Radioddity Radioddity GD-77

[N4GIX]

It's not. It's called "Radioddity" (pronounced as radi-oddity).

 

[popnokick]

The name was probably chosen to draw attention to it in Internet chatter, FB, YouTube, etc.... just as it is right now in this thread here on RR.

 

[dazey77]

Single Frequency Repeater (SFR) mode is an option with a Hytera PD982. I don't have the SFR option in my PD982s. I'm planning to get it eventually.
https://youtu.be/gHRXMVr2JsI

One thing to be aware of, I tried a PD98x with SFR and it did not function with radios in TDMA mode. I tried it with an X1P, a PD375 a PD365 (early version) and a connect systems 580.

The 365 and 375 were initially in TDMA mode and they were not being repeated at all, only received by the radio when appropriate. The X1P (in pseudo trunk) worked fine. I dropped the PD375 to pseudo trunk and the 365 to slot 1 no TDMA and they all worked. The 580 didn't work as it does simplex on both time slots.

 

[DaveMost]

Slot1 no sound Slot2 ok

New to DMR. I have a local repeater programmed in for PA Statewide on Slot 1 and Slot 2. I was listening to PA Statewide on TSlot1 and then the green light was lit, but no sound. I switched over to PA Statewide TSlot 2 and I could hear and transmit. Both channels are setup the same with the exception of the time slot. Any ideas what could be wrong? Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[popnokick]

What is the reason you put what you describe as identical configurations into TS1 and TS2 ("Both channels are setup the same with the exception of the time slot.")?

 

[VE7WQ]

Radioddity GD-77 tx error

Greetings,

Anyone have seen this error message when the ptt button is pushed?

Tx Fail:
Carry Limited

See the attached photos.

In both
GD-77 Firmware V3.1.1 and Software V3.1.1
and
GD-77 Firmware _V3.0.6 and CPS _V2.0.5
--
73! George
VE7WQ

 

[FreqMeister]

Is The GD-77 Worth The Many Problems?

I really want to like this radio but it seems, despite several firmware and CPS updates, whoever is doing the software and firmware simply don't know what they're doing. I can handle some awkward menus, etc, in a budget radio but it's a lot harder to deal with the GD-77's many, and often fatal, problems and limitations. For those who want to argue it just comes with the territory for an inexpensive radio I disagree. The Yaesu FT-70D can be found for $180, has 1000 channels, and System Fusion digital. Yeah that's about twice the price of the GD-77 but it actually WORKS right. Even the lowly Baofeng UV-5R and CHIRP software puts the GD-77 and its software to shame. My GD-77 has been an exercise in frustration and is probably going to end up on eBay. Just some examples:

1 - I upgraded from 3.0.6 to 3.1.1 and it broke my GD-77. It would no longer transmit at all (despite the red light coming on). Performing a factory reset on 3.1.1 made things even worse as then it would not even open the squelch for received analog signals (although the green light would come on and they could be heard by holding down the MONITOR button). It took hours of troubleshooting, downgrading the software, performing multiple factory resets, starting over with a fresh codeplug, etc., just to get it back to where it was out of the box. There are apparently compatibility issues with certain ranges of serial numbers and certain versions of firmware yet zero documentation on the issue from Radioddity. It's also telling several fields are blank in the "Info" display on the radio. If an update can break your radio the update software should check first for compatibility and Radioddity should be releasing different versions for each hardware version. And will this incompatibility leave some of us out of luck for all future updates because we have the wrong serial number range?

2 - Performing a factory reset with any firmware after about 2.6.X seems to hopelessly corrupt the radio. Even Radioddity admits this in their FAQ. They've had multiple releases since then but it still corrupts the radio even with their latest release. This is something so basic and essential yet they seem unable to fix it. Having to downgrade to perform a reset is ridiculous in any release let alone multiple releases after it's a known acknowledged problem. This doesn't give me much hope for future fixes.

