So I am a Junior Firefighter at my local department and i carry a radio. I use a baofeng UV5R. It picks up the frequency just fine. I can hear all the radio chatter, can talk, etc. The only issue, is that i get spirts of pure static. There is a a dept a few towns over that uses the exact same frequency, so sometimes it picks up on that frequency but because of how far it is.
Is there any way that i can set a limit on how far I pickup? Is there a way to tune out those distant frequencies but still pickup mine?
Do both use the same CTCSS tone? If they don’t, then entering the right one will stop the other departments traffic coming out of the speaker - they may still interfere with each other of course. There’s nothing you can do with signal strength because you stand the chance of not receiving the messages you want.
How would I be able to tell? And how can i enter the right tone in? The frequency is 154.340, if you want i can send you the city name and the interfering city? Maybe you could help? Sorry, I am a very oblivious person when it comes to this stuff, i’m not crazy into it
One thing that you could try is adjusting the squelch level of your radio. I believe this is SQL in the menu. This basically adjusts how strong a signal has to be before the radio will consider it to be a valid transmission and allow you to hear it on the speaker. Be careful though, if you go too high you might miss transmissions that you want to hear!