Kenwood: Kenwood TM 281A Receive Issue

[nathanGA]

Hi. So Monday I picked up a new Kenwood TM 281A. And programmed it up to some of the local repearters and Im having an odd issue. I am able to transmit with complete clarity (Confirmed by other local hams I asked to monitor the repeater for my signal, as well as the fact I can log in to echolink and hear my own signal hitting the repeater. The issue is when someone tries to respond to me I hear nothing on the receiving end, I see the bars moving on the bottom of the radio so I know that im receiving some sort of signal it just isn't audible. Ive double and triple checked that I am on CTCSS mode and that my PL is set correctly. And I know its not a volume issue because as soon as I switch to regular broadcast function I can hear it plain as day, same with the weather frequencies. Now I know I am far from a pro so it could be a programming issue but if anyone has any common diagnosis for this sort of problem or have been through it I could surely use the help. I also know that I am doing this from good reception areas because when I turn this radio off, remove the antenna and hook up my baofeng to the same antenna then it transmits and receives clear as day. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Nathan
KN4DSD

 

[Blackswan73]

Is your offset set correctly?

 

[N4KVE]

Turn off PL decode.

 

[mass-man]

+1...turning off PL decode should do the trick

 

[nathanGA]

Turn off PL decode.

Sanity saver! This worked thanks a bunch! I thought I was goinh crazy!

 

[hill]

As stated above turn off the PL decode. Many ham repeaters don't transmit the tone and the tone is only needed to access the repeater.

 

[cmdrwill]

As stated above turn off the PL decode. Many ham repeaters don't transmit the tone and the tone is only needed to access the repeater.

True and some repeaters do not transmit the 'tone' on the tail. The time the repeater stays keyed after a user drops out is the tail.

 

[N4KVE]

Some repeater's do not transmit PL tone, but will allow the tone from the person talking to pass through, so you can still have PL decode. But with these repeater's you will not hear the repeater ID, because nobody is talking, & the repeater does not transmit PL.

 

[chief21]

In Kenwood parlance, you want to adjust your tone setting so that only the "T" (rather than "CT") shows in the upper right of your display...

ACTIVATING THE TONE FUNCTION
To activate Tone, press [F], [CALL].
• As you press [F], [CALL], the selection cycles as follows:
“OFF” ➞ “TONE” ➞ “CTCSS” ➞ “DCS” ➞ “OFF”.
• “T” appears on the upper part of the display, indicating that
the Tone function is activated.