3 - There's general incompatibility with the DAT codeplug files between updates with many reported issues. This wouldn't be so bad if one could export and import a single CSV file for even most of the programming data but there's no such thing. The channel CSV import ignores zones, scan lists, and rx groups. So you're forced to manually re-establish all the relationships between talk groups, rx group lists, zones, scan lists, and channels. This can be many hours of work and the firmware and software are so full of problems we're all wanting to update and try the new versions even though they might require nearly starting over due to the DAT file being incompatible. My guess is they're changing the internal memory map of the radio between releases and it's closely tied to the format of the DAT file. Regardless of the reason it's a really serious issue.

4 - The Zones behave weirdly. Some won't let you delete all the channels, some won't let you add certain channels, some channels get corrupted adding them, and I can't add any channels numbered over 256. This partly sounds like one of several "8 bit bugs" reported where it appears the radio is storing some things internally as 8 bit values that simply roll over when the PC software tries to exceed 256. This is programming 101 stuff that 7th graders working with Arduinos easily understand but is seemingly beyond the folks in China working on this radio.

5 - The scanlists only allow 16 channels with 3.0.6 despite Radioddity claiming they fixed that. To me this makes scanning nearly useless in a radio with supposedly 1024 channels. It's as if they put in the capability for 1000+ channels as a marketing claim but then never bothered, or were unable, to make the radio actually usable with more than 16, 32, or 256 channels depending on which area you're trying to configure. They are ridiculous limitations that severely limit the usability of the entire radio and, perhaps worse, they seem unable to fix at least some of them.

6 - The codeplug is easily corrupted by doing something as innocent as deleting the "dummy" channels that ship with the radio. Channel 1 in particular seems to have some magic significance.

7 - Unlike even other Chinese DMR radios, the GD-77 requires the use of Rx Group Lists which further complicates programming and re-programming after a firmware update. And the Rx lists themselves are buggy.

8 - The PC software is sloppy and full of bugs. Some lists let you highlight multiple items in the list but clicking say "DELETE" only deletes one item. In other cases you can't even highlight multiple entries. You can view a list of all the channels but you can't edit them from that list. There's no group editing. Windows open up, even with the software full screen on a 1920 x 1080 display, partly off the screen. Stuff is very oddly organized and/or labeled. And some of the "help" text is laughably awful. Again, a 7th grader could do better.

9 - There are many options in the software that nobody seems quite sure what they do and/or there's widespread advice to leave them alone as they "break" the radio. That's not acceptable especially when "unbreaking" the radio can require a downgrade, factory reset, upgrade, and reload or perhaps brick it completely. If stuff doesn't work how about just leaving it out instead of giving users yet more ways to hate the GD-77? Do they perform ANY real testing at the factory? For anyone considering buying a GD-77 I'd suggest downloading the manual and the software first to see just how bad it really is.

The bottom line is Radioddity, or whoever actually is responsible for the firmware and PC software, needs to find or hire people who actually know what they're doing. They also need someone who can properly translate both ways from English as they don't seem to even understand what many of the problems are. And many of their software menu items, help text, FAQs, update "diaries" and such are so poorly translated to English as to only create confusion like @VE7WQ's problem in this thread with "Carry Limited" being displayed while unable to transmit.

The hardware seems fine but the radio an is an exercise in frustration with the current firmware, software, and documentation. You have to ask yourself if it's worth it to save a few bucks and will they ever fix things they've already known about and have been unable to fix over multiple releases?

It's also frustrating that, in exchange for a free radio, the GD-77 has managed to receive several mostly favorable YouTube reviews from reviewers who somehow never mention most of the above. That just gives Radioddity even less incentive to actually fix the many problems. We should all be sending our radios back and demanding a refund and voicing our concerns loudly online. Unfortunately I foolishly waited more than 30 days before trying to do much with mine so I can no longer return it.

I sincerely hope Radioddity addresses the many serious issues with the GD-77 (and it's new repackaged twin the RD-5R). But if you want something that works reasonably well right out of the box I'd suggest looking elsewhere if you haven't already bought one.

