Marine Radio Question

My dad has a newer Humminbird Marine Radio and 4 ft antenna in his boat. When it was new you could turn it on, turn up the squelch until you heard the static, and then back it down a touch. Unit worked fine. Now when he turns it on, you can still hear the beep through the speaker so we know that’s working, but when he turns up the squelch there is no static, and he can’t receive any communication. He can transmit however, so part of the radio and mic are in fact working. Any ideas?
Anyone have this happen to them?

Mike,

I’m not sure how the newer radios are made, but try not transmitting until you know for certain it’s not in the ant. Damage could result in the final transistors.

Check your settings first off, sometimes there’s a speaker switch that selects the radio speaking or an external speaker.

Without an SWR meter it’s going to be hard to tell if something happened to the ant. But, with the radio on and the squelch in a position were you can hear it (if it was working) disconnect the ant. Can you hear the static at any point? 90% of the time if there’s an ant issue it’s where the user soldered on the Pl-259 connector. All it takes is one fine wire out of place to screw up your radio.

Otherwise, take the radio to another persons boat and give it a try.

If your close to Lakeland, shoot me a pm.

Rootski might have some more advice when he gets back from fishing.

A question for you…how do you know you’re transmitting OK? Are you listening with another radio?

If you have a problem with the antenna I might be able to help you out. I have some pretty decent test equipment for that.

Rootski

Rootski,

Yes other guys in his fishing party were able to hear him talk, but he didn’t hear anything back. And like I said, when we walk through the test sequence in the manual, all the audible beeps and everything are heard just fine through the speaker, but no squelch or anything else.

We just had a very similar issue come into the shop. After trying many different things, it turned out to be the cord on the mic. If you tend the pull the cord quite often (assuming its a coily cord) it can pull a wire or 2 out.

We replaced the mic and wire and has worked fine since than!!

If you have another boat near by that has a radio, try pulling and wiggling the cord while talking and see if it does it. If possible you could try finding someone with the same radio and see if you could borrow their mic and try that also.

Just my .02

Thanks for the tip on the mic Eric. He uses the darn thing so infrequently that I can’t imagine that being the issue, but we’ll check. Like I said, he can transmit fine. Just can’t receive anything back.