Post
I finally took the plunge into digital radios and snagged a couple of Anytone 878s, which seem to be a well loved entry-level DMR unit. I'm really impressed so far! Beyond being able to use analog bands, digital offers many more ways to send, receive, parse, and control information over the waves.
9:12 AM · Dec 10, 2025
It's kind of like learning radios all over again, but I'm glad to finally be expanding my capabilities. I'm curious if anyone else has any experience with DMRs - I'd love to hear your thoughts!
The 878s are fantastic and synergize very well with their mobile counterparts (578). The 578s can function as a cross band repeater, so essentially can be set up as a poor persons repeater tower
Oh also, there is a firmware update somewhere for the 878s that allows you to download a sat tracking software, it completely trivializes sat communication. Ideally youd use a directional antenna for that, but if youre lucky you can at least listen with your standard omni
Sold my 878 some weeks ago for certain reasons. Slow bootup and really slow at scanning.
I now have a Baofeng DM-1701 which runs OpenGD77, starts up really fast, also very fast scanning.
It sure is slow.. I've just been learning more patience. 😄
Those are all personal preferences btw, the Anytone is definitely more rugged, physically and RF-wise.
Being able to scan quickly is what I need to monitor various stuff. In the field when using just a couple of freqs it doesn't matter.
I have the same one! Learning how to use it has been a struggle, though. Any good ressource you can reccomend?
Other than the manual, the videos here were a good jumping-off point: www.bridgecomsystems.com/blogs/bridge...
Neat!
(Sorry, don't know much HAM radios so can't really contribute much to the discussion.)