Two problems with KG1000

FRS / GMRS Radios
1

I was one of the “early adopters” of the KG1000 and it has been my main radio in my Jeep for about 3 years now (purchased March '21). The KG1000G has always had some issues (had to replace one radio early on because of mic gain issues and static/popcorn that would not go away). But the issues have started to become obvious defects and I’m hoping that perhaps a firmware update or something like that might make the radio function properly. The latest two issues are as follows:

  1. Normally I run with Channel 15 (with tones) on the A side of the radio and Channel 17 with tones on the B Side (our club uses these are our A and B channels). While on GMRS channel 15 (462.550) or 17 (462.600) on the A-side of the radio (these are the only two tested), there is constant bleed-over from FRS channel 1 (462.5625). Every time some kid on a walkie talkie starts sqwawking (or there is a blast of interference on that frequency like in this video as I was sitting in an In-n-Out drive-through), it breaks the squelch on my radio and stomps over whatever legitimate traffic is on my selected frequency. The display will even briefly indicate “GMRS-01” while the interference is happening. This does NOT happen on the B side of the radio. I have tried adjusting the squelch up and down and it makes no difference. This makes the radio nearly unusable and I have to shut off the A side of the radio and only use the B side.

  2. On both the A and B sides of the radio, regardless of what frequency or channel I am using, ALL broadcasts received will “clip” a few seconds into the transmission (drop out so I cannot hear for about 1 to 3 seconds). If I am running an HT right next to the KG1000-G it will NOT exhibit this problem, so I know for certain that the issue is the KG1000 itself. I can reproduce this issue at will by having another radio make a broadcast longer than about 10-15 seconds. I have also tested with my DB20-G and it does not have this problem while running trails with my group.

Do either of these issues sound familiar to anyone, and if so is there a firmware update to address the issue? I don’t know what the warranty period is on this radio, but it looks like I’m coming up on the 3 year mark of owning it. (honestly based on my experience with this radio I’m not sure I can continue to recommend it). Maybe I just got a buggy one but its been problematic throughout its lifetime with me…

Buytwowayradio has always provided great support - I hope there is an easy fix to this issue so I don’t have to replace the KG1000 in my main vehicle with my cheapie backup radio (which never has problems!)

2

Both of your issues sound like they could be related to the priority scan feature. Can you check if priority scan is on, and if disabling it resolves the issues? On the original KG-1000G this was menu option 23 (PRICH-SW).

3

Very interesting. I just looked at my saved codeplug and PRICH-SW is OFF but on the radio it was ON. I also see that PRI-CH is set to 001 (which is GMRS-01 on my radio). I see now that what must have been happening is that I inadvertantly turned on priority scan and that by default it was set to memory slot 001 so any time a signal was received on 001 (GMRS-1) it would break through my normal channel. Is this setting different for the A & B sides of the radio? There only seems to be one PRICH-SW setting, yet I was only having this issue on the A side of the radio and not the B side.

Lastly, how does this issue cause the consistent “dropout” about 5 seconds after I begin receiving a transmission (on any channel and on both sides of the radio). During testing it was much too consistent to be interference from another channel/frequency (it was not random, but very consistent about 5 seconds into the transmission and then again about every 10 seconds or so). THANK YOU

4

Yes, the issue with FRS channel 1 sounds exactly like what would happen with priority scan, especially with the display changing to “GMRS 01”. I suspect that will be resolved by disabling priority scan.

As far as the dropout issue, I am not as convinced that it is priority scan related. I don’t recall hearing a report of that issue before, but the fact that it happens consistently every few seconds makes me suspect priority scan. I’m curious if it goes away once it is turned off.

5

Thank you Danny. This seems to have resolved the issues (both the interruption by CH01 and the dropouts). The latter is a bit perplexing but I’m going to consider the issue resolved for now. Thanks for your knowledge and help!