TriSquare TSX300

I've tested six of these radios for several hours. The range is quite good for a personal radio, and was better than FRS radios that I've used in the past. However, I found that whenever I changed… channels on two of the units (for example, to chat privately), and then changed them back, they would be unable to communicate with the remaining units for some period of time. I also found that if you turned on two units and talked between them, and then turned on a third unit within 20 seconds or so, the third unit would be unable to communicate with the first two. I exchanged emails with technical support and determined that the problem is caused by a design issue with these units which essentially requires you to wait 30 seconds before transmitting whenever you change channels or when you first turn the unit on. If you don't wait, your unit might become out of sync with the other units, and you won't be able to hear or talk to anyone, even if they are on your channel. You also have to keep the newly turned on unit at least 20-25 feet away from any other units that are already on, or they could become incorrectly synced. Here's the problem: Each "channel" on this radio actually uses 50 separate frequencies and the radio hops between them whenever it is transmitting or receiving. When you first turn on a radio, or when you change to a new channel, your radio goes to the Frequency #1 for that channel and waits there until one of two things happen: Either you push the transmit button, or the radio picks up someone else doing so. The moment that happens, the radios begins hopping through the 50 frequences in a sequence that is defined by the channel number you selected. When you stop talking, the radio continues through all 50 frequencies, and then returns to Frequency #1 to wait for another transmission. These radios take about 20 seconds to hop through all 50 frequencies. As long as both radios begin hopping at the same time, everything works great. But, if one radio transmits within 20 seconds before another is turned on, the two will be out of sync. Here's an example: If you turn both Radio #1 and #2 on at the same time, and then start transmitting, Radio #1 will transmit, Radio #2 will receive, and they will both begin hopping together, through frequencies #2 to #50. All is well. If you then turn on Radio #3 while Radio #1 and #2 are doing their hopping, it will be on frequency #1. It will wait at Frequency #1 until either you transmit or it hears someone else transmitting on Frequency #1. It cannot hear radios #1 and #2 because they aren't on frequency #1. They are hopping through frequencies #2-50 and will be doing so for roughly 20 seconds before they return back to frequency #1. If you wait for radio #1 and #2 to get back to Frequency #1 (which can take as long as 20 seconds), then Radio #3 will join the hopping and Radio #3 can hear Radio #1 and #2. However, if you transmit on Radio #3 before Radios #1 and #2 return to Frequency #1, Radio #3 will begin hopping, but it will be out of sync with Radio #1 and #2. Thus, Radio #3 might be hopping past frequency #13, but Radios #1 and #2 may be hopping past frequency #42. They won't be able to talk to one another. So, if you have transmitted on Radio #3, you'll have to stop transmitting on Radio #3, and wait 20 seconds for it to get back to Frequency #1 (where it will stop) or turn the radio off and then back on (so it will start on frequency #1). Then you'll have to wait another 15-20 seconds for radio #1 and #2 to get back to frequency #1 as well. Then all the radios will be in sync again. To complicate matters just a little further, if Radio #2 is receiving a transmission and Radio #3 changes to the same channel as Radio #2, Radio #2 will emit some kind of spurious emissions which can confuse Radio #3 and cause it to begin hopping even though it is not in sync. This will cause a choppy/staticy signal on Radio #3, and will cause the radio to begin hopping even though it is not in sync. The signal will come and go. To solve this problem, you can move Radio #3 away from any radio receiving on the same channel (at least 25 feet) and then wait for it to sync with all of the other radios. The same problem can occur if you turn all three radios on at the same time in close proximity, and then transmit on one. One of the two that is receiving can send out a spurious emission causing the third to be out of sync. These problems are relatively easy to overcome if you know about the issues and you either never change the channels or always wait 20-30 seconds after doing so. But, if you are using three or more, you probably want to use the private channel feature, which allows two radios to go off on their own. If they do so, when they come back to the group channel, they may be out of sync with the radios that did not go to a private chat, if any of them have transmitted within 20 second before the private chatters came back to the group channel. Even worse, the private chatters will probably be in sync with each other, and so they'll be able to talk on the group channel, but they won't be heard by anyone else and they won't hear anyone else, until they stop and wait 30 or so seconds... So, if you are willing to wait 30 or so seconds every time you turn the radio on or change channels, and your radio isn't near another radio during that time period, everything's fine. But, I really would prefer a radio that doesn't have these issues. Motorola makes a radio (that is much more expensive) that doesn't appear to have these problems, and I've had multi-handset cordless phones that use Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum that don't have this problem either. My FHSS cordless even has a 2-way mode, and I've never seen this type of issue before. I assume that this is something that they could correct with a handshaking protocal. There are several ways this problem could be engineered to work right. The units could sync themselves to a clock when they first connected and then use that clock to determine which channels to hop to when channels are changed, or a single frequency could be used in order to coodinate hops. It's too bad they didn't resolve this issue. If they had, this would be a great product.

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We bought a set of these radios yesterday. I charged the batteries for more than 15 hours (as the manual advised). Today I put the batteries in and started them up. Immediately, one of the radios showed… a weak battery life. Despite this, I took one radio around town while my girlfriend had one back at home. We live in Pittsburgh, and I understand the amount of interference one encounters in the city, but I have to say that I expected these to at least have a range of 2 or 3 city blocks. At best, I would say they they performed up to a block and a half before the static got to the point that we couldn't understand one another. At 2 blocks the signal was completely lost. Thus far I'm giving this product two stars. Fresh out of the box it appears to have problems with one of the batteries. Additionally, the distance is not even close to the 100 mile range that they advertise. It's more like a range of 100 feet. I would like to be clear to say that this review is based on my experience and I have not yet tried these little guys out in the countryside. Perhaps they will impress me in a rural setting... none-the-less, I have to express my disappointment withe the TriSquare TSX300. I'm going to try a few more things with them to make sure that the distance problem is not just due to my location, but I have a feeling that we're going to be taking them back for a refund. Overall, these radios seem like a failure. Thumbs down.

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