I will be posting a VERY intense review on a set. Stay tuned to the reviews forum, where I’ll post my experiences.
If anybody knows some kind of hack to get more volume out of the 900s I’d love to hear about it. My motorcycle bunch uses the 800s with the Midland helmet headsets with great success. The 900s don’t put out as much volume so cannot be heard over ambient wind noise rendering them useless.
Any modifications to these radios is illegal.
You can try one of these. External audio boosts are perfectly legal 
I had a volume problem with my Midland GXT900VP4’s when using speaker mics. Please see my Amazon.com review which quotes a letter that I wrote to Midland regarding the issue in hopes they will fix the problem. Another reviewer reported the same issue in that the output volume was too low to use with speaker mics or any sort of external speaker:
Instead of re-typing the problems that I have had with this radio, I will just copy/paste the email that I wrote to Technical Support at Midland Radio. In summary, the first pair of radios had a defective PTT button. I got a replacement pair. Also, the accessory output volume level is not high enough to use a speaker mic or any other sort of external speaker. In-ear boom mics, such as the accessories provided with the radios, work fine b/c they are in your ear and do not require a high volume level. Not being able to use speaker mics with these radios is unacceptable. Keep in mind, I tried 6 different speaker mics (one of which was a Midland branded dual-prong speaker mic). See my email to Midland Radio below:
"Hello,
Due to the end of the work day at my job, it conflicts with the hours of your tech support #, which is why I am writing an email instead of calling. I recently purchased the GXT900VP4 from Circuit City. Upon opening them out of the box, it appeared that the PTT buttons on the radios were not the same. On one of the radios, the PTT was normal and when you pressed it, it “clicked” giving you the feel that it was being depressed. The other radio has a PTT button that did not click, and was rather mushy when depressed. I returned the pair of radios to Circuit City and ordered a replacement.
The replacement radios arrived a few days ago and the PTT buttons were normal. I took Midland speaker mics that I have from other radios and the XT511 emergency crank radio that I have, and I went to go for a bike ride. I tested the radios with the Midland speaker mics before I loaded up for the bike ride, and I realized that the volume was extremely low. I turned the knobs up on both radios and tested them out, and again the volume was VERY VERY low. I took the speaker mics out of the radios and tested the volume without the accessories and just using the radios’ internal speaker. The volume was fine. Thinking that my speaker mics were bad, I went and took other dual-pin speaker mics that I have and gave them a shot. They too had extremely low volume and you could barely hear the transmissions. I tried the radios by themselves and the internal speaker was fine. I took the vox ear piece boom mic that came with the radios and they were at an acceptable volume level. This was probably due to the fact that they were directly in my ear. Is there a reason why speaker mics do not work with these radios? Was the output volume limited on the accessory jack?
Not really understanding why two sets of these radios were defective, I returned the replacement radios to Circuit City for a refund. I wanted to bring these 2 issues to your attention so that your product engineers could hopefully fix the issue. It would be great if speaker mics could be used with these radios, so hopefully in the future a fix will be made and I can purchase the revised version of this model (GXT900VP4). All that has to be done is increase the output volume in the 3.5mm accessory jack. On another note… I have a friend who tested the Midland GXT900VP4’s (5 watt radios) against an older model of Motorola GMRS radio (T7400, only a 2 watt radio) and he claimed that the range comparison resulted in equal range performance. I am not able to agree or disagree with him, since I did not have a chance to test out the range of the radios since I returned them after the 1st issue with the PTT button, and the 2nd issue with the output volume on speaker mics. Shouldn’t these radios go a longer distance than radios with a lower power output, especially since these radios were rated by the FCC with an ERP of 5.33watts? I know there are many factors that result in transmission range, but over double the ERP power should result in at least some sort of noticeable increase in range.
I am a loyal customer to Midland Radio and have been for a while now, and I must say this has been the first disappointment with one of your radios. I look forward to hearing back from you regarding these issues that I have come across and I hope to see changes to the radio so that I can purchase a pair to suit my needs. Thank you for taking the time to read my email.
-Josh G."
JoshG,
I got the 900s today but had read your review prior to purchasing them…I was just hoping that either they resolved this problem or I had a better speaker mic…but the result was the same…unusable with a speaker mic which we need for cold weather operation…before I send them back, I’m tempted to try the Revolution amp (link above) this seems like it would solve the problem.
What did you get instead?
tia
to be honest, i washed my hands of them and didn’t buy any other radios to replace them. i have a nice stock of T7200’s, Midland G-11’s, and Cobra PR2000wx’s which are solid. The Midland G-11’s and Cobra PR2000wx’s have removable antennas so I bought 6 1/2 inch whips for them and they work fine with a speaker mic. The Midland G-11’s and Cobra PR2000wx’s are only 2 watts, but they will surpass the range of the common bubble-pack Midland or Motorola rated at 5 watts. I also have several Motorola T6400’s which are rated to 1 watt, but they are true motorola quality (before they sold themselves out to Giant Ltd)
My suggestion would be to ditch the GXT900’s and the idea of bringing along a bulky amplifier, and doing some searches on ebay for one of those radios I listed above. If you can’t find any of the above, search for a Motorola Distance DPS. That is a solid motorola radio with 2 watt output. Usually you can find a few if you do some searches for a week or two. Then, once you have done that, buy an antenna such as this one:
If you are set on buying a normal bubble pack radio, I would try out the Motorola T9580RSAME which has the maximum legal output (5 watts) and will give you specific emergency alerts which might be good to have if you are out snow mobiling and skiing (snow storms, avalanche warnings, etc). This radio has a single 2.5mm jack, so just do a search for speaker mics on ebay and you will find plenty. The volume on this radio is fine using a speaker mic. Another quality bubble pack radio would be the Midland GXT400 and GXT500 series radios (4 and 5 watts respectively) which can be found on ebay. These Midland radios use a dual prong speaker mic and can be found all over ebay as well.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I will try the 9580s because I can find them…THANKS!!!..great info.
