TLDR;
I’m having issues using my Icom V10MR with the Dakota Alert MURS sensor. A rep says it’s a known issue with the sensor sending extra data to trigger the relay in their base station, and that some third party radios will still work and some don’t. However their own branded MURS handheld works just fine.
Has anyone else run into this issue with a third party radio?
Has anyone found a workaround for radios experiencing this issue?
Does anyone have a different brand third party radio that works with their MURS sensor?
I'm a radio newb so please be a bit detailed if your response is technical.
I’ve been utilizing the Dakota Alert MURS base station and motion sensors around my property. I wanted a hand held for when I’m outside around my property, to still get perimeter alerts, and to communicate back to the house base station.
I decided to purchase the Icom V10MR because I liked the quality and the options that a detachable antenna brings.
Which brings me to the issue.
I have set the channel and sub channel for the V10MR to match the sensors. If you’re not familiar with Dakota Alert sensors, they typically have an alert like this: “Alert Zone 1, Alert Zone 1, Alert Zone 1”.
When a sensor is triggered, my base station receives and broadcasts the whole alert message. But on the V10MR, I just get the first blip “Aler” and then it cuts off. I’m testing both a new sensor and the radios in the house, so there’s no reception issue. When the message cuts off and I immediately press the monitor button on the V10MR, I can hear the rest of the alert message.
I tried to lower the squelch setting on the V10MR to 1, but that didn’t help. I’m a fish out of water with radios, there’s a ton of advanced settings for the V10MR software which I don’t know about.
Based on another Reddit user’s post, the “trigger signal is a digital message modulated into the CTCSS tone.”
A rep at Dakota said they’ve received similar complaints that some other handhelds don’t work with their system and have the same issues I have.
He says it has to do with some extra data sent by the transmitter to activate the relay in the base station.
I asked if their own handheld had some sort of extra programming to ignore that data so that it can work properly with the sensor and he couldn’t tell me. He didn’t sound sure about much during the call.
The Icom receives the entire alert message just fine when not using a sub channel, but I lose the capability to communicate to other handhelds and the base station.
I’d also rather not operate everything without a sub channel (Dakota reps’ suggestion).
Thanks for reviewing my post.