Monday, August 20, 2012

KG-UV920R: Hands on Reports from VA3ISP

Lots of good stuff here... all these posts give me the impression that this radio is no different than lots of the other Chinese radios in that there is a price for being first. Hopefully, they will correct the problems in short order.

Initial review and pictures:

Pros: microphone is also a speaker, split tones - TX and RX settings are independent
Cons: DC noise is very loud when using the remote head, touchy VFO

Thoughts after three days:
"Lack of proper cross-band repeat is a killer for me. I’ve tried all their modes and none of them let me use a repeater on one vfo and simplex on another. It just simply does simplex-simplex repeating. So if you need a simplex cross-band repeater then your in luck."
"So I contacted Wouxun yesterday and asked them specifically what steps I needed to take to enable the XBand repeat.
Everyone that has one that I have spoken so has the same problems. (apparently except Ed over at ImportRadio, Somehow he has his working.)
Here is what I got from them.
1. Press MENU+3+1—MENU—UP/DOWN to select ON—MENU—EXIT
2. MENU+3+0—MENU—UP/DOWN to select ON—MENU—EXIT
3. MENU+3+2—MENU—UP/DOWN to select X-DIPRT/X-TWRPT—MENU
So after trying this multiple times, doing a complete wipe of the radio and starting over I can’t seem to get it to work. Anyone else?"
(I will add that Kight Radio also said they could not get the Cross Band Repeat to work - and then they did get it working by selecting x-twrpt in Menu 32.)

Alternator Noise Demo

DC Noise Root Cause:
"[Wouxun] have confirmed that the flat cable included with the radio does not provide adequate shielding ( which we already knew ). They have replaced it with a standard CAT5 cable and RJ45 connectors.
I have done the same and noticed quite a reduction in the DC noise in the audio when my truck is running. My next step will be to add a clip on choke and see if that gets rid of it altogether."
Dual Receive/Same Band Problem:
"I was on my local repeater last night and had a simplex channel that I use with a few friends in the area. Anyway… I noticed that when I have a conversation going on on one VFO the second doesn’t rx anything. They were both VHF."

Adding VA3ISP to my RSS feed now!

 

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