Railfan Technology > Tidradio TD-H3 portable dual-band radio deep dive review

Since I did a “deep dive” review on the Quansheng UV-K5(8), I thought that I would follow up with a deep dive review of the Tidradio TD-H3, another current “darling” of the amateur portable radio market.  I did a more cursory review of this radio awhile back, but this review will go into a bit more detail, and I now have more experience with this radio, so here goes.  The TD-H3 is a 199 channel dual band (VHF/UHF) analog portable radio.  (The TD-H3 will also receive AM air band and expanded VHF and UHF, but that is beyond the scope of this review.)
 
Right off of the bat, I will say that the TD-H3 is not my favorite railfanning portable radio, for a couple of reasons.  That said, it may work just fine for some railfans.  Overall, it is a pretty decent radio, especially at its current price point of around $35.
 
The TD-H3’s most major deficiency is very slow scan speed.  It also has a very slow 2-3 second non-adjustable scan resume delay.  That effectively means that the user may miss short communications, especially if the user is scanning numerous channels.  If you absolutely require fast scan speed in your radio, then the TD-H3 is not for you.
 
The TD-H3 is a physically small radio, easily fitting in a shirt pocket.  Its keypad is also small—folks with big fingers may find that inconvenient.  The TD-H3’s display is informative and complete, though some information is displayed in somewhat small fonts.  Unlike the Uniden scanners, the TD-H3 has clear and pretty loud audio for such a small-package radio.
 
The formerly pretty “noisy” system-on-chip (SOC) homodyne-filter inexpensive Chinese radios used to be pretty useless for railfanning because they were constantly overwhelmed by unwanted RF interference.  These newer models like the TD-H3 are substantially improved in that regard, often performing almost as well as some heterodyne filter-equipped radios.  Unwanted interference has not been problematic for me on my TD-H3. 
 
The TD-H3 has very good overall sensitivity in picking up weak signals—a key radio feature for me.  The TD-H3 is just slightly less sensitive on the VHF band than my very good Quansheng UV-K5(8) that I reviewed earlier, but the TD-H3 is actually more sensitive on the UHF band by a significant amount compared to the Quansheng—this comparison made using the same antenna on both radios.  If one is already carrying a VHF-only radio to monitor railroad voice communications, the TD-H3 could be dandy radio to use to monitor only the UHF train telemetry channels.
 
Finally, some notes about batteries and charging.  The TD-H3 comes with a proprietary battery pack—no AA option battery pack is available.  The battery pack can be charged using a drop-in cradle or via USB-C cable.  Charging in the cradle takes 2-3 hours usually; USB-C charging should take about the same amount of time, though I haven’t tried it.  Weirdly, if one wants a second battery, it—so far as I know—can only be bought separately from the radio on the Tidradio website and it costs about $20.  It would almost be more cost-effective just to buy a second TD-H3 radio (some sellers offer some pretty good 2-radio package deals).
 
The real attraction to TD-H3 radio is its small size, charge capability with just a USB-C cable if one desires, relatively low price, and decent performance—if one can accept that slow scan speed.  One thing that Tidradio does is to periodically issue firmware updates.  Hopefully, one of those might fix the slow scan speed.  The TD-H3 can be programmed from the keypad, but it is much easier to program using either the Tidradio software available on its website, or using the CHIRP program, both freeware.  The TD-H3 can be PC-programmed using a cheap and easily available “Kenwood plug” Baofeng programming cable.
 

One small correction:  The TD-H3 is regularly sold in "package deals" with more than one battery, however, it is still not possible to buy an extra battery separately, except from the Tidradio website.  Also, the TD-H3, like most Chinese radios, is generally offered in either a GMRS or Amateur version.  They are both essentially the same radio, and keystroke or programming sequence  will "tell" the radio what it is:  GMRS, Amateur, or "open."  I generally order the amateur version because its dual-band antenna is better suited for railfanning. In that configuration, it will transmit on the VHF and UHF amateur frequencies only, with  receive on the 136 mHz-174 mHz VHF channels and the UHF 400 mHz-470 mHz frequencies that include the railroad channels.  Warning:  if one selects "open" when configuring the radio, the radio WILL have transmit capability across the entire frequency spectrum available in the radio--that incudes the railroad frequencies.