... I've had this Icom IC-V8000 2M radio for many years. ... Have programmed countless repeaters into both of them. Now I notice that I can't hit the Waltham machine (146.640, PL 136.5). Can hear it fine.
How long has the base rig been dormant?
W1MHL/R/2m/FM Waltham started out with no P/L.
Then as recently as 9-Aug'08 ("only" 13 year ago),
it had a tone of 100.0Hz.
Now it has a tone of 136.5Hz.
But if you programmed it more than a dozen years ago,
and are somehow still using the 100.0Hz
that you might have saved in a channel memory;
then you might not be able to wake up the repeater
because you're actually sending the wrong tone.
Yet if your rig was set up for only transmit tone - not tone squelch,
you might still able to hear it even while sending the wrong tone,
because the rig isn't listening for a tone.
Some assumptions behind the above are my experience with
Yaesu's that you can:
- Bring up a channel memory.
- Change a parameter (
- The tone.
- No tone/transmit tone/transmit and squelch tone.
- Simplex/positive offset/negative offset.
- How much offset (600KHz, 5MHz, custom offset).
- ), which puts the modified parameters into a scratchpad VFO - not the memory slot.
- Momentarily select a (different) memory slot, and then back again.
- Your changes in the scratchpad VFO are lost:
- They are not written to the memory slot.
- You're not looking at the scratchpad VFO.
This is particularly easy to screw yourself with when people are screaming at you
at the start of a public service event when you have programmed the wrong settings at home:
- You think you've fixed it in the field:
- It works,
- You QSY to a different channel,
- You QSY back,
- Your field patches have disappeared.
- WTAF?
So when "fixing" a memory, you have to go
very slow and follow the manual to a T.
And don't rush and do a short-bump on a button
when the manual calls for a long-lean on the button,
or vice versa.
All the rigs with pushbutton panels overload short vs. long push,
and it's wicked easy to blow it if you do a rush job.
I may never have even
seen a V-8000 in the wild.
I'm jus' sayin' these are easy ways to fail.