Baofeng BF-F8HP question (1 Viewer)

[rc51kid]

First let me say i am a complete ham novice. I have a Baofeng BF-F8HP and a truck mounted Yaesu.

Today i was in yellowstone monetering the park traffic On the Yaesu which worked like a charm. I had the Baofeng set to the "wolf watcher" channel becouse it was a 70cm channel and the Yaesu would not do it. I never got anything from the Baofeng. Maybe there just wasnt any traffic on that chanel. So on the way out i set the Baofeng to the same park channel as the yaesu. When i would here traffic from the park service loud and clear over the Yaesu i would get nothing out of the speeker of the Baofang. The strange thing is the Baofeng would light up and indicate full 4 bars of signal reception. But no sound from the speaker. Thus was even in town when i know i am right next to the repeaters.

I know the speaker is basicly working. When adjusting the radio channels. It talks to you just fine. It just dose not have "volume" when receiving a signal. Any ideas ob what to check or how to test it?

 

[izzyandsue]

What antennas do you have on the Baofeng? What Yaesu do you have? Baofengs work great with good antennas, but Yaesu is a superior brand for sure.

 

[george_tlc]

Squelch setting ??

cheers,
george.

 

[Dragos80]

The difference between receiving and transmitting when it comes to power is that, your low power radio can "hear" what the other radios are transmitting from afar, but cannot transmit itself the signal to be able to be heard by those radios at a far away distance.
The max power and the type of antenna on your setup are mostly for transmitting purposes, not receiving.

The incoming radio waves, if powerful enough, should be able to reach you independently of your radio power and type of antenna, given the radio reaching sensitivity is a good one.

So, according to what I can read and know from what you are describing, it is a different matter in this case. Maybe no traffic, weak signal, or as george above stated... a squelch control issue.

 

[ChaseTruck]

..

I know the speaker is basicly working. When adjusting the radio channels. It talks to you just fine. It just dose not have "volume" when receiving a signal. Any ideas ob what to check or how to test it?

Simple thing to check reception is to tune to one of the weather channels (162.400, 162.425, 162.450, 162.475, 162.500, 162.525, and 162.550 MHz). Don't know which one's active in the area where you are, but they're good to have on tap anyways.

 

[izzyandsue]

Today and tomorrow is the ARRL Field Day nation wide. Look for a local HAM club near you, there will be lots of experienced operators who can give you advice. If you have the original rubber duck antenna, your receiving range is very limited. With a longer antenna I can capture signals 50+ miles with my Baofeng that are blind to the rubber duck antenna.

 

[rc51kid]

Tganks for all the good advice guys. I dont know what was wrong but i followed some instructions and cleqr3d all the settings. Then prigrqmmed a few chanels in. I just put in the frequency and ctcss. But not the +/- or 600 shift. At this point things look like they are working but i cant test brodcasting on these repeaters. But it looks better, dont really know why. Buy thanks again.

 

[rc51kid]

Today and tomorrow is the ARRL Field Day nation wide. Look for a local HAM club near you, there will be lots of experienced operators who can give you advice. If you have the original rubber duck antenna, your receiving range is very limited. With a longer antenna I can capture signals 50+ miles with my Baofeng that are blind to the rubber duck antenna.

Do you have a link to the antana?

 

[izzyandsue]

Baofeng is a great first radio to practice with, cheap enough. But, the quality is not great. I dont have them as primary, or secondary even. It was my first radio as well but if you lower your expectations, they are decent. I use Chirp software to program them, its free and fairly simple.

This one I have on my Baofeng now, works great:
Amazon.com: Authentic Genuine Nagoya NA-320A Triband HT Antenna 2M-1.25M-70CM (144-220-440Mhz): Cell Phones & Accessories

This one had longer range, but found out not too flexible and broke.
Amazon.com: SPPQ Rh-660s Dual Band 144/430mhz Sma-f High Gain Telescopic Foldable Antenna for Harvest Kenwood Baofeng Puxing Walkie Talkies: Cell Phones & Accessories

 

[uli2000]

To me, sounds like you put a ctcss tone on the radio input. Thats why the light was coming on but you're not hearing anything. For monitoring stuff you shouldn't even put in the ctcss tone. Think of the CTCSS tone as the secret knock that gets you in the door. Your toned repeater wont pass traffic unless proceeded by the correct subaudible ctcss/dcs tone (There are also some repeater systems that may have multiple tones on the repeater: Tone A activates the linked system while tone b only activates the local repeater). CTCSS on receive wont break squelch unless it's proceeded by the tone. Since you're not trying to get into the door (transmit on the repeater) and just peek in the window (monitor the channel), there's no need for the secret knock (CTCSS/DCS tones). Another possibility is you may have to set the channel bandwidth to narrow. All commercial and government users were required to go narrowband after Jan 1 2013. Sometimes on radios that can only do 25khz wide channels vs 12.5khz narrowband channels the audio sounds way down. There's not alot of ham radios that have the filtering to do narrowband channels. In fact, the only one I can think of off of my head is the Kenwood TM-281A. And I think thats more of a carryover from using an existing design from Kenwoods LMR division. Luckily, hams have no need to go narrowband, though I have seen some narrowband ham repeaters, mostly 900mhz, and Im sure thats due to using commercial equipment as there's nothing ham specific for 33cm.

 

[wyomingben]

did you ever get "wolf radio" figured out?