kenwoodgeek
Member
I'm dealing with another school bus radio; it's a Kenwood TK-8180H (not the same one that froze up in my previous post).
It's a spare radio from the shop that I installed in the bus I monitor on each day. I wanted to check it to see how it would work in regular service.
Unfortunately, the frequency our company uses is shared by another user in the vicinity that uses it for data communications, so every few minutes or so, we'll get loud and obnoxious bursts of continuous data through the radios, mainly near the yard.
The company uses a DPL tone, so as long as the microphones are on the clips, the radios keep their squelch closed.
There's definitely something up with this radio. With the microphone firmly grounded in the clip, the squelch on the radio keeps opening and closing. One transmission, the radio quiets the repeater feedback "pop", the next, it comes through loud and clear, followed by a loud stream of data.
I thought it was a loose connection with the microphone, so I swapped it out. The driver and I went out on our afternoon routes today with a different mike. For the first 20 or so minutes, the radio was working as normal, and I thought that the mike replacement did it. Sure enough, after another few minutes, the squelch opened right back up on the radio. The mike had never been touched the whole time.
I plan on replacing the unit tomorrow and bringing it to the mechanic, who will probably say to toss it in the garbage.
Does anyone know what the issue could be? Something loose inside the radio? If I get the radio into my hands, I'd like to fix it.
Off hook decode is an option, but I'd rather not put that on there, if possible.
Thanks in advance!
It's a spare radio from the shop that I installed in the bus I monitor on each day. I wanted to check it to see how it would work in regular service.
Unfortunately, the frequency our company uses is shared by another user in the vicinity that uses it for data communications, so every few minutes or so, we'll get loud and obnoxious bursts of continuous data through the radios, mainly near the yard.
The company uses a DPL tone, so as long as the microphones are on the clips, the radios keep their squelch closed.
There's definitely something up with this radio. With the microphone firmly grounded in the clip, the squelch on the radio keeps opening and closing. One transmission, the radio quiets the repeater feedback "pop", the next, it comes through loud and clear, followed by a loud stream of data.
I thought it was a loose connection with the microphone, so I swapped it out. The driver and I went out on our afternoon routes today with a different mike. For the first 20 or so minutes, the radio was working as normal, and I thought that the mike replacement did it. Sure enough, after another few minutes, the squelch opened right back up on the radio. The mike had never been touched the whole time.
I plan on replacing the unit tomorrow and bringing it to the mechanic, who will probably say to toss it in the garbage.
Does anyone know what the issue could be? Something loose inside the radio? If I get the radio into my hands, I'd like to fix it.
Off hook decode is an option, but I'd rather not put that on there, if possible.
Thanks in advance!