Radio will not Rx unless close to repeater...Odd situation

[jcefd10]

First of all, thank you to the guys that helped me get the KTI-3 up and going. But, now since all of our upgrades have taken place, we have an odd occurance going on.

The Fire Dept got a new NX-710 repeater, and is running on Mixed Mode. Because the pages can't go out over digital supposedly. Anyhow, there's something odd going on here. I several of us can not hear the tones, nor any traffic on the analog side. The NXDN traffic is working fine, and is what we use to communicate after the tones go off. I have checked, re-checked and triple checked the programming of my radios, and everything matches like it should.
I live about 6 miles outside of town as the crow flies. When the tones are set, or someone keys up on analog, my radio will light up, and I can see transmission is going on, but nothing comes through unless I take the tones off the channel via the MON button I programmed. Yesterday we had it narrowed down to my radio being bad, but this morning on the way to work I did a little test. I would key with my mobile and monitor on my portable or vice versa. It acted the same way until I got pretty close to town. At that time, the audio started to come through. So, basically whats happening is the farther out of town you get, no audio will come through on the analog side. I have a mixed mode channel and also a dedicated analog channel programmed in my radio and it acts funny either way. Even close to town when traffic is coming through the analog side, it sounds as if something else is keying up and the 2 signals are trying to walk on one another.

Any suggestions? I know my tones are correct in my radios, and I'm not the only one having this issue.

Edit: I'm using a NX220 portable. And NX 720 portable (I think thats the model, I forget)

 

[mmckenna]

Are the tones correct on the analog side of the repeater? Sounds like the TX tone is wrong.

 

[jcefd10]

They are. I've checked everything a million times.

Sent from my SAMSUNG S7.

 

[jcefd10]

The ones that live in town never have an issue with not hearing them.

A page just came across, and I was expecting it so I left my MON button on, and they came across. As I sat here with the portable in my hand, as the tone was going off I hit Mon and put the tone back on the channel. And the tones died. I could see traffic was on that channel, as the RX light was on, and the signal indicator (if it's any good) showed a full signal. It's puzzling me. The radio shop said the combiner could cause it??

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[mmckenna]

Yeah, the combiner could be out of adjustment and it's desensing the receiver on the repeater, but that wouldn't necessarily explain the issue, unless the dispatch is coming in via another radio rather than wireline?

Could also be the deviation for the PL tone is low.

 

[jcefd10]

They are. They have a nx700 radio that is hooked to their console equipment that transmits to our repeater.


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[WA0CBW]

Sounds like a check of all the audio and tone levels is in order.
BB

 

[jcefd10]

https://youtu.be/12HHn9d7IY0

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[jcefd10]

This is the deal. We don't use the analog channel to communicate with, but it's what the tones come across. It doesn't matter who keys the repeater up, that's what it sounds like and how it acts until you get close to it.
And the closer you get to the repeater, you don't have to take the tones off the channel. Traffic will come through as normal.

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[mmckenna]

So, can you clarify some stuff here?

You have one repeater running mixed mode, correct?

In the video, you are using the portable in analog mode to send 2 tone pages, right?
The repeater should be retransmitting those pages in analog mode, right?

Normal voice traffic is NXDN?

 

[mmckenna]

One more question....

What are the input and output frequencies?

 

[jcefd10]

That's correct. I was just making the repeater transmit on that video. The 911 center is the only one sending 2 tone pages. That's the garbled mess everyone Rx no matter what, when more than a few miles away. And you can only get it to break squelch for a few miles, otherwise you never hear anything, like the first example.

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[jcefd10]

155.6625 RX
159.4500 TX


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[mmckenna]

155.6625 RX
159.4500 TX


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OK, just checking to see if the frequencies were too close. They aren't, unless you have a really cheap duplexer.

 

[mmckenna]

That's correct. I was just making the repeater transmit on that video. The 911 center is the only one sending 2 tone pages. That's the garbled mess everyone Rx no matter what, when more than a few miles away. And you can only get it to break squelch for a few miles, otherwise you never hear anything, like the first example.

Sent from my SAMSUNG S7.

OK, so help me understand:
In the video, was the portable transmitting in analog or NXDN?

 

[mmckenna]

155.6625 RX
159.4500 TX


Sent from my SAMSUNG S7.

And one more question. Where are you located? City, state...
Want to rule out co-channel interference.

 

[jcefd10]

The portable was TX in analog. Just as the 911 center radio would. I was just recreating a scenerio so you could actually hear what I was talking about. Channel 1 in my mobile is in mixed mode, to RX analog and nxdn and transmit only nxdn

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[jcefd10]

We are located in 31824

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[mmckenna]

OK. I see that frequency is used in other parts of your state. Since I'm not familiar with the area, is there a chance you are picking up interference from one of these other agencies?
Reason I'm asking is that would explain why the issue resolves as you get closer to town. Your repeater signal would be strong enough to overpower the interference when you are closer to town. When you are farther out of town, the interference may be strong enough to be causing issues.
Distance from the repeater isn't the only concern. Your home may be in such a place that it's picking up the interference from another user on the same frequency. Moving out of the area blocks enough of the signal from the other agency to allow your repeater to come in stronger.

My gut reaction is that if everything is set up correctly, when you transmit into the repeater using analog, it should retransmit analog. That background noise sounds like digital over the top of the analog signal, but not your digital signal.
One thing you could try is setting up a channel on your mobile with the repeater output frequency as the receive frequency. Put it in analog mode with no QT/DQT set, just carrier squelch. Listening to it for a bit would let you know if you were picking up traffic from somewhere else.

Tough to narrow this down on the internet. Would be much easier if we were there.

 

[mmckenna]

Also, try setting up your mobile with the repeater input frequency as the RX frequency, again, no QT/DQT, just carrier squelch, and see what you hear.