wallet: Out of the box, the TRI-provided antenna may be more than adequate, and any antenna you like (with a TNC connector) will also work. Access to a SWR meter will show you if one antenna is better than another on transmit, and your ear will be able to discern any difference on receive. That said, I noticed a bit better reception with a surplus USGI Harris antenna than the TRI gave me . . .  your mileage . . . .   it may vary.

Good God the youtube walk throughs suck ass.

Anyone know if you can name a programmed channel with alpha characters instead of just the freq?

Eg. "GMRS 1"

Yes you can save a memory channel as alphanumeric. When you save the frequencies you have a step where you can assign the identifier.

Thank you, GunnyG. I appreciate your help.

Got mine in with KDU today. 14 days from paid to delivery.

I'm fairly impressed with the construction so far. It's not exactly as advertised but very close.

The listing described the available bands as

UHF1 :400-480.000MHz
  UHF2 :330-370.000MHz(low power transmit)
  UHF2 :220-259.000MHz(low power transmit)
  VHF :136-174.000MHz
  FM :78-108MHz(receive only)
  FM :106-136Mhz(receive only)

It looked like I might get the 220 band as icing on the cake.

However I received the (H) variation which seems to lose the 220-370 and adds in 25-29 (10m).

I'm not completely upset with this honestly I think it would be kinda cool to have 10m on a portable albeit FM only.

Radio is very solid. Tri battery is a plastic look alike  but functional.  I could be convinced the radio itself is pretty rugged.  KDU is another story.  It's all plastic and has a distinct "toy" feel. It does not even appear remotely water resistant.  Radio doesn't come with a side connector cover so if you don't have the KDU on the contacts are exposed.  

I've not run it hard yet but it looks like it's going to be a bitch to program this thing. Not intuitive, the chicom instructions are difficult to interpret and the video walk throughs blow.

I bought an H250 to play with.

2m, 70cm, 10m, airband and 10w not bad at all.  We shall see how useful it is and if it winds up being useful or a conversation piece.

@LTCetme : . . .  btw, by H250, do you mean the 6 pin H350 variant? Because neither this one nor the previous generation would work with 5 pin handsets. I've tried.

6 pin handsets and PTTs are working fine with both of the TRI radios.

My 5-pin H250 seems to be working.  PTT and receive audio at least.

jus' sayin '.. 467.6875 and set it for low power, and no one on FRS channel 13 would know that you aren't on a blister pack radio ;-)

You've got one with 10m, confirmed?

Negative.  



Case had the V/U/ H designator and manual says it has 25-30 but it does not appear to be true.

I was kinda excited to mess with 10m portable.

It does have 1.25m which is a decent consolation prize.

Ok, I've figured out how to to program repeaters into the TRI but I can't for the life of me figure out how to save them to memory,  name aliasing or recalling a memory channel.

The "manual" doesn't have anything on memory saving.

Anyone able to nudge me in the right direction?

ETA: Figured it out.  Holy not obvious batman.

My H-250 5 pin works quite well, I have a 10W TRI, do you have an earlier version?

. well then,  it is just me, and my H-250 is bad. I moved on to the 6pin handsets a while ago, anyways

Since it works with a KDU, has anyone tried this yet:

Galaxy S20 phone (or whatever will run ATAK civ) + ATAK civ app + PRC152a USB cable

If this worked, in theory, it would allow you to use the phone with ATAK on it as the KDU.

Here's the cable.

https://www.tacticaleng.com/an-prc-152a-usb-program-cable-2

A cable that costs more than the radio

The KDU and cable are all TRI products, so there are no guarantees that the pinout is the same, let alone if the usb functionality is even present in the radio.

It's part of the bigger picture. Factor in that the ATAK system can link with an ECOTI as well as the phone and GOTenna + ATAK have a wide range of capabilities.

The icing would be if I could use the entire setup and have the phone be an actual KDU instead of the junk TRI made.

As far as the pinout and functionality, thats why Im asking.

I have to say, I admire your ambition!!

Well

It's not an actual unit.  Just looks like one.

If you could figure out the data lines, and Wireshark the protocol... that would be pretty amazing!

@LTCetme, can you post a recipe on how to program a repeater and save it?  I'm not having any luck finding a step by step.

Yes I can. Busy right now but I'll try to type something up today.

You are right I found zero decent walk throughs in text or video from.  What a pita.

@Yeehaa

Programming a memory channel as a repeater in the TRI PRC-152 (2021 firmware)

There are three display modes that the radio can be in it is important to know what mode you are in. This determines if you are editing a memory or editing the current VFO display. The three display modes are:

    1)VFO mode. In this mode you are free hand punching in frequencies, CTCSS ect. Note that you need to completely enter a frequency including the ‘0’s following the last digit to finish it off. You can tell you are in the VFO mode by seeing a frequency displayed in the selected VFO and NO memory number to the right. The memory number is the super tiny three digit number to the right of the frequency.
    2)Memory mode. In this mode you will only see stored channels that you will enter using the procedure I outline below. You will see the stored frequency displayed WITH a memory number to the right. The presence of this number is the only way to tell if you are in memory mode or VFO mode.
    3)Memory alias mode. This is the same as memory mode but instead of the memory frequency being displayed a small alphanumeric tag is used such as ‘GMRS1’. You will also see a memory number.