 

[Forts]

I really want to like this radio but it seems, despite several firmware and CPS updates, whoever is doing the software and firmware simply don't know what they're doing. I can handle some awkward menus, etc, in a budget radio but it's a lot harder to deal with the GD-77's many, and often fatal, problems and limitations. For those who want to argue it just comes with the territory for an inexpensive radio I disagree. The Yaesu FT-70D can be found for $180, has 1000 channels, and System Fusion digital. Yeah that's about twice the price of the GD-77 but it actually WORKS right. Even a lowly Baofeng UV-5R and CHIRP software puts the GD-77 and its software to shame. My GD-77 has been an exercise in frustration and is probably going to end up on eBay. Just some examples:

1 - I upgraded from 3.0.6 to 3.1.1 and it broke my GD-77. It would not longer transmit at all (despite the red light coming on). Performing a factory reset on 3.1.1 made things even worse as then it would not even open the squelch for received analog signals (although the green light would come on and they could be heard by holding down the MONITOR button). It took hours of troubleshooting, downgrading the software, performing multiple factory resets, starting over with a fresh codeplug, etc., just to get it back to where it was out of the box. There are apparently compatibility issues with certain ranges of serial numbers and certain version of firmware yet zero documentation from Radioddity. It's also telling several fields are blank in the "Info" display on the radio. If an update can brick your radio the update software should check first for compatibility and Radioddity should be releasing different versions for different hardware versions. Will this incompatibility leave some of us out of luck for all future updates because we have the wrong serial number range?

2 - Performing a factory reset with any firmware after about 2.6.X seems to hopelessly corrupt the radio. Even Radioddity admits this in their FAQ. They've had multiple releases since then but it still corrupts the radio even with their latest release. This is something so basic and essential yet they seem unable to fix it. Having to downgrade to perform a reset is ridiculous in any release let alone multiple releases after it's a known acknowledged problem. This doesn't give me much hope for future fixes.

3 - There's general incompatibility with the DAT codeplug files between updates with many reported issues. This wouldn't be so bad if one could export and import a single CSV file for even most of the programming data but there's no such thing. The channel CSV import ignores zones, scan lists, and rx groups. So you're forced to manually re-establish all the relationships between talk groups, rx group lists, zones, scan lists, and channels. This can be many hours of work and the firmware and software are so full of problems we're all wanting to update and try the new versions even though they might require nearly starting over due to the DAT file being incompatible. My guess is they're changing the internal memory map of the radio between releases and it's closely tied to the format of the DAT file. Regardless of the reason it's a really serious issue.

4 - The Zones behave weirdly. Some won't let you delete all the channels, some won't let you add certain channels, some channels get corrupted adding them, and I can't add any channels numbered over 256. This is one of several "8 bit bugs" reported where it appears the radio is storing some things internally as 8 bit values that simply roll over when the PC software tries to exceed 256. This is programming 101 stuff that 7th graders working with Arduinos easily understand but is seemingly beyond the folks in China working on this radio.

5 - The scanlists only allow 16 channels with 3.0.6 despite Radioddity claiming they fixed that. To me this makes scanning nearly useless in a radio with supposedly 1024 channels. It's as if they put in the capability for 1000+ channels as a marketing claim but then never bothered, or were unable, to make the radio actually usable with more than 16, 32, or 256 channels depending on which area you're trying to configure. They are ridiculous limitations that severely limit the usability of the entire radio and, perhaps worse, they seem unable to fix at least some of them.

6 - The codeplug is easily corrupted by doing something as innocent as deleting the "dummy" channels that ship with the radio. Channel 1 in particular seems to have some magic significance.

7 - Unlike even other Chinese DMR radios, the GD-77 requires the use of Rx Group Lists which further complicates programming and re-programming after a firmware update. And the Rx lists themselves are buggy.

8 - The PC software is sloppy and full of bugs. Some lists let you highlight multiple items in the list but clicking say "DELETE" only deletes one item. In other cases you can't even highlight multiple entries. You can view a list of all the channels but you can't edit them from that list. There's no group editing. Windows open up, even with the software full screen on a 1920 x 1080 display, partly off the screen. Stuff is very oddly organized and/or labeled. And some of the "help" text is laughably awful. Again, a 7th grader could do better.

