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Hi this is Alex with Discount Two-way Radio.
Today, I want to cover some of the most common problems that our Repair Department sees.
The first one is, “Tape on the antenna.” I see it all the time – somebody, their
antenna starts getting frayed, cracked and so they taped it up. What actually happens
is, “It degrades in the transmission performance.” It starts getting static. So the simple solution
is, “Don’t put tape on the antenna.” They’re pretty inexpensive, so replace the
antenna and a lot of problems will go away.
The next thing that comes across is, “People will tape up the radio itself.” Let say,
“They drop it a couple of times and the battery is now loose.” So they put tape
around the radio to hold the battery in place or they may want to write their name on it.
The problem is, the microphone is right here. So, the tape goes over the microphone and
now, people can’t hear them clearly. The audio is distorted – so, don’t put tape
around it. If you do want to personalize your radio to make sure it doesn’t get lost or
doesn’t grow legs or someone isn’t going to take it – we can engrave that, pretty
inexpensively.
The very common complaint we hear is people said that, “Their radio is beeping.” What that
means is that, “Your battery is running low.” It’s actually designed to do that.
There is a low battery alert so that you know where your battery is almost dead and you
aren’t surprised with your radio not working. So, the simple fix – just keep a spare battery
with you, swap it in or just put it in the charger for a little bit and it will take
you through the rest of the day.
Another thing to always double check is to make sure you’re on the right channel. It
sounds really obvious but we get calls all the time. Somebody saying, “The radio, no
one transmits. They can’t hear anybody and they want to send it in for repair.” It
turns out what happen is, “As you’re walking around, they bump against something and the
channel all changed – and they’re on different channels and just didn’t realize it.”
That’s it. So, before you panic – just double check the channel to make a quick simple
fix.
Another common problem is, “The accessory jack being partially unplugged.” It may
look like it’s plugged in but what happens is, “If it’s not making complete contact
and your transmission is going to be static-y. You’re going to only hear some of the words.”
So, if people complain, “They can’t hear you very well” just make sure that you give
that accessory jack a really good strong push. Make sure it’s in there completely a seated
and that often will solve the problem and save you time and hassle from sending in the
radio.
Another common issue is, “People will say that they can’t transmit.” What you want
to check first is, “To see if you see the light at the top of the radio.” If that’s
a green, what that means is there’s somebody else in the area who’s sharing your frequency
and they’re transmitting. So, they have a different PL tone. So, that means that you
can’t hear them and they can’t hear you – but you can’t still transmit on the
same frequency if somebody else until they’re finished.
So, if you try and transmit and nobody’s hearing you – just check that light at the
top of the radio. If it’s green, just wait until it goes out. Once the light goes out,
now you can start talking and everybody will hear you just fine. This is especially common
with companies that use a repeater because you’re sharing one channel among different
departments, to help split up so and then this prevents cross-talk. So again, just check
that light at the top of your radio. If it’s green, just wait a couple of seconds so it
goes out and then you can go ahead and talk.