Yaesu: Trouble with Yaesu vx-6 squelch

[KE8QA]

I have had my vx-6 for serveral years and it was fine when I turned it off in the spring. When I turned it on the other day the squelch was open. I went to set mode item 50 and set the level to S2 and the hiss stopped but the green busy light remained on. Did a reset on the radio also and that didn't help. I live 5 minutes from R&L electronics which is where I bought the radio. I took it to them and they did all the same procedures I did and said I needed to send it to Yaesu. Anybody have any ideas on this. Thanks

 

[KK4DAN]

I just looked at the manual for the VX-6 and there are two squelches as I suspected. - http://www.pwcares.org/doc/VX-6R.pdf

Menu 50 is the RF SQL
Menu 59 is the SQL.

That RF SQL does exactly what you describe when you set it. It won't open the sound until it reaches a certain S level so if there is noise (or audio) under that level you have set (but above S0), you'll see the busy indicator, but hear no audio.

The SQL is the more normal squelch that you'll hear the noise when you drop below that level. Keep in mind though that the highest of the two squelches will always over ride the other. The RF SQL usually isn't needed unless you have a lot of "noise" around you and you constantly get little spikes of sound that break the normal squelch.

I hope that helps.

 

[KE8QA]

Tried that too.

Tried that too. First at 5 then 10 them the max of 15 and the light stays on. I guess it is broke. I've never had to ship a radio off before so I guess I'll have to get the details for doing that. Thank you for your reply. 73

 

[mkh]

Blue has you on the right track. I just wanted to mention that I've noticed a lot more RF noise lately. Neither of my HTs work well in the house probably due to all the computers, plasma TVs and networking equipment. The also show problems in different ares as I move around town.

We simply have more sources of RF these days.

 

[KK4DAN]

Tried that too. First at 5 then 10 them the max of 15 and the light stays on. I guess it is broke. I've never had to ship a radio off before so I guess I'll have to get the details for doing that. Thank you for your reply. 73

Just curious, did you turn the RF SQL all the way off, and just set the regular Squelch? If I'm thinking about this the correct way, you'll only see the audio light when it breaks the normal squelch.

Also, if you have a TSQL (Tone Encode & Decode) set for a certain repeater, if there is back ground noise, it will also show the audio light even though you don't hear anything because the correct tone isn't being received.

 

[KE8QA]

The rf squelch is set to off and the sql is set to 2 and when I set menu item 52 from auto to fm-w the light went out and I was able to have a qso on a local repeater on 440 but the volume was very low. The tsql is set to off. I think it might need reprogrammed. I saw a cable for doing that for less than 20 bucks. Anybody ever done this before?

 

[ja2robin]

Had the same problem

Hi there,

I recently had the same problem with my VX-6R. I tracked mine down to a failed component on the board which I replaced and everything is now working beautifully again.

To see if it is the same issue, do this check: Leave RF Squelch set to Off, and set the normal SQL setting to 3 or where ever you normally set it before it broke.

See if you had the same symptoms as me... I had crappy receive level and constantly open squelch on AM and NFM receive, on all bands. However, I noticed that I had no problem whatsoever with WFM receive, listening to FM broadcast radio stations for example was no problem. Additionally, my TX worked fine as well.

If yours is behaving like this, then it's highly likely you have the same failure as me and I can post the details of the fix

James
VA3JRO

 

[AA1LL]

try this before sending to Yaesu

This may be slightly off topic, but I have a VX-2 that suddenly died after sitting around unused for a while (~1 month). It would not charge up or turn on so I took out the battery and sent it to the Yaesu shop in L.A. When they got around to checking it out they could not find anything wrong with it and sent it back to me and it has been fine since then. So there could be some part of their memory that is not totally "resetting" and requires a battery removal to totally discharge. I found the Yaesu folks were really good to deal with on this. They didn't charge me a dime either to look at it or ship it back to me here in NH.

73, Paul, AA1LL

 

[james12345]

I had a similar problem like this

 

[KE8QA]

ja2robin. It is exactly as you described. When I set it to wfm it seems to work ok but the audio is very low. Please let me know how you fixed yours. Thanks.

 

[ja2robin]

Solution

Hi KE8QA,

The problem on my VX-6R, was a failed ceramic filter in the FM de-modulator section.

Specifically component CF2002 (Toko ALFYM450F=K) on page 29 of the service manual that you can download online.

If you take apart your radio and measure the voltage on either side of that part it should be biased at 1.6V on each side. One side of mine had failed to GND internally.

It is a through-hole part so if your soldering skills are good you can replace it on your own fairly easily. Three of the pins are located in a pretty hefty ground mass portion of the board, so make sure to use some good heat and flux as you are removing the defective part. It cost me $2.60 + shipping from Yaesu parts in California.

Good luck with the repair,
James

 

[KE8QA]

Thank you ja2robin

Got the part a couple days ago and got a chance to work on it today. Put it in and it is working great. Thanks again.

 

[ri4dcom]

This is an old thread, but I recently had a VX-6 with this issue, so I filmed a little video about taking the radio apart, identifying, and testing the ceramic filter. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/MFyehZ2hg1I

 

[gewecke]

I guess I'm lucky. My Vx6r doesn't have these symtoms ... yet. But thanks for the diagnosis. . 73, n9zas