To program a memory channel:
    1)Ensure you are in VFO mode. You scroll through the three display modes using the ENT button followed by the 1/CALL button. Don’t ask me why its call and not MEM.
    2)Once you have confirmed you are in VFO mode enter the RX frequency including all of the trailing ‘0’s.
    3)Press ENT twice to enter the menu
    4)Once you see ---MENU--- use the PRE+/- button to scroll through the menu items. Once you see the setting you want to change press ENT again to change the setting using the PRE+/- and ENT again to save it. You can use CLR to back out of the setting without making a change.
    5)The main menu items you are going to look for are
            a. R-CTC: the receive CTCSS tone
            b. R-DCS: the receive Digital CTCSS tone
            c.T-CTC: The transmitted CTCSS tone
            d. T-DCS: The transmitted digital CTCSS tone
            e. POWER: Low/medium/High (the only one that actually makes sense 100%)
            f.SFT: Repeater + or – offset
            g. OFFSET: offset of the transmit frequency in MHZ from the displayed receive frequency.
    6)Once you have these right you can test to see if you can hit the repeater. If you are successful you can store it to memory using the following process.
    7)Press ENT twice to enter the menu.
    8)Find CH-MEM and press ENT
    9)Use PRE+/- to select the memory slot you want to write to.
   10)Press ENT
   11)You are now presented with a series of spaces to give the memory an alias or name.
   12)Press PRE+ to edit the first digit.
   13)Use the left and right arrows to select the character you want and press the PRE+ to move to the next digit. IMPORTANT: You can not backspace. If you fat finger the name you need to press CLR and start over. Yes this is a huge PITA.
   14)Once the name is complete press ENT.
   15)The memory is now saved. To access it press ENT and 1/CALL to change to Memory alias mode. You will see the alias you just configured along with the memory number you assigned it. You scroll through the memory’s with the left and right arrow NOT the PRE+/- buttons like you’d think. The arrows are also backwards Right arrow is down and left arrow is up.

SCANNING

To scan enter several frequencies into memory and enter one of the two memory display modes using ENT and 1/CALL. Now press ENT and 5/ZERO to start scanning the saved memories. Why is it zero and not “scan” who the hell really knows.

I've been trying to figure out if USB programming of these is possible, and I think it is, but I haven't solved it yet.

Here is what I have so far:

Here is the pinout of the handset connector:



Here is what I have figured out on the rapidmate connector so far, the view is looking at the right side of the upright radio, each box is a pin:


Additionally:
The 3rd and 4th pin on the top row are most likely send & receive for the KDU, don't know which is which.
Pin C has 5V on it.  When it is pulled to ground, PTT is "pushed".
Pin F has 5v on it.  This pin is also used by the KDU through the rapidmate connector.

I believe that there is a USB connection amongst these pins based on an old diagram for a previous version of the radio, with an 18 pin rapidmate connector.  This image shows the USB connection through the mic and speaker connections, which correlates with the TCA PRC-152 programming cable connecting to the handset connector.  I have the female connector on order and a USB to TTL cable to try and make this work.  After that, we just need to figure out which programming software.

Thanks, @LTCetme, I'm already printing this to play with!!

Any success?

Yes!! I just put 1 repeater in last night, I will be adding the rest this evening!

This  is extremely helpfull!!

The description for the TRI-152 says it has VOX but I'm not seeing any VOX settings available or a mention of VOX in the lame "manual".

My next experiment is to attempt building some kind of soundcard APRS/Packet cable and VOX is needed for this.

Anyone know how to use VOX on the TRI version?

This quick user guide for an older version of tri-152, shows a vox indicator on the screen.  
http://www.cxk-rl.com/board/attachments/userfiles/ArthurDent-2127.pdf

The current crappy user manual does not.  It looks like it's been dropped as a feature.

Well shit. I guess I'm going to need to find a small USB soundcard with vox ptt.

Anyone able to compare this model to the earlier version? Wondering if there were any bug fixes, updates or changes besides KDU add on.

doesn't ham radio outlet sell a doodad that you run audio into and it gives audio and PTT + out? maybe I misremember

I wound up buying a USB soundcard from xggcomms.com .

I got the digimode-3 which has built-in vox. I was getting ready to build my own circuit but it would have been substantially more bulky.

Not quite clone correct, but a good way to get a cheaper option if you want one.


https://shop.jkarmy.com/milf-0500-0501.html

I found this programming cable on ebay, the pinout does not work with the tri-152
https://www.tacticaleng.com/an-prc-152-usb-program-cable

TigerHawk- any luck with your mount print project?

So what’s the verdict on these 15W versions w/ the KDU?

Does it actually provide an advantage, or should one just get the radio with no KDU?

Is the 15W version a solid radio worth dragging into the woods for a few days?

Clone factor aside, are these decent radios or are they just dolled-up Baofengs?

IMO KDU is a toy.  It works but it's more curiosity than useful. It's not even remotely rugged so you aren't putting it on a kit unless it's an airsoft game. I was disappointed.

I haven't measured the power but I don't trust it to sustain 15w even if it could it would decimate your battery. You only get a fraction of a dB more signal out of 15 than 7 so I'd just leave it on mid power and call it good.

It's definitely fairly rugged on its own. The earliest versions were very baofeng-y but the new ones are substantially more refined. The have 220 coverage as well as VHF airband.  The fact that they take real 6pin accessories is cool too. I vote worth it for the radio not the KDU.

I saw that earlier post, that's a bummer about the quality. Would the KDU be worth it for initial setup or programming of the radio, then just leaving the KDU at home when using the radio?

I agree with you about the TX power. I would be curious to try 15 watts with a directional, though.

My current HT is a little Yaesu VX-6R, which I like but I wonder how the TRI would compare. The PRC-152's batteries with beefy TNC and 6-pin connector are pretty appealing. If choosing between a 152 clone and the 148 clone, which would you choose and why?

Also I read somewhere that these can function as a repeater with a 'relay' mode or something, is there any truth to that or did someone get this confused with the real thing?