Saber 2R UHF TX light constantly flashing

[mbnv992]

So - I had a mint Saber 2R come in the other day and sent it out to get programmed. First time radio came back and the RX busy light was not activated ( only the low battery LED was checked off ) so - I sent it back to him to get the battery LED turned off, and have the “ channel busy LED” turned on.

Well - got it back and now the RX busy light constantly blinks on every channel whether there’s activity on it or not. Can’t get to to stop blinking. I tried different batteries, switching channels, making it scan ( this just makes the LED flash a little faster ) - nothing. It just constantly stays flashing. I hit the monitor on the side - I’m getting static. And no - I’m not near any electronics.

I realize this is a 35-40 year old radio but I own 5-6 of these and none of them do this. Any suggestions ? My programmer said he noticed it too and thought it was just traffic in the background and thought nothing of it.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Remove the antenna to rule out local noise sources. The "analog" Saber radios (Saber I, II, III and R versions) have an internal squelch setting which if too loose will cause the busy light to come on. You won't hear any sound because the PL decode has not been satisfied. Those particular radios also have a per channel setting and a scan setting for the squelch. I think the per channel can be programmed globally by programming to "ALL".

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Also the low battery alert can be a flashing light or a chirp. I would suggest reading over the options in the RSS sostware manual.

 

[mbnv992]

Yep - already removed the antenna and the light is still flashing. And with these old sabers the RX flashing light can only be programmed for flashing for low battery OR RX busy not both. Before it was set for low battery and was not flashing at all for anything on the RX side. Now that I had it reprogrammed to have the RX busy LED turned on I can’t get it to stop blinking haha

Sounds like the squelch is set too loose so - back to my programmer it goes again.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

You might want to compare settings with one or more of your other radios because it could point to poor IF gain due to a weak IF filter or bad RX module. But then a quick SINAD sensitivity check will tell the story as well.

 

[mbnv992]

Follow up on this - I sent this back to my radio programmer ( someone who still has DOS computers for all my old / ancient Motorola gear ) and he said the tuning still had the factory settings in it and the RX squelch was set to 00. He said he reset all the frequencies to have an RX Squelch of 03 and that fixed the issue.

So - thank you ! Turns out the squelch was set way too low on all the frequencies.