Determine tone on a repeater

[thelaughingwolf]

I had a repeater installed for the department that I manage at work a couple of years ago, and as kind of a personal challenge I'm trying to get my Baofeng UV-5RTP to work on it so I can communicate with my employees from home.

I used CHIRP to enter in the frequency, and frequency offset, and my radio is receiving fine, but not transmitting. I figure that I must need to change some of the other settings in CHIRP for the station. Like I said, this is a personal challenge, and rather than reach out to the company that installed it, I'd like to do this on my own. Is there a way I can check the Tone and/or DTCS settings from the repeater itself? I know that I have the duplex and offset programmed correctly.


Thank you!

 

[KevinC]

I moved your post here since I'm guessing this for commercial and not Amateur Radio use.

 

[jim202]

I had a repeater installed for the department that I manage at work a couple of years ago, and as kind of a personal challenge I'm trying to get my Baofeng UV-5RTP to work on it so I can communicate with my employees from home.

I used CHIRP to enter in the frequency, and frequency offset, and my radio is receiving fine, but not transmitting. I figure that I must need to change some of the other settings in CHIRP for the station. Like I said, this is a personal challenge, and rather than reach out to the company that installed it, I'd like to do this on my own. Is there a way I can check the Tone and/or DTCS settings from the repeater itself? I know that I have the duplex and offset programmed correctly.


Thank you!

Use of a radio on a licensed frequency requires the permission of the person holding the license. Not trying to be a stick in the mud, but I would suggest that you have a talk with the repeater owner and get their permission to have your personal radio on his licensed operational repeater. That person is who the FCC hold responsible for what goes on and how it is controlled.

A simple letter of authorization from the holder of the license is all it takes. Plus you can obtain the correct information to program up your radio. One other slight issue is the radio needs to be type accepted to operate in the class of service the repeater is operating under.

You hear stories all the time of people taking just about any radio and programming it up on different services, regardless of it's type acceptance. This doesn't mean it is OK to do. It just means the radio license holder is the one held responsible for it being used.

 

[UPMan]

Just about any scanner will show the tone used.

 

[chief21]

Setting up the Baofeng radios for use with repeaters is a little weird. Suggest you visit the following page and follow the programming directions step-by-step...

UV5R, UV6R, GT3 Info - Miklor

Best of luck

- John

 

[spongella]

I use a RK-560 frequency counter/tone decoder, handy and inexpensive, you can get them on Ebay for around 20 bucks or less. Will easily detect analog or digital tones.

Also, an RTL-SDR dongle, using HDSDR software, can be set up to detect any tones from transmitters too.

 

[speedway_navigator]

The Jetstream JTFR-1 will show freq and CTCSS, and generate that code on a low power signal to verify the receiver opens squelch.

 

[nd5y]

Baofeng radios have CTCSS search and DCS search capability but it's not instant like modern scanners.

 

[thelaughingwolf]

I ended up using the search features on the radio, set up the radio accordingly (it worked) and confirmed the code with the vendor, who seemed amused, and I can monitor my team from home 24/7/365. Not sure how my team feels about that! Thank you everyone for all of your help!

 

[spongella]

Glad you got the info you needed. The vendor should know the tones used by your system so they'd be the first one to consult.