GEAR TESTED: GME’S TX4500 UHF

Over the years I’ve always trusted GME to keep me in touch with my convoy, or other travellers on the road. But I’ve usually shoe-horned one of their compact radios into my 4WD, eschewing the convenience of a full sized DIN unit. With the 79, building everything from scratch, this was an opportunity to try out the new TX4500.

What I like about GME’s products is the subtle blend of simplicity and complexity. The features list on this thing runs far deeper than my expertise, but I like that I can grow with it, and learn things.

After several hundred kilometres of dust, water and corrugations, it has lived up to its reputation as a hardy bit of gear, never skipping a beat.

I like the dedicated volume knob, instead of up/down buttons, which makes it easy to keep it in the background, or to use it dedicated. The LED backlighting is easy to match to your car’s illumination, too.

The speaker is large enough, and clear enough, that even under noisy conditions it’s easy to understand fellow travellers, and the operation is push-button simple, although, as I said before, you can do a lot more than just stay in touch with this radio.

For those on the road a lot, the voice inversion scrambler is a good function, allowing you to have relatively private conversations. It’s easy to forget that everything you say on the radio is broadcast out to anyone and everyone running scan, and that can get embarrassing on a busy beach!

All up, though, with a three year warranty, you can rest pretty easy with one of these in your dash. I know I do, and if there’s one thing that years off the road has taught me, you need to be able to depend on your UHF. It can literally save your life, or at least your 4WD.

RRP $499

For more information head to www.gme.net.au

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