SteveShannon

Yes, I suspect it is. Usually an audio circuit would have filtering (capacitors to take the surge to ground or inductors in series) to block the transients like that. It sounds like the filtering wasn’t designed in or components have failed. If the radio is new I would return it and demand one that doesn’t pop.

So do the pops only happen when the external speaker is plugged in, not when using the internal speaker? Do you have a different speaker you can try? Is the plug plugged all the way in? Some of these inexpensive speaker/mics are difficult to plug in completely.

I suspect the same thing as @WRUU653, a stuck button or bad switch. @WRXZ797, you might want to crack open the case and take a look at the circuit board. If it’s like many devices it will have dome switches that are closed when the membrane that forms the keyboard are deformed and a conductive element bridges a couple of PCB traces. It’s possible that the membrane has delaminated or permanently deformed. If nothing else maybe you can turn it on with the keyboard removed and bridge across the two traces for the scan switch to turn scanning off, then disable the function by placing a piece of tape over the two traces. If it has tiny discrete electromechanical switches instead of the cheaper dome switches you might be able to put an ohmmeter on the switch to see if it has failed in one state or the other. Or it might simply be time to replace the radio.

I’ve heard complaints about the price from people who haven’t purchased it, but not from those who have. It’s nice to have almost every radio I have programmed with almost exactly the same software.

And RT Systems works well for this radio.

I don’t understand their signal reporting.

One more down vote. I’m getting closer to winning the pool all the time!

I don’t know if you need to fix anything. You’re transmitting You mentioned hearing a sound after you transmitted but you wouldn’t call it static. It might have been a squelch tail. If you have a nearby friend who has a radio have them listen while you transmit. Announce yourself and ask for a repeater check. As @WRUU653 said the red bar shows that you’re transmitting. Once you get someone to respond you’ll feel a little more confident.

It’s within reason. The Midland ghost antenna sells for $50. A fender mount bracket for a 21-24 ford bronco goes for $30. An NMO mount and cable to fit that bracket goes for about $20-30. But you might enjoy the convenience of ordering a proven combination from a single place.

I’m just curious. What did you do right before the language changed to Chinese?

No, people don’t really come looking for advice. They really just want to see how useless you can be. It’s entertainment.

Switch it back to English. Plug in the programming cable. Open the software (it should still be in English). Read from the radio. Open up the Edit menu. Choose Function Setup. Menu Language is the third selection on the right column of the Function Setup dialog. Change it to English (the middle selection). Write to the radio.

Except for special events, most ham traffic is not on VHF/UHF and not through repeaters. Those repeaters will certainly see use during special events, nets, or sometimes casually by hams as they run errands or travel through a city. I have used the Phoenix DMR repeaters before, but 99% of my ham activities are spent on HF making contacts directly to other hams. There’s no real challenge to making contacts via repeaters and a lot of ham radio is about making distant connections, exchanging signal reports, and moving to the next connection. I’ll see if I can show you a signal report map showing a snippet in time in the Phoenix area. Here’s a map from PSKreporter of activity over the past hour: Each inverted teardrop shows one ham. I suspect you’ll agree that between 5 and 6 AM is probably not a really busy ham time, but there are still a pretty decent number of people who are working contacts using digital modes. None of this is through a single repeater and they are almost all trying to make contacts with someone at some distance:

Yes, be sure you don’t have it on dual watch. I had my bottom channel set to a frequency that had activity or active interference on it without realizing it. I kept wondering why I was hearing stuff even though there was no activity on the upper/larger channel A. Since then I keep dual watch turned off.

Make it yours! Of course I haven’t gotten around to cutting a hole in my 4Runner but I find myself wishing I had done it years ago.

No, that's not impossible but that antenna looks like a gimmick. There are a lot of dual band antennas with narrower bandwidth. The Comet CA-2x4SRNMO is a commercial quality antenna that advertises SWR under 2.0:1 from 140-160MHz / 435-465MHz: https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-ca-2x4srnmo?ppckw=dxedsa-br-comet-antennas&gclid=CjwKCAiAlPu9BhAjEiwA5NDSA391BAQ5nheA3lTesm2uL_RtcAxEGeTVdPk02M-JzNlz8vamfTEcAhoCnZgQAvD_BwE#overview

Welcome!

I wouldn’t use that antenna for GMRS. If you really need an antenna that’s good for GMRS the mxta26 from Midland is very good. If you need an antenna that’ll handle both ham and GMRS the Comet 2x4 is what I would get. I’m honestly trying to understand what this Hys antenna is supposed to be. It looks like it might want to be a j-pole but the feed isn’t right.

Exactly. They have almost exactly the same low gain and RF pattern as a dipole with a null in the direction of the axis of the element. They’re vertically polarized. And they’re relatively easy and inexpensive to build if a person has an antenna analyzer, tubing cutter, tape measure, and can follow simple instructions. Saying get a real antenna is simply a way to put down others. I don’t believe @tweiss3 intended it that way because it’s out of character for him (I was surprised to see that in his post), but it’s true to @Socalgmrs character.

Me too, but now that I’m not working uptown I don’t go there often. The owner of the M&M reopened in the building nearly next door. I think she has the same menu. I used to really enjoy the ground round cheese D with gravy on the fries.

On most radios you just plug it in. But be sure it’s plugged all the way in.

As far as a beep when changing channels, that’s probably the key tone, menu 1.9 according to the manual. Turn it on. It’s not surprising that updating the firmware would reset that. As far as losing communication you’ll have to explain that. Does the radio no longer transmit? Does it no longer receive? Maybe the tones were cleared (again, fully expected in a firmware upgrade). I have no clue what e1-e2 means; maybe nothing.

Welcome from Montana! Look for videos from Notarubicon. There are a lot and they cover nearly everything a person needs to know to get started. Andd of course don’t be afraid to ask questions and try things!