Rapid Radios discussion

[K9KLC]

As an aside i just got the Unication G5 last week and it is in my top 5 of radios I have owned.

The only complaint I have with the G5 is, it caused me to buy a second one!

 

[jtalexander4]

Rid RR print new labels, and replace, or place them over, the factory labels? If so, it sounds a bit ridiculous, as the Chinese companies will put almost anything you want on the labels you order from them.

RR printed new, fresh labels. I can't see any evidence that they have placed a new label on top of an older one.

 

[spongella]

Just heard their advertisement on a local AM radio station, got me interested enough to look at their website and check out YouTube video reviews. I wonder how popular these have become but will keep on digging, mostly out of curiosity. Nice looking units though hihi.

 

[spongella]

Ok guys, I am trying one of these rapid radios as I write. My son has property about 15 miles north of Newberry Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. The cell service is pretty much non existent back in the woods where he is located. He bought two radios and said he was heading up to his property, would I test these with him. So here is the skinny. Michigan has a snow storm going right now and communication is critical for travel. My son, and wife, are in a 4x4 jeep that has a slight lift and big tires. So far along the highways the Rapid Radios have had 2 bars better signal than his ATT cell phones. When he was on Borgstrom rd heading north from US-2 near Eppoufette he had no cell service but the Rapid Radios worked very well. Usually just north of Newberry, on the way to Tahquamenon Falls, most all cell service is lost. The real test is about to happen. He is at the Loggers Museum on M-123 and we have great communication. This is where our ATT usually gives out. He is now at the 4 mile corners and the copy is spotty. Now about 10 miles north of Newberry and the copy is again back to very clear and 100%. We never have ATT service here. The dead zone was about 2 miles. People with Verizon are very spotty here. He is now at the corner of M-123 and Fordney Tower rd with the copy being 100%!! Amazing so far. They are now at the corner of Fordney Tower rd and Elmwood. This is over a mile off from M-123 and back in the boonies. As I said before, the ATT cell service even out at M-123 is non-existent. Here at the corner of Fordney Tower and Elmwood, with Rapid Radio we have 100% great copy!! Three quarters of a mile to get to his camp. The "road" has had others down it so they have made it through the 20+ inches of snow. They are now at an area where they must bust through the 20+ inches on their own. I probably won't hear any more until they get the snowshoes on and make it into camp. I am very encouraged these Rapid Radios will work from that final 3/4 mile. All in all, I think the things actually worked. I believe the main advantage is the ability to switch carriers and find the best cell tower/ signal. They can only talk to other Rapid Radios and then only in your group. You can have multiple groups though. They can text each other I think, but we haven't tried that. My background includes 45 years as a ham radio operator. My son is not a ham. I have absolutely no affiliation with Rapid Radio other than I know where the town is they are located.

Nothing like hearing it from an actual user in the field OM. Thanks.

 

[scanmanmi]

I see they charge $50/year per radio after the first year (first year probably built into the $200 price). How can these work better than a cell phone if you're going through the same tower as a cell phone?

 

[krokus]

I see they charge $50/year per radio after the first year (first year probably built into the $200 price). How can these work better than a cell phone if you're going through the same tower as a cell phone?

Better antenna placement, most likely.

 

[mmckenna]

I see they charge $50/year per radio after the first year (first year probably built into the $200 price). How can these work better than a cell phone if you're going through the same tower as a cell phone?

The SIM cards can use multiple carriers. Most users only have access to one carrier on their cell phone, and when they get out of range of that carrier, they be SOL. Having another carrier to choose from that may have different coverage can be beneficial.

Not really a new thing. Our MDC terminals have the ability to access different carriers, and that helps.

But, yeah, as Krokus said, these have an actual antenna and the user probably instinctively holds it in front of their fact like a walkie talkie, rather than up against their skull like a cell phone.

 

[fwradio]

I'm new to the thread. My dad just bought each person in our family one of these for Christmas. (Dad, please don't buy this stuff again without calling me first...). I work in the IoT embedded hardware industry, so I HAD to do some digging into this company. TLDR; I totally agree with the skepticism on this post, but these have their place for some applications.

When I saw that they didn't post the FCCID on the device itself (this device), which I am almost 100% sure is required by FCC regulations, I got suspicious. That led me to this thread, one on Facebook, and one on Reddit. I'll post my hardware trail below. Granted, some of these are assumptions, but they are good assumptions in my opinion. To be clear, I'm really only curious about the embedded radio module inside of this thing. The radio module is the entire basis around the FCC certification and is the primary component in this device. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with a radio module manufactured in China. There are plenty of applications that don't justify the political and security concerns. But if you're going to use a Chinese module, the backbone of this device, don't give me all this "made-in-America" marketing. As you all have pointed out already in this thread, their marketing is deceptive and preys on unknowing consumers - especially those experiencing a crisis.