9 - There are many options in the software that nobody seems quite sure what they do and/or there's widespread advice to leave them alone as they "break" the radio. That's not acceptable especially when "unbreaking" the radio can require a downgrade, factory reset, upgrade, and reload or perhaps brick it completely. If stuff doesn't work how about just leaving it out instead of giving users yet more ways to hate the GD-77? Do they perform ANY real testing at the factory? For anyone considering buying a GD-77 I'd suggest downloading the manual and the software first to see just how bad it really is.

The bottom line is Radioddity, or whoever actually is responsible for the firmware and PC software, needs to find or hire people who actually know what they're doing. They also need someone who can properly translate both ways from English as they don't seem to even understand what many of the problems are. And many of their software menu items, help text, FAQs, update "diaries" and such so poorly translated to English as to only create confusion like @VE7WQ's problem in this thread with "Carry Limited" being displayed while unable to transmit.

The hardware seems fine but the radio an is an exercise in frustration with the current firmware, software, and documentation. You have to ask yourself if it's worth it to save a few bucks and will they ever fix things they've already known about and have been unable to fix over multiple releases?

It's also frustrating that, in exchange for a free radio, the GD-77 has managed to receive several mostly favorable YouTube reviews from reviewers who somehow never mention most of the above. That just gives Radioddity even less incentive to actually fix the many problems. We should all be sending our radios back and demanding a refund and voicing our concerns loudly online. Unfortunately I foolishly waited more than 30 days before trying to do much with mine so I can no longer return it.

I sincerely hope Radioddity addresses the many serious issues with the GD-77 (and it's new repackaged twin the RD-5R). But if you want something that works reasonably well right out of the box I'd suggest looking elsewhere if you haven't already bought one.

Valid points across the board. Potentially great little radio but just riddled with software defects. I'm hoping the community CPS will help a little, plus work is being done to hopefully dump the firmware so it can be edited by folks that have a clue as to what's going on. My radio is strictly used for RX only right now as that's about all it's good for.

 

[doctordruidphd]

In spite of all the rah-rah posts about the GD-77, the painful truth is that no matter what the hardware might be capable of doing, the software is somewhere between frustrating and utterly useless. They need to get their act together on this, spend less time on coming up with new models and fix the one/s they already have out there.

There are a few attempts by the community to remedy some of these problems, though they are in their infancy:

An attempt to edit the firmware itself to fix some problems (a low level tool at this point, mostly for programmers):
Radioddity GD-77 Tuning project

An attempt to come up with a better CPS, still in its beginning, but making progress:
Radioddity GD-77 Community CPS for firmware 3.1x | Roger Clark

Another item that I have not tried yet, but looks promising for importing/exporting meaningful data files from the codeplug:
Downloads

These are all works in progress but do show some promise for addressing what radioddity seems unwilling to deal with.

 

[FreqMeister]

GD-77 Problems

Thanks to both @Doctordruidphd and @Forts for confirming my frustration with Radioddity and the GD-77. It's great some folks are trying to reverse engineer the GD-77 software, codeplug, and perhaps even firmware, but I don't give those projects a lot of hope unless Radioddity decides to share their source code and development documentation. And, right now, it's all a moving target as Radioddity seems to have no concept of developing a stable solid internal memory map and DAT file configuration like all the Japanese radios have done.

Even if Radioddity, by some miracle, shared all their internal source code and development documentation it would still likely require a Chinese software developer to assist as I suspect the code comments and documentation are all in Chinese. Without those things it's a huge challenge to reverse engineer everything from just raw memory dumps.

I agree 100% the Chinese radio developers need to focus on making what they have work right but that just doesn't seem to be their business model. There are 20+ variations of the Baofeng UV-5R alone with most of them only differing in what they look like. If they put the development resources that went into designing and marketing all those different, but functionally identical, radios into improving a single radio they would be much further ahead. But they would rather keep changing the case, slap a new model number on it, and hope people are fooled. But it's the same old hardware and firmware inside.

Radioddity/Baofeng has done the above yet again with the RD-5R which is, apparently, nothing more than a repackaged GD-77 with slightly different buttons and a few tweaks to the otherwise identical display. Out of curiosity I downloaded the PC software for the RD-5R and the PC software installs to this folder:

C:\C\N V

And the resulting programming software is called "N.EXE" which makes no sense.

