Baofeng Transmits but no audio

[mslisaj]

I have two Baofeng UV-5R radios that have worked wonderfully since I got them. Today I needed to change a repeater tone and I use the Chirp software and down loaded what each radio had, made the change and uploaded it. Now both radio's will transmit a nice carrier but absolutely NO audio. I saw a Youtube video where you were instructed to solder two terminals together and I did that and still I have two nonworking radios. Their both beautiful receivers now and they will transmit a carrier to hit the repeaters but it's like the microphone inside the radio is disconnected. Any suggestions would be appreciated before I throw in the towel and throw them away.

Thank you for you help.

Lisa

 

[mslisaj]

Just an update............ I have discovered that both radios will transmit and receive normally. Now I think there is a programming issue with the software CHIRP.
Any Idea??

Thanks for your help.

Lisa

 

[mslisaj]

Well being I haven't figured out how to edit my post I will add another reply. Both radios WILL transmit on simplex to each other. But apparently going though a repeater network they will not talk though that. I'm think there is a setting in the latest daily build that I have to be missing but I haven't found it yet. To think I had one of them apart twice today to solder those two terminals together and they still works means they are stout little radios. The programming is the or has to be the issue. One is a two year old UV-5R and the other is a newer and newer firmware UV-5R Plus. Fabulous little radios for hardward but the documentation is not existant and the programming software changes every day. The only "support" there is come from users and forums that have had similar problems. I know, what did I expect for $40 but they are great radios when they work.

Again, thanks for the help - Please.

Lisa

 

[teufler]

so now you have audio or still no audio. There have been issues that sometimes the earphone jack or the mic jack sticks in the open position after you have put the program cable in the radio and extracted it. Just inserting a speaker or earphone plug several times gets the internal springs back working again. But you have soldered some circuits together and maybe the prior procedure will not work anymore. Try a radio reset, then program one channel by hand, or manually. If that works, plug into the radio and upload and download, what you just put in. Then add a channel and write the new radio file to the radio. I am just trying to keep in simple to see if the software or the radio has issues. Your present radio file, you should have saved so nothing is lost. If this exercise is working, slowly rebuild your radio file, as you may have a software or maybe a programming error. If you don't mind, post your radio img file and see if some others can detect anything wrong.

 

[kayn1n32008]

If they work simplex, but not through he repeater, you may not have CTCSS/DCS set correctly.

If you have CTCSS/DCS set correctly for the repeater you are using, then you are likely experiencing desense.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[mslisaj]

First I want to thank you gentlemen for taking your time to respond to my question and issue here.
Please find attached a zipped copy of the current back up images of both my radios. As I explained one is a older UV-5R and the other is a UV-5R Plus. I think with these images if you opened them you could see all the settings I have the radio's set too also.

To recap the issue, both radio's will transmit audio in the simplex mode to each other. The are not transmitting audio in duplex through any repeater listed in my img files. They will transmit to the repeater the tone and I do get the repeater responding with it's ID and that is all fine. Just no audio transmissions are received through a repeater in a duplex mode.

I will take one of the radio's and do a factory reset on it and attempt to manually plug in one repeater and try programming it that way.

Also to address the "mechanical" failure of inserting the programming cable and the contacts being bent. In my reading apparently there is a component that can be bent inside and soldering those two points together solves that. I did it but that was not the issue. The other key to remember is both radios worked before I updated the CHIRP and changed that one repeater tone. The likelihood of both radios suffering a mechanical failure of the jacks at the same time is not really likely.

I hope all this helps and I hope you can view the img files and see a problem there.

Thank you for taking your time to help.

Best Regards,

Lisa

 

[teufler]

as kayn1n32008 said, possibly the tone in not set right. Desense could be a cause too. Find a repeater that does not have a tone, and try that. If it works, then locate the tone for the repeater desired. Where are you located, ? Trying to figure out what you are trying to program.

 

[mslisaj]

Okay here is the current update. I took the straight UV-5R and used these instructions to get it back to original:

UV5R F8HP Recovery Baofeng Pofung UV5R

Then I loaded a single duplex repeater frequency with the CHIRP software and it worked!! I stood in my yard and made a contact with a friend that said I was loud and clear and it worked just fine. So that radio is working again. I have done the same now to the newer UV-5R Plus radio and it will hit the repeater and I get a response from that but it's funny the two little HT's for some reason just won't talk to each other. Maybe because they are so close or what eve I am not that much of a radio technician to know all that stuff. But I will take them outside and get another station away from me to test with and I will report back. We have two repeaters here in the Klamath Falls, Oregon basin and one uses a tone and one doesn't. I have loaded both repeaters into the two radios and I will be testing them a little later and of course report back.

For the gentleman that asked where I was located and what was I programming I am in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The two repeaters are as follows:
146.850 Hamaker Mountain Tone of 118.8 duplex of -600
146.610 Hogback Mountain No Tone duplex of -600

There are others around but these two are the closest for me and what I am trying to get working. If they work then I can reprogram the others that I use.

Thank you all for your suggestion and help. I'll report back when I confirm they both work on both repeaters and then I think we fixed it.

Again I sincerely thank you all for your continued help in solving this issue. I dearly love these little radios and I know they are quirky to get working but when they work they are solid.

