Make the most of your Walkie-Talkies
Question? Do you have trouble hearing other Walkie-Talkies when moving further apart?
Solution: Your Handset noise reduction circuitry could be activating too early causing drop outs and loss of contact. This minor tweak may improve your ability to receive distant stations without opening the noisy monitor function full time.
No soldering required.
Requirements:
2 X Philips head screwdrivers or bits. 1 X small, 1 X large . knowledge of where the relevant components are.
Theory:
Squelch essentially cuts out most of the background noise you would normally hear when using FM radio. However, occasionally when two sets get further away the voice transmission may become broken or even lost. To overcome this most Handsets have a open Squelch button which deactivates and allows all the background noise to be heard which is annoying to the ear after a short time. The ideal situation is to have the noise reduction stay on a tad longer if possible. The squelch level on all PMR Walkie-Talkies are predetermined in the factory and are non-adjustable by the user. That is unless you can identify the correct component and make some small adjustments yourself.
Usually most consumer PMR446's will have a screw adjusted post for both Squelch and voice modulation somewhere on the main board. The pic below shows the inside of a Silvercrest handset.
If you look very carefully you will see that around the centre of the main board there are two cross head screws. In this case, the screw on the left is responsible for Modulation and the screw on the right controls the Squelch - this is the one we need to adjust.
*Not all main boards will look the same. These two components could be at totally different positions on your handsets so a little research on Google to determine which screw is which will be crucial.
Before adjusting anything please follow these tips.
1. When taking the case off your radio be sure to keep the fixing screws somewhere safe.
2. Identify the correct screw adjustment post (SQL- Squelch)
3. Observe the screws current position and mark both the screw and the housing. This will enable you to set the Squelch back to the original place if anything should go wrong.
4. DO NOT adjust the Modulation screw post. Modulation is another topic for another day. In this tweak we don't need to touch it at all. If you do decide to adjust it then be sure to mark it before hand.
5. Make small adjustments by turning the screw. Replace batteries and listen. Repeat this again. At the point where the Squelch breaks into the background hiss (as heard when using channel monitor mode) you want to adjust the screw back a little. Ultimately this should lift the Squelch a little but not to the point of background noise.
Outcome: When testing the newly adjusted set against two normal sets we find that the adjusted unit picks up the farest signal earlier than the other two units. This experiment was repeated a number of times with the same outcome.
So, if you are brave enough and bothered enough to want to get a little more from your comms then have a go at this!
Good luck!
😁😁😁