Squelch

[chris-s]

Last season we came to the conclusion that there is something amiss with our radio setup, its all only a couple of seasons old from top to bottom, but this question is about the expected behaviour of the squelch knob, the other issues are in hand.

The radio in question is a B&G V50, when turning the squelch knob to the point that noise is eliminated, and I'm talking about making the smallest adjustment not wacking it up to 11, turning it back down again has no effect without changing channels. Is this normal? It's particularly annoying since we seem to lose reception of pretty much everything with the most minimal amount of squelch applied.

Chris

 

[Daverw]

It does seem a bit strange, the squelch operates as sort of gate so does have an open and shut level and would normally have to go a bit below to shut, maybe the noise level is such that changing channel and the associated noise blip triggers the gate to open again. Have you tried it with a strong signal just in case you are listening to signals not much more than the noise, it’s not always about audibility

 

[VicS]

Do you have the sensitivity (local/dist) set correctly?

Maybe the aerial is defective. Can you try the radio on a known good one?

 

[chris-s]

Thanks for the replies.

I actually bought the radio home, purchased another banten antenna to eliminate the existing (two year old) cabling and antenna to try and work out what is going on with it. Our issues go a bit further than just the squelch behaviour, which may not actually be an issue, just not what I expected. We also have a little Cobra handheld and often found that this radio would pick up transmissions where the other would remain silent, and I'm talking transmissions from sources within a couple of miles max. I also find that if I step up thru the channels and key the mike on the handheld, the main radio would not appear to pick it up on every channel. Yes they are both set for the correct region!
Last summer we measured the swr on the boat setup and it was around 2.5 iirc, not great but the temporary setup at home is not much different, actually a little higher, but that could be due to antenna placement/signal reflection from buildings. Whilst it doesn't mean a lot, I did stick a multimeter across the PL259 connector and both antenna setups show around 2ohms, so it doesn't look like the boat has an open or shorted circuit.

 

[john_morris_uk]

The VSWR of the antenna is not the problem although it is a little high for the transmitter to operate correctly.

I strongly suggest there is a fault with the radio. Without going into technical details about how the squelch actually works, the radio really shouldn’t work in the way that you are describing. I suggest that the radio goes to the manufacturer/repaired to be assessed and either replaced or repaired. However the problem with so many modern VHF radios is that they are hardly worth the time in repairing them as many are relatively cheap to buy and it doesn’t take many hours of engineer time to make it financially unviable.

 

[chris-s]

The VSWR of the antenna is not the problem although it is a little high for the transmitter to operate correctly.

I strongly suggest there is a fault with the radio. Without going into technical details about how the squelch actually works, the radio really shouldn’t work in the way that you are describing. I suggest that the radio goes to the manufacturer/repaired to be assessed and either replaced or repaired. However the problem with so many modern VHF radios is that they are hardly worth the time in repairing them as many are relatively cheap to buy and it doesn’t take many hours of engineer time to make it financially unviable.

Thanks for the reply. Have just checked and amazingly it is still under warranty and I have the receipt! I’ll give them a call and see what they say.

 

[chris-s]

A little update.

Since we were a little unsure about the handheld radio we were using to test this with, we bought a new one. Further testing found that if we adjust the squelch on the B&G just until the hissing stops, we can adjust it back down if we are quick. If you leave it at that point for a few moments then you need to change channel to reset it. Also, we noticed that you can receive a transmission at the minimum squelch level but only for a a few moments, before it is lost. It's like once you dial in some squelch, it just keeps increasing automatically to infinity and beyond.

Anyhow, there were still a couple of months left under warranty so it's being returned. Will be interesting to see what the options are as it's a discontinued model now.

Chris