TK-890/TK-790 PL Issue

[ericthenerd]

Hey all-

I'm currently running a dual-band TK-790/890 radio in my vehicle. I upgraded to this after using a single-band, remote-head 790 for over a year. To upgrade to both bands, I got the entire (dual-band, single head) setup used, and had my local Kenwood shop upgrade the firmware in both decks as well as enable ignition sense. I reused the antenna setup from the 790 to the VHF deck and added a quarter-wave UHF antenna for the 890 deck. I also reused the KCH-11 from the single-band setup that was already installed. I then dumped the proper programming in and all seemed to be well.

After having it installed for a few weeks, I noticed it would sometimes pause scanning and the busy light would come on with no audio, except for some intermittent chirps. When monitor was enabled, the audio would come through steady, but it was either repeater ID's or choppy audio from a dispatch across state lines that I don't want to hear. Somehow, the radio is detecting the audio and pausing scan regardless of the PL tone it is receiving. This only happens on VHF channels, I haven't had any issues on the UHF band. It also happens regardless of my squelch setting. It's only a bother because it's pausing scan for silence, and possibly causing me to miss audio I want to hear.

Is there a setting somewhere, or tuning that would fix this? I thought I was pretty familiar with these radios until this problem, and now I'm stumped.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[evfd1625]

Maybe increase the squelch setting, but if it's local repeaters there is no way around it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

 

[ramal121]

Hey all-

I'm currently running a dual-band TK-790/890 radio in my vehicle. I upgraded to this after using a single-band, remote-head 790 for over a year. To upgrade to both bands, I got the entire (dual-band, single head) setup used, and had my local Kenwood shop upgrade the firmware in both decks as well as enable ignition sense. I reused the antenna setup from the 790 to the VHF deck and added a quarter-wave UHF antenna for the 890 deck. I also reused the KCH-11 from the single-band setup that was already installed. I then dumped the proper programming in and all seemed to be well.

After having it installed for a few weeks, I noticed it would sometimes pause scanning and the busy light would come on with no audio, except for some intermittent chirps. When monitor was enabled, the audio would come through steady, but it was either repeater ID's or choppy audio from a dispatch across state lines that I don't want to hear. Somehow, the radio is detecting the audio and pausing scan regardless of the PL tone it is receiving. This only happens on VHF channels, I haven't had any issues on the UHF band. It also happens regardless of my squelch setting. It's only a bother because it's pausing scan for silence, and possibly causing me to miss audio I want to hear.

Is there a setting somewhere, or tuning that would fix this? I thought I was pretty familiar with these radios until this problem, and now I'm stumped.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Boy, if scan stops for any reason it should give you audio. The X90 radios had a problem when the narrow band thing that needed to be implemented and the radio would just plain not stop scan or open squelch with a correct PL tone unless you had monitor on. A simple jigger of the squelch settings in the service mode would correct this.

Are you sure the firmware is the same for both radios? See another recent threat to check your firmware versions.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk

 

[evfd1625]

Most repeaters around here do not transmit a PL when they ID, but obviously this slows down the scan, by the radio lighting up and checking for PL. If the channel is a priority channel it will sample at the B rate when it picks up a mismatched tone on the priority channel. This might be the issue if it's a priority channel picking up the traffic.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

 

[ericthenerd]

Boy, if scan stops for any reason it should give you audio. The X90 radios had a problem when the narrow band thing that needed to be implemented and the radio would just plain not stop scan or open squelch with a correct PL tone unless you had monitor on. A simple jigger of the squelch settings in the service mode would correct this.

Are you sure the firmware is the same for both radios? See another recent threat to check your firmware versions.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk

Right, that was my thought as well. It should have audio if it pauses scan for any reason. The firmware should be the same, I had my local Kenwood shop split the radios and update them both, but when I'm home later I can double check to make sure.

Most repeaters around here do not transmit a PL when they ID, but obviously this slows down the scan, by the radio lighting up and checking for PL. If the channel is a priority channel it will sample at the B rate when it picks up a mismatched tone on the priority channel. This might be the issue if it's a priority channel picking up the traffic.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

Ours are the same way, this repeater does not transmit the PL for the ID, so it shouldn't even pause the scan. One of the channels that bothers is the priority 2 channel, so I'll try removing that in the programming and see if that remedies it. It does sound like it may be sampling at the B rate, since it chirps intermittently when the scan pauses.

However, there are at least two other channels that are bothering as well, and neither one is a priority. Thanks for your help, all. This has been bugging me since I discovered it.

 

[apx7000xe]

Let me know if you find a solution. I have a single band tk-790 that is doing the same thing. In the software I have the decode tone set but I am still picking up the repeater id tone and I am positive the id tone is not transmitted with a PL


Motorola HT1550•XLS | Motorola HT1250 | Motorola CP200XLS | Kenwood TK-790 | Motorola Minitor VI

 

[apx7000xe]

I actually just solved my problem. Go into the fpu and on optional features page 1 there is a Check box on the right side. The 3rd one down should say off hook decode. Check it and that should solve your issue


Motorola HT1550•XLS | Motorola HT1250 | Motorola CP200XLS | Kenwood TK-790 | Motorola Minitor VI