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So I have just received today a Baofeng UV-5R that I had ordered. I already had the 888s.

After programming the UV-5R to the same frequency as the 888s, i am able to receive transmission

All LEDs work as I would expect them to under normal operating circumstances.

However, the 888s will only receive transmission if I am holding down the "mon" button which is obviously impractical - if I transmit normally the LED does indeed light up green to suggest it is receiving a transmission but there is no actual audio (unless holding "mon")

I am an amateur at this sort of thing, please help me.

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to ham.stackexchange.com! $\endgroup$
    – rclocher3
    Mar 31, 2020 at 20:46

1 Answer 1

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Most likely the 888s are set up to require a "tone" to break squelch. This is very common for a radio that's been used with repeaters, and almost all repeaters use CTCSS, aka PL tone, to minimize interference.

The "mon" button disables squelch momentarily, allowing the signal from the UV-5R to get through. You can avoid this by finding out what tone the 888 is expecting and programming the UV-5R to send that tone, or alternatively (for simplex) disable tone squelch in the 888s.

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  • $\begingroup$ thanks for the quick response and i wish i knew how to do any of that.....i have chirp and i have tried setting squelch to 0 on the 888s an also turned on transmit ctcs on the uv5r but neither of these made any difference $\endgroup$
    – Turbo
    Mar 31, 2020 at 13:49
  • $\begingroup$ Your transmitted CTCSS needs to have the same value -- something like 75 to 120 hz -- that the receiver expects. Normally you would disable this for receive on the 888, rather than transmitting tone for simplex (no one else does, so if you need it to receive, you won't be able to hear anyone). Are you on a frequency that has a repeater on it? That might be why the 888 is looking for tone (assuming I'm correct). $\endgroup$
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Mar 31, 2020 at 15:49
  • $\begingroup$ no i am just using the default channel on the 888s, can you tell me how i can check the ctcss setting on the 888s please? i have familiarised myself with chirp but there are a lot of options i do not understand still, is it where it says "rxtone" and has a value of 1273? $\endgroup$
    – Turbo
    Mar 31, 2020 at 16:12
  • $\begingroup$ That Rxtone is what you need to turn off for simplex or match (it's most likely 127.3 Hz) on the UV-5R. Generally, for simplex, anything that says "tone" needs to be turned off. $\endgroup$
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Mar 31, 2020 at 16:15
  • $\begingroup$ well i went ahead and changed the ctcss to 127.3 on the uv 5r and its done the trick so thanks for the info im sure it will be invaluable to me again in the future $\endgroup$
    – Turbo
    Mar 31, 2020 at 17:18

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