Gear, Mobile/Portable radios, News

TYT TH-8600 25W Mini Mobile Radio

This just made its appearance online. I mean, literally, a few minutes ago. It’s most likely in pre-release stage.

TYT TH-8600 Mini Mobile Radio
TYT TH-8600 Mini Mobile Radio

It’s an analogue dual band FM transceiver with an output power of 25W on 2m and 20W on 70cm. There is no indication on the spec sheet for the output on low power, or even if there actually *is* a low power setting.

It looks really nice, with a color display which is something the manufacturers from China have started getting us used to the last couple of years.

It certainly looks like an upgrade to the QYT KT-8900 or the KT-8900R which seem to have created a category on its own. For all we know, of course, QYT is most likely a brand of TYT.

According to the spec sheet, it does support more memory channels (200 as opposed to 128), it is waterproof (rated IP67) and it also has a remote kill/stun function. TYT also promotes it as “Dual band mini mobile radio for QUAD and Motorcycle”. This sounds really nice! I’d certainly want to get one of these for a hands-on review.

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13 Comments

  1. Craig

    I’m beginning to think that the TYT TH-8600 announcement was a ploy to customers thinking of purchasing a different micro-mobile in 2016.

    I’ve heard multiple different excuses from TYT as to why the unit shipments are being delayed “again”, the most recent being they are just now shipping one off to an independent lab for FCC certification tests.

    I would NOT count on this unit being delivered anytime in December, especially with the Chinese companies already talking about shutting down for two weeks for their holiday break.

  2. Craig

    Well, we did (finally) get two of the TYT TH-8600 micro mobiles into stock (we’re still waiting for the remainder of our October order).

    One has already been adopted by the folks at RT Systems (to help them get an early start on their programming software for it).

    I hope to play with the remaining unit this week, but from just a quick look, it appears that TYT’s multiple delays at least produced a darn good looking (and well built) radio.

    Hopefully the rest of the order will arrive before New Year’s, but with all things Chinese, who really knows?

  4. Craig

    Another two weeks have passed since my last delivery update, and yet another delay announced from TYT regarding the remainder of our long overdue TH-8600 radios.

    It’s really getting tough to believe any answer given to us from them, as each time the reason for the latest delay gets harder and harder to believe. Needless to say, I doubt we’ll ever pre-order any TYT radios again (solely based on their assurances that the radios were “ready” during the first week of October 2016 and would ship within a week or two).

    Considering their two week holiday shut down will happen soon, I’m wondering if Valentine’s Day is within reach????

  6. Craig

    Without some additional data, it’s hard to offer any real help, but I’ll try.

    When you state the radio is locked, is it transmitting on any frequency, or are all transmit frequencies locked?

    If it’s transmitting on some frequencies, but not your frequency, have you changed the frequency step selection to allow the radio to get to the required frequency setting? One of the first things I always do with every new radio is to change the step size to the smallest size possible (to avoid this very issue).

    If your PMR radio is seeing the incoming signal, but no audio is heard on the PMR radio, you probably don’t have the correct CTCSS tone set, or that function’s not turned on at all. If your PMR radio also supports DCS, check the DCS settings on the TH-8600 as well.

    Give those a try to see if either of these ideas work. You may also want to contact your local dealer to see if they have any other suggestions.

  7. les pettit (kc5ddc)

    craig i have programmed it works good .tell you dont, us it fot 1 minute are so the it show rx light on and signal . but nothing out speaker till you key mic can u help

  8. Craig

    If your radio is seeing an incoming signal, but no audio is heard on the radio, you probably have a CTCSS tone set on the receive side of the incoming signal (which you don’t want), so check that Tone Squelch is NOT turned on (normally repeaters only need a Tone turned on for transmit, not receive). If your repeater supports DCS, check the DCS settings on the TH-8600 as well to make sure your radio is only transmitting DCS.

    Give those a try to see if either of these ideas work. You may also want to contact your local TYT dealer to see if they have any other suggestions.

  11. SCOTT MOTSINGER

    Purchased the TH8600 and programmed it with RT SYSTEMS software with a group of repeaters, both top and bottom of screen show the location of the repeaters and the radio will not go into scan mode. I want to do a program reset or possibly a factory reset and start over. the owners manual is not much help. would appreciate any info , or help on this radio. thanks, SCOTT k4fes OLDECABIN@YAHOO.COM

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