How can anyone take them seriously when they can't even name their software and installation path? It's painfully obvious they don't perform even the most basic testing, quality control, etc. They put all their effort into a shiny website, fancy box, fake reviews on Amazon, etc. For those curious, the ZIP file is here:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.image.ro...oddity RD-5R Firmware & Software V1.0.0.1.zip

 

[VE7WQ]

Radioddity's response for a return request of the GD-77

Thank you very much for the very informative reply.

I was able to request a return/refund from the eBay seller within the allowed 30 days.
Since I'm experiencing most of the problems you listed here,
I cited some of them as a reason why I wanted to return it.
The first response was positive, no problem, they will send a "return form", then I can send back the GD-77 to their warehouse in China.

The second mail from Anna asked me to send a video.
"I have been contacting with our supplier to ask for return request for you and we are sorry that they required a video could you please send us the video of the problem? I am waiting for your reply. Best regards, Anna"

What kind of video can I make that show when upgraded from 3.0.6 to 3.1.1 the GD-77 no longer transmit at all (despite the red light coming on)?
How can I show in a video the many hours of troubleshooting, downgrading the software, performing multiple factory resets, starting over with a fresh codeplug, etc.?
I can show the radio in the video, but how can I show the frustration with the firmware, software, and documentation like you wrote?
I don't want an exchange or a free GD-77 to have the same problems over and over again.

This is from eBay:
"If you haven't agreed on a solution by Apr 13, 2018, you can ask us to step in and help. If you and your seller need more time to work things out, your request will stay open until May 21, 2018."

I really want to like this radio but it seems, despite several firmware and CPS updates, whoever is doing the software and firmware simply don't know what they're doing. I can handle some awkward menus, etc, in a budget radio but it's a lot harder to deal with the GD-77's many, and often fatal, problems and limitations. For those who want to argue it just comes with the territory for an inexpensive radio I disagree. The Yaesu FT-70D can be found for $180, has 1000 channels, and System Fusion digital. Yeah that's about twice the price of the GD-77 but it actually WORKS right. Even the lowly Baofeng UV-5R and CHIRP software puts the GD-77 and its software to shame. My GD-77 has been an exercise in frustration and is probably going to end up on eBay. Just some examples:

1 - I upgraded from 3.0.6 to 3.1.1 and it broke my GD-77. It would no longer transmit at all (despite the red light coming on). Performing a factory reset on 3.1.1 made things even worse as then it would not even open the squelch for received analog signals (although the green light would come on and they could be heard by holding down the MONITOR button). It took hours of troubleshooting, downgrading the software, performing multiple factory resets, starting over with a fresh codeplug, etc., just to get it back to where it was out of the box. There are apparently compatibility issues with certain ranges of serial numbers and certain versions of firmware yet zero documentation on the issue from Radioddity. It's also telling several fields are blank in the "Info" display on the radio. If an update can break your radio the update software should check first for compatibility and Radioddity should be releasing different versions for each hardware version. And will this incompatibility leave some of us out of luck for all future updates because we have the wrong serial number range?

2 - Performing a factory reset with any firmware after about 2.6.X seems to hopelessly corrupt the radio. Even Radioddity admits this in their FAQ. They've had multiple releases since then but it still corrupts the radio even with their latest release. This is something so basic and essential yet they seem unable to fix it. Having to downgrade to perform a reset is ridiculous in any release let alone multiple releases after it's a known acknowledged problem. This doesn't give me much hope for future fixes.

3 - There's general incompatibility with the DAT codeplug files between updates with many reported issues. This wouldn't be so bad if one could export and import a single CSV file for even most of the programming data but there's no such thing. The channel CSV import ignores zones, scan lists, and rx groups. So you're forced to manually re-establish all the relationships between talk groups, rx group lists, zones, scan lists, and channels. This can be many hours of work and the firmware and software are so full of problems we're all wanting to update and try the new versions even though they might require nearly starting over due to the DAT file being incompatible. My guess is they're changing the internal memory map of the radio between releases and it's closely tied to the format of the DAT file. Regardless of the reason it's a really serious issue.