hello i read on here somewere someone tryin to get better range out of these radios i too am in the same thoughts.
the manufacturers claims are great but the radio just dont live up to it so i am preppared to mod them to get some sort of range i am sick of buyin radios only for them to do nothin like they claim , i think it ought to be ilegal to do that, so the guy who modified them tell me how you did it please? and i will say all you guys who are a little serious about this and are gonna come back with ohh its against the law and it is bad save it for someone who will listen, sorry to be blunt
Well then why don’t you take it someplace where you won’t hear it. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I agree 100%. I don’t need to be told or reminded about what I already know. Everyone knows the FCC rules or basic rules about altering a transmitting device. It is basically written on the front page of every product manual. I know if I take a screwdriver to a ‘pot’ or simular and turn it, it may no longer be legal to operate. Some of use like to see what we can squeeze out of our transmitters as a challange. We won’t advertise as such though. We don’t do it because we enjoy breaking FCC rules. We do it just because we can.
I just don’t know why there seems to be a contest between the ‘LOYAL’ upstanding fcc cult members to see who can be the first to jump in and slap our hands and say… BAD BAD person!!! YOU broke fcc rules!!! STOP using that devise immediatley and return it to the manufaturere to be re-aligned!!! BAD BAD PERSON!!! I’m tellin’!!!" LMAOOOOOOO ANYWAY, I would stand to hear it if it is a store owner who sold me the devise, told me the facts to cover himself. If I read where someone alters a transmitting device, I will take notes LOL and move on without comment. I won’t shame that person and cry foul. Anway, this is how 80% of us feel. We are not out to intentionally break the laws. I myself call it a learning proccess by tweekin’ my goodies:D SINCE transmitting devices are sold here, maybe that is why the merchants feel the need to spank us. Just to cover their hiney in front of the spying fcc folks. Anyway, that is how I see it. And I have taken many a note on ALOT of sites that show you step by step, how to do what you want to do to your radio. I also own the Connex 4400 HP. We won’t discuss that radio here:p Sorry for being so blunt:p Scott
listen who ever you are this is an open forum opininons of all and just because you got your beliefs dont throw them on us whi does people gut up there own … when people talk of mods? i mean its a radio for christs sake what is the big deal
Can you please translate this for me??? 
Some punctuation and sentence structure would help us understand you better. :rolleyes:
well to be fair i really aint interested in you understandin ,so keep ya legalities to your self buddy
No thanks. I think I’ll share my legalities with whomever I choose. 
Still doesn’t change the fact that your writing is unintelligible.
I have a pair of the GXT900s and my friend has a pair of the GXT710s. Both seem to work well for me over open water in the summer from boat to boat and skiing during the winter.
My experience with the speaker mics is that they work great unless the unit gets cold. I’ve found that I need to keep the units inside jackets, close to your body for the speaker mics to work poperly (speaker mics can get cold but base unit must stay warm). I assume it’s a voltage issue. When the units get cold, TX won’t hold from the PPT button on the speaker mic. It simply cuts out after 1 second. PPT button on the main unit seems to work fine regardless of temp.
Anyone have any insight? Is there anything I can do (lithium batteries, for example) that might improve performance?
Thank you,
kbags
I’m new to two-way radios and I recently bought four Midland GXT900’s for recreational use.
One of the main reasons I bought this radio was the impressive range as well as the great deal I got on all four of them.
I’ve been experimenting with the GMRS and high-power functions but I can’t seem to get much range out of them.
I’ve set the radios to Channel 7 (which according to the manual, is a GMRS channel), at high power, with a DCS code set to 5.
For reasons I can’t seem to understand, I can only seem to get a half-mile range out of the radios which pales in comparison to the impressive ‘26-miles’ that is boldly stated on the packaging.
I’ve been using these radios at a college campus with an occasional two-story building yet the range problem persists.
Is this normal for these radios?
What am I doing wrong and/or how can I increase the range of these radios?
Unfortunatley we were misled as we got excited at the advertising fact that we could reach a range up to 30 miles with these nice looking radios. What I learned is that these 900/950’s are not much good in densley populated areas with alot of vegitation. It is the vegitation, be it trees, etc., that ‘eat’ or consume our radio signal the minute we push the transmit button. As others has stated, they work great in open areas such as water or ‘line of sight’, with pretty much nothing in between the radios but pure clean air:D. I know I can just save myself the trouble and use a CB,but, this competition is much more entertaining:D. I live in a pretty mildly wooded area and would be happy to get at least 10 miles out of these ‘nice’ looking radios.By ‘Googling’ I have found mods for these radios and they look like fairly simple mods to me.
Why do folks insist on illegally “modding” a cheap radio, when you can get a decent “good” radio for not much more money? Then you can LEGALLY change antennas and work with the radio to make it much better. On top of that you get a tough commercial quality radio instead of a toy.
Cause we feel, we got ripped off and don’t care? I don’t know:p:D