Testing a VX-6R for a friend... Receive seems weird. Help!

[W3POG]

Hi there,

First off, I have been out of the hobby for several years, so I've never dealt with a radio that had a FM vs. WFM mode.

A friend of mine purchases a VX-6R off of eBay, happily unpacks it and comes to find that the radio just isn't receiving any signals. He asked me if I'd be willing to test it out on my larger vertical antenna, and I obliged.

Hooking up the VX-6R to the comet cx-333 outside seemed to replicate his experience. He was tuning through the 2m amateur band in FM mode, and the s-meter never deflected past lighting up the busy LCD segment. Any audio one hears is incredibly low and drowned out by the static.

So then, on a lark I swapped the mode over to WFM, and presto! The receive signals from the local 2m repeater went from noise floor to full quieting! I'm really not sure how this could be the case. Can someone enlighten me? Is this radio's receiver just confused? I didn't bother testing the transmitter on it since I ran out of sunlight to see the buttons

Does anyone have experience with VX-6Rs that might have a similar experience and would be willing to share what they know?

Thanks and 73,
W3POG - Pete

 

[WA0CBW]

Sounds like it is working fine. Normal 2-meter is +/- 5 KHz deviation (now called WFM or just FM depending on manufacturer) in a 25Khz channel. Newer radios also have +/-2.5 Khz deviation (now called narrow band FM) in a 12.5 Khz channel. Since these radios are also certified/marketed in the commercial world they meet the new FCC narrowband mandate (12.5 Khz channel). Note that the narrowband mandate does NOT apply to Ham frequencies. You may find newer repeaters that are narrowband because they are using new commercial equipment that no longer does 25 KHz channels.

BB

 

[N4KVE]

I think the OP is confused with the term "wideband FM". 10 years ago the term "wideband FM" meant the radio could receive FM broadcast 88-108 mhz & play the music found there. However today wideband fm means 5 khz dev & narrow is 2.5 khz which becomes law in 2013 in some commercial bands. Years ago, 5 khz was considered narrow band, so the terminology changes over time. GARY N4KVE

 

[nd5y]

I used to have a VX6R.
The W-FM setting in Menu 52 RX MD on a VX6R is 200 kHz bandwidth for the FM broadcast band.

If it will not receive ham repeaters, NOAA weather, etc, that use 5 or 2.5 kHz deviation in N-FM mode then either the radio is broken or some other paging, tone squelch, or RF squelch menu setting is keeping it from receiving.

 

[W3POG]

I used to have a VX6R.
The W-FM setting in Menu 52 RX MD on a VX6R is 200 kHz bandwidth for the FM broadcast band.

If it will not receive ham repeaters, NOAA weather, etc, that use 5 or 2.5 kHz deviation in N-FM mode then either the radio is broken or some other paging, tone squelch, or RF squelch menu setting is keeping it from receiving.

I factory reset it to be absolutely sure -- do you know if the factory reset would have returned all of those settings back to "sane" settings? Do you remember any particular defaults you had to set before the radio was usable, according to how you operated it?

 

[uno1904]

I just got one of these radios off eBay and has an auto setting for the type of signal (am fm wfm) for what ever band your in. If you use the band button you will see it change with the band. This is the factory default. I would tune to the weather band and you should receive at least one weather channel. The two meter should pick up with default settings but two meter is pretty quite in these parts versus 10 years ago.


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