Customer Reviews

Midland GXT1000VP4 36-Mile 50-Channel FRS/GMRS Two-Way Radio (Pair) (Black/Silver)

5 star:		(96)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

The radios by themselves are good, but be careful to read the fine print. The first time I went to use the radios one of them didn't have a full charge on it. No problem, I just used AA batteries. Then we realized we could barely hear each other through the headphones even with the radios turned to max volume. I thought it might be the headphones, but they were very loud when plugged into a friend's radio made by a different company. Midland blamed it on the headphones anyway, but they were not covered under the warranty. So I didn't use the radios again for a few months until we went on another trip and I made sure to place the radio on the charger a day early this time so it would have ample time to charge. Same problem one radio didn't take but half a charge. I contacted Midland on Friday explaining my situation, they got back to me on Wednesday to say there was probably an issue with the battery pack (No duh). I emailed back around 10:30 am and said I figured that much, but how do I correct it. They got back to me on Thursday night saying I needed to buy another battery pack because they are not covered under the warranty either. So what is covered? Turns out not much, not the headphones, not the battery packs, not the charger, not the adapter and not even the antennas. In short if all you need is just the radios and there isn't a problem with them, the radios are OK, but heaven help you if there is a problem with them. It will take forever for someone to tell you that's not covered under the warranty. That large 3 year warranty logo needs to include an even larger asterisk. Radios get 5 stars, everything else including the warranty and service gets 1 star for an average of 3 stars. If I need to buy all new accessories to replace all these defective ones I just bought, maybe I should consider a different brand radio.

In the past I have taken walkie talkies to the State Fair and they were unusable because of all the chattering going on. I brought the Midland GXT1000VP4 radios to the fair and randomly selected a channel and privacy setting. They worked perfectly. Not one other person broadcasted on the same channel (200,000 people in attendance). We could hear each other crystal clear. You either get a crystal clear signal or no signal at all with these radios; there is never any static. They lasted the whole day on one charge and the battery indicator still read full.
The only complaint that I have is when putting them on the charger, it takes a bit of menuvering to get the charge light to go on...and I have had it go off after about 15 minutes before. In that case I reseated the one radio again and the light stayed on for the whole charging period.

I recently purchased these radios after our 2-year old Motorolas were stolen. We use the radios exclusively for RVing (communicating between driver and spotter when maneuvering). The audio on these radios is MUCH better than the previous Motorolas. Menu functions seem to be a bit more intuitive as well.
The only negative I have found is "range", or lack thereof. Midland advertises 36 miles. (Yeah, I know, that's on a straight shot with nothing in between, but how many of us really use them under those conditions!) In the real world we were able to transmit about 1 mile.
I knew this limitation going in, so I wasn't disappointed.

The radios work well for our purposes.

Either I've ended up with the only 10 radios Midland has made that were junk, or the other reviews are from Midland employees. My radios just won't hold a charge, stop working after 2 days or start to sound like I'm talking under water.

We purchased 2 pairs of these for a video production. At first I couldn't believe how good these were. The range, albeit not a million miles like they say, was VERY VERY good! Several miles for sure. Very impressive. So we bough 3 more pairs the same week. But before the second set showed up, the first 4 started flaking out. The batteries wouldn't hold a charge. I thought they were being overcharged, but the book says to keep them on the charger when not in use.

It wasn't 2 weeks before the other ones started flaking out on us too.

Out of the 10 radios there are only 1-2 that appear to work without any issue. For the life of me, I don't see how these have gotten such great reviews since we've only had 10-20% reliability at best with the ones we've purchased.

I don't have any recommendations for any other radios since this is our first radio purchase. These have so much potential, but fall very very short! If they would just stay on and hold a charge for longer than 30 minutes, I would be in love with them because the reception/transmission signal is simply incredible (when working)!

The Midland GTX 1000VP4's work great and are easy to use. I have used them for many hours at a time. The low battery indicator comes on long before they quit working. The published range is very optimistic. But it is the best of this class I have used. I took back 2 different Cobras that didn't work well before buying the Midland radios.

i bought this radio to talk to my family when we are out in the wood. The fact it says it works upto 36 miles, that is only if you are in Desert with no blocking mountain or building. however, in the city this radio worked upto 3 miles.
I love the fact that you can use Alkaline batteries or rechargeable. You never need to buy battery. It comes with rechargeable stand which can even charge your AA recahargable batterries beside its own included battery. It has alot of futures. Over all it is nice collection for those who like to go outdoor activity. advertise 36 miles, where it should say 6 miles.

