I just started using the TIDRadio TD-H8 and found an issue that I don’t know how to resolve. I’m using it to monitor our non-radio related club’s repeater. The repeater is using CTCSS but not on the repeater ID message. Normally, I hear traffic fine and will not hear the repeater’s Morse code ID. But if someone talks (transmits) and the repeater IDs right after them, then I hear the Morse code. The Baofeng radios on-site were never hearing the Morse code. Is there a way to eliminate this issue on the TD-H8?
my guess is that the radio might well be sending CTCSS to open the repeater up, but is probably not using the tone on receive, the test being to turn the squelch knob and see if the radio hisses.
I don’t quite understand. I’m never transmitting. Other members are talking to each other through the repeater. I’m only monitoring. All radios have CTCSS set on transmit and receive. Since mine is a TIPRadio and the others are Baofengs the behavior is different. My problem occurred about 8 times in a 3 hour period at seemingly random timings but by the end of the day, I noticed it only occurred just after someone just spoke. I think that my radio keeps receiving for a bit after the person stops talking and then the repeater’s ID message starts and my radio thinks it’s still the same thing. It doesn’t realize that the ID Message does not have CTCSS and will play it over the speaker anyways. But I’m a beginner and making assumptions here.
If youre sure the id does not have CTCSS then if your radio is using tones to open the squelch, then it should let you hear conversations but not the id. Thats why i wonder if accidentally you’ve got the radio set to send tones, but not to use the, for receive. Hence why i asked if the squelch setting does anything? It may simply be opening when it detects RF. i have a yaesu in my van, and a repeater changed frequency recently. I managed to do the same thing. It was opening the repeater correctly, but when i drove to an area fifty miles away, i started to hear a different repeater. The reason was i had the decoder off, but the encoder on.
The man who set up the repeater confirmed that the message ID does not have CTCSS. Considering no other radio on the grounds picked up the morse code, I think he is correct. He also verified that my radio had CTCSS on both transmit and receive.
But your post made me wonder if I was actually hearing a different repeater entirely. I’ve never had a radio that can listen to two frequencies at once so I don’t know what the second frequency was set to when the problem occurred. I’ll have to wait until the weekend to test out that theory.
If anybody else reads this post, the dual frequency receive function is called “D.Wait” on the TD-H8 and can be turned off. If using ODMaster it is called “TDR”.
I got to test my theory out today and found that I’m not picking up a different repeater. Because there was quite a bit of traffic on the club’s repeater today the issue happened again several times. Radio was set to single frequency. I drove about 7 miles away in two opposite directions where I could barely hear the normal radio traffic. I didn’t pickup up a stronger repeater signal in either direction.
So, the short story is that the TD-H8 does have some sort of minor issue that the Baofeng does not.
The radio does not have a capability to tell the difference between the normal conversations, and the ID. You’ve checked the ID does not have CTCSS, but the conversations do - so the only logical explanation is that the radio is operating in ordinary squelch mode on receive, not CTCSS.
I suppose the simple test is to change the CTCSS tone to a deliberate wrong one, and see if you still hear people talking? If you do, then you have confirmed CTCSS decode is NOT working, hence why the ID is heard. Why not set your Baofeng to the repeater output frequency, and no tone at all, and if you press the PTT and the TD-H8 hears it, you’ve confirmed CTCSS is not set for receive.
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