4 - The Zones behave weirdly. Some won't let you delete all the channels, some won't let you add certain channels, some channels get corrupted adding them, and I can't add any channels numbered over 256. This partly sounds like one of several "8 bit bugs" reported where it appears the radio is storing some things internally as 8 bit values that simply roll over when the PC software tries to exceed 256. This is programming 101 stuff that 7th graders working with Arduinos easily understand but is seemingly beyond the folks in China working on this radio.

5 - The scanlists only allow 16 channels with 3.0.6 despite Radioddity claiming they fixed that. To me this makes scanning nearly useless in a radio with supposedly 1024 channels. It's as if they put in the capability for 1000+ channels as a marketing claim but then never bothered, or were unable, to make the radio actually usable with more than 16, 32, or 256 channels depending on which area you're trying to configure. They are ridiculous limitations that severely limit the usability of the entire radio and, perhaps worse, they seem unable to fix at least some of them.

6 - The codeplug is easily corrupted by doing something as innocent as deleting the "dummy" channels that ship with the radio. Channel 1 in particular seems to have some magic significance.

7 - Unlike even other Chinese DMR radios, the GD-77 requires the use of Rx Group Lists which further complicates programming and re-programming after a firmware update. And the Rx lists themselves are buggy.

8 - The PC software is sloppy and full of bugs. Some lists let you highlight multiple items in the list but clicking say "DELETE" only deletes one item. In other cases you can't even highlight multiple entries. You can view a list of all the channels but you can't edit them from that list. There's no group editing. Windows open up, even with the software full screen on a 1920 x 1080 display, partly off the screen. Stuff is very oddly organized and/or labeled. And some of the "help" text is laughably awful. Again, a 7th grader could do better.

9 - There are many options in the software that nobody seems quite sure what they do and/or there's widespread advice to leave them alone as they "break" the radio. That's not acceptable especially when "unbreaking" the radio can require a downgrade, factory reset, upgrade, and reload or perhaps brick it completely. If stuff doesn't work how about just leaving it out instead of giving users yet more ways to hate the GD-77? Do they perform ANY real testing at the factory? For anyone considering buying a GD-77 I'd suggest downloading the manual and the software first to see just how bad it really is.

The bottom line is Radioddity, or whoever actually is responsible for the firmware and PC software, needs to find or hire people who actually know what they're doing. They also need someone who can properly translate both ways from English as they don't seem to even understand what many of the problems are. And many of their software menu items, help text, FAQs, update "diaries" and such are so poorly translated to English as to only create confusion like @VE7WQ's problem in this thread with "Carry Limited" being displayed while unable to transmit.

The hardware seems fine but the radio an is an exercise in frustration with the current firmware, software, and documentation. You have to ask yourself if it's worth it to save a few bucks and will they ever fix things they've already known about and have been unable to fix over multiple releases?

It's also frustrating that, in exchange for a free radio, the GD-77 has managed to receive several mostly favorable YouTube reviews from reviewers who somehow never mention most of the above. That just gives Radioddity even less incentive to actually fix the many problems. We should all be sending our radios back and demanding a refund and voicing our concerns loudly online. Unfortunately I foolishly waited more than 30 days before trying to do much with mine so I can no longer return it.

I sincerely hope Radioddity addresses the many serious issues with the GD-77 (and it's new repackaged twin the RD-5R). But if you want something that works reasonably well right out of the box I'd suggest looking elsewhere if you haven't already bought one.

 

[doctordruidphd]

What kind of video can I make that show when upgraded from 3.0.6 to 3.1.1 the GD-77 no longer transmit at all (despite the red light coming on)?
How can I show in a video the many hours of troubleshooting, downgrading the software, performing multiple factory resets, starting over with a fresh codeplug, etc.?
I can show the radio in the video, but how can I show the frustration with the firmware, software, and documentation like you wrote?