A great two-way radio for direct or simplex communication for campers, hikers or anyone that requires short distance conversation less than two miles. Remember that the distance marketed by Midland and any 22 channels or greater radios is applicable only when you can see the person 10 miles away without any objects including trees or shrubs in between. Unless you are in a flat desert or ocean, you will not get the range as advertised.
One way to obtain longer distance with a UHF radio is by raising its height. If one of the user is at higher altitude such as hills, tall rocks or building, both can communicate at farther distance.
Don't forget to obtain an FCC license to operate on the GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) frequencies for channel 1-7, and 15-22. These frequencies can operate up to 5 watt and you will be sharing the same frequencies with other GMRS users. It is illegal to operate these frequencies without a license though many operate the radios without knowing that you can receive a hefty fine. The license is very easy to obtain through FCC website for Universal Licensing System (ULS)[...].
The license is for 5 years [...]. No test is required for GMRS but you can operate on any of the GMRS frequencies for your entire family under one license. That is your parents, childrens and any close member of the family.
My son is using the Midland GXT1000 when he is at the mall or at the playground with mommy. I can inline skate in the same park and communicate with him at any time. It's a great tool and less complicated than a cell phone.

We got these to use as an intercom between the house and workshed. When they work they are fine, but sometimes they don't work. One will go dead, and then if you keep turning it on and off enough times it start up again. But since you don't get a warning when it goes dead you can't rely on being reachable unless you keep checking to see if it is still on.

I wish I had saved the packaging to return them. They aren't sufficiently reliable to keep using.

We haven't used the advanced features, just because we don't trust the radios to carry them anytime we might need them.

update July 2010 : after further testing we mounted the charger in the race car and hard wired it to the 12v electrical system. Worked great. Tie wrapped the radio to the mount. No power issues now. now we are working on a more reliable headset for use in a race car with PTT and helmet. The standard motorcycle setup is useless. Made a hybrid setup. Worked great, but the wires are just too weak. Could not take the abuse that my drivers gave it. Now trying a tactical throat mic setup with MIL-spec cables.


I purchased these for our endurance race car team for an upcoming 24 Hour race at Nelson Ledges in Ohio in October (24 Hours of LeMons, Lamest Day). We were using the Midland motorcycle helmet speakers and mic setup that works with these radios. Initially in the pits while testing they worked great. But when you got on the track you could not hear each other. After speaking with other racers and Midland Tech Support we will be trying out the FBI style in-ear piece.
The radios worked well. Just remember that to use these radios on the non-FRS frequencies you will need an FCC license.
The range was good. But because these have the FRS frequencies, the antenna is not removable. It would have helped us if we could have mounted a roof antenna but can't due to FCC law. We had good coverage until the Carousel (turn 7-9) and picked up again just before turn 10. This kinda sucked under Yellow as the area is blind at speed. You were on your own.The trees are what caused the blackout, so it really was not the radios fault.
Now the batteries did well, but they did not last the full 24 hours like we expected. They lasted only about 14 hours. This really did suck as we were not allowed to swap out radios/batteries in the hot pits due to the rules. There is no facility on the radio to plug it into a 12v supply. Now the charger base that comes with the radios does have a 12v adapter, but this is not stable enough to use in a race car.

These are little issues that mainly concern fellow racers, but to use these as they were meant these radios would be awesome.

I did contact Midland customer service about some of the issues. But they were not very helpful. More like sales people that had to look up the facts before answering my questions, which really were never answered. And they were not willing to work with me on trying to figure out how to make these work in our conditions. The company we use for our in-car cameras, [...] and [...], bend over backwards for us as we try and help them make better products. I expected that from a company like Midland. If you are reading this Mr or Mrs. Midland, please contact me. We have some ideas that could add a whole new market to your radios.

Bill Strong
Racing Strong Motorsports
The Toyota MR2 Owners Club

RSm was a 2009 24 Hours of LeMons Top 10 in Class Finisher! Twice!
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Presently surprised with radios. I have a Harley so I had to adjust the sensitivity levels for voice activation. Motor noise interfered at #1 setting. Had to adjust to 7 in order for radio to work with activation. Wife was in house, and we talked for about 1.5 miles. Bought mainly so we could communicate when she is a passenger on bike. Very good for this purpose..