Hardware Trail:

• The Rapid Radio Push-to-Talk (PTT) Nationwide Radio is a white-labeled version of Quanzhou Global-PTT Co., Ltd.'s radio (product link). This is my first assumption, and I think it's a good one because 1) look at the photos and 2) the Quanzhou Global-PTT Co., Ltd. device has a legitimate paper trail with the FCC. That means we are getting closer to the source.
• Inside of this device is a module manufactured by the same company, called the GP1 or GP2, depending on the geography. Based on the supported bands on the Rapid Radio device, I think the GP2 module variant is used inside.
• The FCCID of the GP2 module is 2BGSE-GP2. The information can be found here: link. Again, unless an end-user device like this is so physically small that it is impractical to print a label on it, you are required to print the FCCID of the device. The typical place you would find this is underneath the removeable battery plate. There is a label there on the Rapid Radio Device, but it only lists the model number and the Serial Number. I'm pretty sure, but I'm not willing to say 100% sure, that this is not allowed. The problem is that they have the FCC logo printed on the label. But if you print the FCC logo, you must have the FCCID present and visible.
• The FCC allows a company to perform a "Change in ID", where a company can white-label a module or device and apply a new FCC on the identical product. This helps companies obfuscate the origin of a device or a component. In friendlier terms, it prevents a company's customer from searching the FCCID on a device and finding that it's not manufactured by the company they bought it from. This is very common, and not considered nefarious. Quanzhou Global-PTT Co., Ltd. received a "Change in ID Authorization" from a company called Shanghai Notion Information Technology CO. LTD. Here is the link to that document: link.
• The module from Shanghai Notion Information Technology CO. LTD is called the M12. The FCCID is 2AR45-M12. The information is located here: link.
• This module uses an ASR1606 chipset (images). ASR is a Chinese company designing and building telecommunications chips. Some industry knowledge here: historically, ASR was practically non-existent in the US. Module manufacturers would literally make one product version with ASR for Rest-of-World and an identical one for the US market with a Qualcomm chipset. I actually thought that there was some sort of ban on ASR for the US market. So when I saw that the Rapid Radio device had one inside, I thought to myself, "ohh buddy, these guys are in some deep crap.." But it turns out I was wrong. The ASR1606N is actually approved on AT&T and T-Mobile's network, clearing the way for module manufacturers to embed the chipset. Hey, this crazy rabbit hole actually helped me learn something new! ASR is typically much, much cheaper than Qualcomm.

My thoughts:
The hardware trail is both legit and absurd. The one question I have is, "why don't they add the FCCID to the label like they are supposed to?" The only answer I can come up with is that they are trying to hide the true manufacturer of the device and radio module. It has "CHINA" written all over the hardware trail. Again, like I said before, that's not inherently a bad thing. It depends on the application.

I actually think the device is pretty cool. My dad goes fishing up at our mountain cabin and gets terrible signal on his cell phone, but he tested these out while he was up there and they work great. I could see this being a great senior citizen product for keeping in touch easily with a caretaker. Finally, setting each employee up in a company fleet with one of these would be beneficial in certain scenarios. The use cases are there and there's a fine market for these. I pass no judgement on anyone using these. Honestly, I'll use it when my dad goes up fishing alone and I want to have a way to contact him.

But man, don't feed me **** and tell me it's chocolate. Don't bait customers with terms like "WW3", "Emergency Use", and "Cybersecurity Threats" as a reason to buy these radios. Don't make me feel like I'm being patriotic by buying you're radio. The U.S.' #1 cybersecurity threat, country-wise, is China. These are Chinese-effing radios.

I won't add any more on the topic that these are not actually for emergency use and that they are totally dependent on the cellular networks being up and running. You guys covered that pretty well.

So much good information in your post. But I did want to clarify something regarding the FCC certification and putting the FCC ID on the label. They can't put the FCC ID of the internal module on the label. That FCC ID is for that product. The final product (the LTE PoC radio) has to have it's own FCC ID. From what I have seen, there is no valid FCC ID that they can even put on those labels. I have searched and have not been able to find any evidence that Rapid Radios LTE radios are actually FCC Certified.

They wouldn't be able to do a change in identification to get their own FCC ID using the FCC ID of the module, since that would just give them an FCC ID that they can market the module under. For the radio, they need to have it tested and certified independent of the module.