You can't. That, I think, is the whole idea. I got this treatment once, and just made a video of a blank screen and sent it to them with a note saying I don't think it worked. This seems to be a trick they have come up with to try to get rid of you. Persist, tell them you're a radio operator, not a videographer. Then send them a video with nothing but static.

Actually, the reason is that they don't speak English well enough to understand the problem, but they can try to figure it out from a video. (Just like we are supposed to do with their software, right?) Well, if you want to be cooperative and get quick service, just send them a short clip of the radio malfunctioning, and that will probably satisfy them.

Sorry, I got this treatment once, and it didn't go well.

 

[FreqMeister]

Actually, the reason is that they don't speak English well enough to understand the problem, but they can try to figure it out from a video. (Just like we are supposed to do with their software, right?) Well, if you want to be cooperative and get quick service, just send them a short clip of the radio malfunctioning, and that will probably satisfy them.

My experience has been Radioddity seems to think they have already fixed all the important problems with the GD-77. They tell you 3.1.1 will fix all your problems and, if not, they want you to return your radio for replacement which won't help as the problems are with the firmware and PC software not the actual radio (AFAIK). They don't seem to understand, or pretend not to understand, that 3.1.1 BROKE my radio, VE7WQ's radio, and others.

A video would also have the radio prompts and PC software in English which, even though they theoretically developed one or both, the person watching the video may not fully understand.

I think there are 4 main problems here:

1 - The GD-77's "roots" are in radios intended for commercial use not amateur radio. This is obvious as the earlier versions didn't even have VFO capability but it's also obvious with things like only 16 channels per zone, poor support of FM analog, etc.

2 - Radioddity doesn't seem to have skilled firmware and software developers. Whoever is doing the firmware and software seem to be in well over their head and also not understand what HAM users want.

3 - Radioddity appears to be a typical Chinese company that favors marketing and introducing new models to push out as much product as they can over making their products actually work right. They have already moved onto the RD-5R which inherited most of the GD-77s problems and limitations.

4 - There's definitely a language barrier in both directions and it's a huge problem. How hard can it be to find someone to properly translate in both directions?

As to VE7WQ have you looked into the cost to return it to China? It might not be worth it. You might be better off to sell it yourself on eBay or keep it and hope they finally fix more of the problems. I agree with Doctordruidphd you may have a difficult time convincing them it is defective. The easiest way might be a video showing it "trying" to transmit (red light on) with another radio next to it that's not receiving anything.

 

[jaspence]

FreqMeister, with the DMR-Marc system in my area, there are seldom more than ten talk groups on a repeater, and if you are on Brandmeister with a hot spot like I have, the majority of contacts are on TAC 310, NA, or USA. If you need more choices, don't buy the radio. My GD-77 had one minor problem with the early firmware, and the latest has not brought anything bad that I have experienced. Other than the Chinese radios, there has never been a dual band transceiver under $100 in the ham universe, let alone a digital one. Check out a D-Star or NXDN HT and see what you find for under $100.

 

[VE7WQ]

Thank you for your tips.
I made a video with 8 static pages, listing my beefs.
Each page showed the GD-77 in a sidebar.
Maybe I shouldn't have told them, that I don't want an exchange
or one more GD-77, just a refund.

 

[VE7WQ]

Will keep you all updated here, how Radioddity responded.

 

[doctordruidphd]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I bought the radio assuming that it would perform to its specifications. The reasons why I need it to do so are irrelevant, and do not excuse that fact that the radio, and its accompanying software, do not perform to specifications or to advertised capabilities. That the user community has had to take it upon themselves to remedy these problems reflects very poorly on the company's legitimacy. It also means that a lot of people are disappointed.

Yes, it was designed from an originally commercial standpoint, but so were other radios, and the support from the manufacturers has been much better.

 

[VE7WQ]

My video was accepted, Radioddity sent an RMA return form.

 

[VE7WQ]

I managed to get an RMA from the eBay seller for a refund.
The problem is, the cheapest track-able postage is $88 from Canada to China.
Now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

[VE7WQ]

50% refund

Postage to China from Canada costs more then the full refund.
The agreed solution is: I'll get 50% refund and can keep the radio.