[chirp_users] BTECH MURS-v1 "Service Settings" squelch thresholds
Hello,
New subscriber here with a BTECH MURS-v1 question.
My application involves emergency neighborhood communications in a spread-out, semi-rural area. Being able to drop squelch to the bare minimum would be helpful in order to get the best possible range. Unfortunately, the default carrier squelch thresholds on this radio appear to be relatively high, even for Squelch #1. At least that’s my subjective impression.
So I tried adjusting them with Chirp's Service Settings dialog. My changes appeared to load onto the radio fine, and I offloaded them back to verify. They came back as I had set them.
However, my changes seemed to make no difference to the radio’s actual carrier squelch behavior. Even a threshold of 0, which I would have thought would defeat squelch altogether, made no perceptible change in squelch behavior when the corresponding squelch ID was selected.
This behavior is identical to that described in Bug #5333, and that was also a BTECH, though a UV-5X3 rather than a MURS-v1.
Thanks a bunch for any thoughts or suggestions!
Cheers, —Bill
I wrote Baofeng as well as posting to this list. They replied this morning:
Bill
At this time squelch limits cannot be adjusted
Katy
So I guess that answers my question. At the present time, the “Service Settings” in Chirp for the BTECH MURS-v1 would seem to be nonfunctional. Oh well.
Cheers, —Bill
On Aug 22, 2021, at 10:26 PM, Bill Burgess burgess@alumni.stanford.edu wrote:
Hello,
New subscriber here with a BTECH MURS-v1 question.
My application involves emergency neighborhood communications in a spread-out, semi-rural area. Being able to drop squelch to the bare minimum would be helpful in order to get the best possible range. Unfortunately, the default carrier squelch thresholds on this radio appear to be relatively high, even for Squelch #1. At least that’s my subjective impression.
So I tried adjusting them with Chirp's Service Settings dialog. My changes appeared to load onto the radio fine, and I offloaded them back to verify. They came back as I had set them.
However, my changes seemed to make no difference to the radio’s actual carrier squelch behavior. Even a threshold of 0, which I would have thought would defeat squelch altogether, made no perceptible change in squelch behavior when the corresponding squelch ID was selected.
This behavior is identical to that described in Bug #5333, and that was also a BTECH, though a UV-5X3 rather than a MURS-v1.
Thanks a bunch for any thoughts or suggestions!
Cheers, —Bill
CHIRP can't make a radio do something that it doesn't support. The BTECH MURS-V1 support was developed from the BTECH GMRS-V1 support which was developed from the Baofeng UV-82 support. The UV-82 supports adjustment of squelch thresholds so that support was transferred to the GMRS-V1 and eventually to the MURS-V1. It was just assumed that the BTECH models supported this feature. Apparently they do not.
Jim KC9HI
Thanks a bunch, I really appreciate the response.
The note from Katy at Baofeng was a little vague. “At this time the squelch limits cannot be adjusted” — What does “at this time” mean? That the feature may somehow be enabled in the future? How would they do that? In a new hardware release (the -V2?)? With a firmware update? Or with communication to Chirp developers to explain necessary changes to the driver for the MURS-V1?
Any of those are probably a long way off in the future, if they happen at all, so no point in holding my breath. Oh well. It was worth looking into.
Thanks again! —Bill
The vast majority of Baofeng/Btech radios do not have field programmable (upgradeable) firmware, so I suspect the answer is 'never, unless we go in and update the firmware to accommodate this and build more of this radio with the new firmware, but your current radio will never do this'.
Does Baofeng/Btech offer their own CPS that offers this ability? I suspect it does not.
Ken, N2VIP
On Aug 23, 2021, at 12:20, Bill Burgess burgess@alumni.stanford.edu wrote:
CHIRP can't make a radio do something that it doesn't support. The BTECH MURS-V1 support was developed from the BTECH GMRS-V1 support which was developed from the Baofeng UV-82 support. The UV-82 supports adjustment of squelch thresholds so that support was transferred to the GMRS-V1 and eventually to the MURS-V1. It was just assumed that the BTECH models supported this feature. Apparently they do not.
Jim KC9HI
Thanks a bunch, I really appreciate the response.
The note from Katy at Baofeng was a little vague. “At this time the squelch limits cannot be adjusted” — What does “at this time” mean? That the feature may somehow be enabled in the future? How would they do that? In a new hardware release (the -V2?)? With a firmware update? Or with communication to Chirp developers to explain necessary changes to the driver for the MURS-V1?
Any of those are probably a long way off in the future, if they happen at all, so no point in holding my breath. Oh well. It was worth looking into.
Thanks again! —Bill
chirp_users mailing list chirp_users@intrepid.danplanet.com http://intrepid.danplanet.com/mailman/listinfo/chirp_users This message was sent to Ken Hansen at ken@n2vip.org To unsubscribe, send an email to chirp_users-unsubscribe@intrepid.danplanet.com
On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 1:27 AM Bill Burgess burgess@alumni.stanford.edu wrote:
Hello,
New subscriber here with a BTECH MURS-v1 question.
My application involves emergency neighborhood communications in a spread-out, semi-rural area. Being able to drop squelch to the bare minimum would be helpful in order to get the best possible range. Unfortunately, the default carrier squelch thresholds on this radio appear to be relatively high, even for Squelch #1. At least that’s my subjective impression.
So I tried adjusting them with Chirp's Service Settings dialog. My changes appeared to load onto the radio fine, and I offloaded them back to verify. They came back as I had set them.
However, my changes seemed to make no difference to the radio’s actual carrier squelch behavior. Even a threshold of 0, which I would have thought would defeat squelch altogether, made no perceptible change in squelch behavior when the corresponding squelch ID was selected.
This behavior is identical to that described in Bug #5333, and that was also a BTECH, though a UV-5X3 rather than a MURS-v1.
Thanks a bunch for any thoughts or suggestions!
Cheers, —Bill
CHIRP can't make a radio do something that it doesn't support. The BTECH MURS-V1 support was developed from the BTECH GMRS-V1 support which was developed from the Baofeng UV-82 support. The UV-82 supports adjustment of squelch thresholds so that support was transferred to the GMRS-V1 and eventually to the MURS-V1. It was just assumed that the BTECH models supported this feature. Apparently they do not.
Jim KC9HI
participants (3)
-
Bill Burgess -
Jim Unroe -
Ken Hansen