VE9RCV - Riceville - DEAD CARRIER?

Submitted by ww1zrd on
Forums
General discussion

Greetings in advance.

I have had sporadic service from the RCV site for awhile, sometimes I hear traffic, most times I don't.

Now it is 100% dead carrier.

The other repeaters in my area (STL and GFL) work perfectly.

I really depend on RCV because I can reach it when mobile on my HT.

Normally, my QTH setup is my Yagi on a tripod in my garage aimed at RCV, and a mobile on a power supply. Now that I am only receiving dead carrier, I have to switch to STL to participate in the NETS, which is my behind my Yagi.

By the way, this is happening on ALL my radios simultaneously. Vehicle, HT, home, etc. If I hear a voice on RCV they all hear it, or when RCV transmits dead carrier, all my radios hear a dead carrier, meaning, I am not programming my radios or changing any configurations.

I double checked my CHIRP Next software, RCV has identical tone/squelch (TSQL) settings as STL and GFL. (151.4)

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

My sincerest thanks in advance.

73 de WW1ZRD

 

P.S.

 

Has RCV been fully upgraded? I thought all repeaters were now on TX & RX Tone Squelch, which is what I have my radios set for.

Reviewing https://ve9irg.net/revamp/ctcss trying to dig deep and troubleshoot this,

I found:

"Q:  OK, I programmed my radio.   It looks like I'm tripping the repeater, the meter shows a signal, but I hear no audio.  Why?

A:  You may have set the tone on both RX and TX, before the repeater has been upgraded.  Even if the repeater has not been upgraded, you can use a tone from your radio, no problem, it will work.  But don't set your radio to "tone squelch" (TSQL on some radios) on a repeater that has not been upgraded.  If you do, you may see a signal on your meter, but no audio."

This is my issue. So the question is, can anyone positively confirm that RCV has been fully upgraded?

Private
Public

Hi Jacques,

As far as I know, ALL of the IRG repeaters are programmed to use CTCSS (PL tones) on both RX and TX.   You could try Riceville without  TSQL on (and using 151.4 Hz on your TX only) and see if that works -- although since it appears to be an intermittent issue, try it each way several times.  Let me know what you find out.  You might enlist someone who can also hit RCV to test it out with you doing the same thing.

Just to be clear - are you "hearing" the dead carrier without voice audio, or just seeing the bars or meter on your radio?  With TSQL on (and the repeater NOT sending PL tones), your radio should not even break squelch when the repeater is TX'ing, although signal  (meter/bars) will appear.  If it's in scan mode, it might stop briefly, then start scanning again, but no audio whatsoever, not even a faint carrier.  If you are hearing the faint carrier but no voice audio, it's not the CTCSS issue on your end.

Just so you know, others in the area are having a similar issue, including the RadCom techs in the area who look after the system, so I hope they have checked the CTCSS issue.  We have submitted a Work Order to NB-DTI RadComm about the issue.   ( NB Dept of Transportation and Infrastructure - Radio Communications Branch)

 

Rick VE9MTB

One more note:  All the repeaters in the North West Zone (VE9SQN, VE9RCV, VE9GFL and VE9STL)  were upgraded to CTCSS on TX and RX in September 2023.  VE9MCP was also upgraded and added to that Zone about a year later.