FRS radios

[Rema1000]

I was needing something like FRS radios at work, to communicate with people in other rooms/floors (pulling cat6 cable and testing).  I bought a 3-pack of Talkabouts at Costco, since they had voice-activated "hands-free" capability.  I've never used FRS radios, although I use a pair of VHF marine radios outside work.

I'm not able to get the Talkabouts to work:  the voice transmission cuts in and out.  When I say "how are you doing?", the other person hears something like "ow  ah  ew  ing".  It's a bit like a stereo amplifier that is clipping in/out.  This is when using the PTT button (not hands-free).  I've tried talking with three other people, and all three radios behave the same, in both directions.

Is there a secret for how to use FRS radios, or is this just part of the Fun of using FRS?

[annguyen1981]

I'm assuming that you bought the Motorola brand, right?

Motorola's lower end FRS radios are crap, but when you get into the higher end stuff, they are one of the best.  Most Police/Fire/EMS agencies use Motorola brand.

Here in MA, our state police troopers use a trunking system that allows multiple users to access the same frequencies at the same time...  It's AWESOME!

In CT, they use a digital trunking system...  Since my scanner ain't digital capable, I can't tell how much better.

You'd be spending $100+ PER unit if ya want a more reliable system

[TheGoodGuy]

the FRS, push button, wait.. talk..release..

How many miles is the unit.. if you are in FRS mode its limited to 2miles in clear view, if you can go to the GMRS mode, if you have a model that has like 10 mile range and stuff, you will have no problems.

Also what brand did you buy?

[ops_south]

If I recall, some models of /\/\otorola FRS radios have a type of voice inversion scrambling.  That may be enabled on one or more of your units and disabled on others.  Check your manual or /\/\otorola's website for some instructions to see that the scramble setting is the same on all units.

[Rema1000]

The radios are Motorola T8500s.  I was just trying to use them from one room to the next in an office.  It did seem that the problem was a little bit less bad on a GPRS channel (1 watt) than on the FRS channel (0.5 watt).  But it was still pretty bad.

The manual doesn't mention a scramble mode; I've read about "Voice XPand" or something similar on Motorolas, but there's no mention of scrambling in the manual.

Regarding pressing the PTT first... I understand how talking too soon would cause the first word or two to be lost.  The problem I am having is that I'm losing half of every word; almost as though I were pushing and releasing the PTT over and over. 

[foobar]

how close is your mouth to the microphone? try backing off a bit from the mic or talking softer. it's possible that you are overdriving the mic with your voice.

[Cal Price]

The manual might refer to the "scrambling" aspect as "Tone-Coding" and it will almost certainly be there. The theory is that loads of users can use the same frequency but each group will only hear those using the same tone-code as well as frequency.

This is a systems that works very well all over the world but there are two drawbacks, first if there are a lot of other users on the same frequency using different tone codes they can interreact in the way you describe. If the set has a RX indicator, often an orange light, you will see it flickering when the set is silent. Tone code works like this, allowing several users to use the same frequency without interfering (in theory) When you press your tx button (or use voice activation) the first thing the set does is send out the tone-code and the rx set(s) willl "think" Ah! that's my code and switch on the speaker or alternatley "Not my code" and not switch on the speaker but it is still receiving the signal even though you can't hear it and if you get a lot of this it can break your signal up.

The second possible disadvantage is the 0.1 or 0.2 of a second delay caused by the code signal, inexperienced users often have trouble with this and I could imagine that in a less than perfect voice-activation system it could lead to bother.

Apart from spending a load more money the best answer would be to scan or observe a frequency by using the rx indicator to find a "quiete" one and slow down the speach input a little, after checking that the sets are up to spec.

When I was in port management my duties included radio buying and system maintenance, you get a lot of users in ports and this sort of thing was fairly common especially when there were several visiting cruise-ships.

Oh yeah, foobar has a point, two-to-three inches from lips to mic.