Constant tone on repeater transmit freq

[akhnaten]

A repeater near me constantly plays its CTCSS tone on its transmit frequency (70cm analog "ARES repeater"). The tone stops while it is repeating, so messages to its input frequency are heard properly. This is the only repeater I have heard that does this. Is this repeater malfunctioning? It seems like an effective way to prevent simplex use of that frequency, but it is annoying because it slows down my scanning. My radio pauses on this frequency for 1 sec every time through the bank. Is there a common way in transceivers to prevent this pause while scanning? Since repeaterbook says the use is "Open" and sponsor is "... ARES repeater", is it a general use repeater when there is no emergency? If it is not a normal ham-use repeater, I can take it out of my scan list.
Thanks,
KK7YUN

 

[alcahuete]

You sure that's what is actually going on? The repeater transmitting 24/7 doesn't really make sense, unless there's something wrong with it.

 

[AK9R]

A repeater near me constantly plays its CTCSS tone on its transmit frequency (70cm analog "ARES repeater").

Are you saying that the repeater transmits constantly?

The tone stops while it is repeating, so messages to its input frequency are heard properly.

A CTCSS tone should not be heard at any time. The highest frequency of standard CTCSS tones is about 250 Hz and the level is usually less than +/- 1 Hz deviation. Most radios have high pass filters in the audio chain to block CTCSS tones from getting to the speaker. The intent of CTCSS tones is to be sub-audible, i.e not heard.

 

[akhnaten]

To answer some questions above, when holding down the monitor key the CTCSS tone would be heard (an annoying mono-frequency tone) coming from the transmitter. I did not try to determine the exact frequency of the tone, but it seemed to be in the right frequency range for the CTCSS tone.
Update: After the repeater owner got home from work (ie. after 5pm local time), the constant transmission stopped so I presume there was a problem with the repeater and this was not normal behavior.

 

[wtp]

Online Tone Generator - generate pure tones of any frequency

www.szynalski.com

check out some of the ctcss tones on there, they are quite low and usually don't pass through the radio.

 

[kayn1n32008]

To answer some questions above, when holding down the monitor key the CTCSS tone would be heard (an annoying mono-frequency tone) coming from the transmitter. I did not try to determine the exact frequency of the tone, but it seemed to be in the right frequency range for the CTCSS tone.
Update: After the repeater owner got home from work (ie. after 5pm local time), the constant transmission stopped so I presume there was a problem with the repeater and this was not normal behavior.

You were not hearing the CTCSS tone. Assuming you have a receive tone programmed, it was doing its job amd keeping your radio silent, when you pressed your monitor button, to disables the receive tone and allowed either a carrier with any tone, or a carrier with the wrong to to pass to the speaker.

While in crappy radios it is possible to hear the highest frequency ctcss tones, they are normally filtered out by an audio band pass filter. Two way radio generally, only pass 300Hz-3000Hz(audio) and the band pass filter removes any audio above and below that range. If you were hearing a tone of some sort, it probably wasn't CTCSS

 

[ramal121]

Constant transmit, tone you can hear, goes away with input audio. Sounds to me like an RF link for a voted receiver. But why?

 

[akhnaten]

You were not hearing the CTCSS tone. Assuming you have a receive tone programmed, it was doing its job amd keeping your radio silent, when you pressed your monitor button, to disables the receive tone and allowed either a carrier with any tone, or a carrier with the wrong to to pass to the speaker.

While in crappy radios it is possible to hear the highest frequency ctcss tones, they are normally filtered out by an audio band pass filter. Two way radio generally, only pass 300Hz-3000Hz(audio) and the band pass filter removes any audio above and below that range. If you were hearing a tone of some sort, it probably wasn't CTCSS

I do have a pretty crappy radio, clean and FCC compliant, but crappy and cheap.