Best Regards,

Lisa

 

[kayn1n32008]

Okay here is the current update. I took the straight UV-5R and used these instructions to get it back to original:



UV5R F8HP Recovery Baofeng Pofung UV5R



Then I loaded a single duplex repeater frequency with the CHIRP software and it worked!! I stood in my yard and made a contact with a friend that said I was loud and clear and it worked just fine. So that radio is working again. I have done the same now to the newer UV-5R Plus radio and it will hit the repeater and I get a response from that but it's funny the two little HT's for some reason just won't talk to each other. Maybe because they are so close or what eve I am not that much of a radio technician to know all that stuff. But I will take them outside and get another station away from me to test with and I will report back. We have two repeaters here in the Klamath Falls, Oregon basin and one uses a tone and one doesn't. I have loaded both repeaters into the two radios and I will be testing them a little later and of course report back.



For the gentleman that asked where I was located and what was I programming I am in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The two repeaters are as follows:

146.850 Hamaker Mountain Tone of 118.8 duplex of -600

146.610 Hogback Mountain No Tone duplex of -600



There are others around but these two are the closest for me and what I am trying to get working. If they work then I can reprogram the others that I use.



Thank you all for your suggestion and help. I'll report back when I confirm they both work on both repeaters and then I think we fixed it.



Again I sincerely thank you all for your continued help in solving this issue. I dearly love these little radios and I know they are quirky to get working but when they work they are solid.



Best Regards,



Lisa

Hi Lisa,

If you are trying to talk through the repeater with the other radio in your other hand, you will not hear the repeater until you un-key the radio. The radio listening is suffering desense. The same thing will happen when you do the same thing with the other radio. I order to fix it you need to put some distance, like 100', between the radios I order to not have the receiving radio desense. Likely this was the issue all along. There is nothing wrong with the radio. The receiver just sucks on them.

Most hammy type junk radios suffer from this, as do a lot of commercial radios as well. The only radio I can think of that had really decent adjacent channel reject was the Motorola GP300. Bullet proof fromt end... Something the baoturd radios lack.

 

[mslisaj]

Well sir, I think you may have nailed it. I was even using my 2 meter base to test them but then again My transmit antenna is 50' at best. Another issue is where I live the repeaters are absolutely dead so its almost impossibe to raise anyone to test with. The radio's are obviously "Desensing" and I could see that in my testing and I thought it was a squelch issue; or at least it looked like that. Tomorrow I will give them a good test with another station as I'll call a friend to get on the air and I will report back. I can not thank all of you men for your input here and you truly have helped me.
I am a newly licensed Tech and working on my General so playing with these radios and others in my shack are learning lessons and the "desense" is a new thing to me and a new term too. Thank you for your help and I will check in tomorrow with my test results.

Best Regards,

Lisa

 

[kayn1n32008]

Good luck!

 

[SCPD]

I do know the baofeng line and the other China brand I have seen suffer from the desense issue. Klamath falls, know a couple back that way. Very nice country out that way.

 

[mslisaj]

Fabulous news gentlemen! I just got ahold of the area radio guru and we did a test of both radios on both repeaters and one has a tone and the other does not. Both of my radio's functioned perfectly on each one so they are working again as advertised!! I want you men to know that I sincerely appreciate all your help and suggestions. You kept me moving in the right direction and I managed to fix them. Now all I have to do is reprogram the frequenccies in them that I use and this project is complete. I have to say I learned a lot too.
Thank you all again for all your help.

Best regards and 73's,

Lisa

 

[teufler]

As the Morman Tabernacle Choir sings Hallelujah, another radio problem bites the dust. Good work......

 

[mslisaj]

Yea, I manually programed all the frequencies back in, made good back ups for each radio and learned a good lesson too. I'm take credit for fouling them up and thanks to you guys for helping me fix them. Yes I can hear that choir too.

Regards,

Lisa

 

[khaytsus]

I've heard of something like this happening if you program the radio using the wrong image... Most often happens by having two similar (or dissimilar) radios and trying to upload the image from one to the other. Sometimes happens when people download pre-made images from the internet, etc...

What people don't realize is that CHIRP (and the OEM software) isn't "programming" the radio, it's dumping a raw image to it. The radio knows how to use that image, where things are set, offsets in it, etc... It's not sending commands or add this, change that. So it could blindly dump complete nonsense to the device in reality.

The fix is, as I think you said you've fixed it, by dumping the original image back to the radio. And in the future, when you get a new radio you download the image, save that image, then add your channels to it and re-upload it. Each radio gets its own image, just in case FW is different, etc. You can copy and paste frequencies from one to another, so that isn't a problem.

 

[mslisaj]

khaytsus you are exactly correct here. In hindsight this is exactly what happened. I started wtih two perfectly good working radios and downloaded and image from one made my correction and loaded it back to the radio. That one was probably fine. I took the second radio - a newer model and downloaded the corrected image from the first radio into it. I got a red flag warning from the software too. I also tried to use each radio to talk to each other as a test and I didn't know about or understand the "desensing" issue with these kind of radios.
As you stated and I read on the Miklor website later the safest way to update frequencies is to download and image from the radio, make your corrections and then upload that file.
The repair of the radios was as you stated here and those instructions were given to me by a kind gentleman that took his time to respond.

What is most important to me is to thank all of you that took your time to respond and help me get this fixed.

Best Regards,

Lisa

 

[cmdrwill]

Exactly, READ the radio first, save, archive, that 'codeplug' information in a safe place. If you have problems with that radio later, you can retrieve the file and save the radio.