Kenwood 8180H and 8360H Set up

[shawnvanhorn]

My Kenwood radios will talk and make contacts, but everyone says my mic gain is real low. is there a way to adjust microphone gain in the programming software. i have both the KPG-89D and the KPG-135 for my 8180H and 8360 Huk respectively.

Second question is what do you set the narrow / wide column for GMRS?

[Mikeam]

Following!

[WRAK968]

you want to run Wide band for GMRS, narrow band for FRS. Setting this wrong could make your volume sound low so make sure that is set correctly first.

If you still need to make adjustments I believe you'll need to do it in test mode and likely will need a way to read the signal coming out of the radio which means you may need to visit a shop.

[JohnE]

also in the 8180 program edit-options-common page 1 there is a setting for mic sensitivity, normal or high. 

I generally set this to normal unless the operator has a small voice.
not too sure on the 8360 but go through the  edit options thoroughly.

[Mikeam]

Not to steal this thread but when I attempt to use wideband on anything except repeater frequencies and I say go to channel 6, the radio immediately puts out squelch tone. So is the 8180 only to use narrow band on non repeater  frequencies? I have looked at the help files and find no reference to this situation??

[JohnE]

sound like it is need of some tuning or its in CSQ

[Mikeam]

I will take a look but it only does this if I change to Wide FM. Thanks Mike

[Cracked]

CSQ??

Carrier Squelch, no CTCSS tone is transmitted when PTT is pressed. At least that's how I understand it.

[JohnE]

it also applies to the RX side, also known as open channel.

[tweiss3]

Not to steal this thread but when I attempt to use wideband on anything except repeater frequencies and I say go to channel 6, the radio immediately puts out squelch tone. So is the 8180 only to use narrow band on non repeater frequencies? I have looked at the help files and find no reference to this situation??

You need to adjust the squelch mode. In the software it is: Edit -> Optional Settings -> Conventional tab -> Squelch Level to 4 or higher, 1 will cause you problems.

[Mikeam]

I checked that setting and it was set at 2 so I will change that to 5 and see, the thing that puzzles me is on N/W setting the issue is there only when changing to W which causes constant squelch but changing back to N it stops and only on the non repeater frequencies. Also it only happens on the changed frequency not any other frequency!  Thanks for your response. Mike

[tweiss3]

I checked that setting and it was set at 2 so I will change that to 5 and see, the thing that puzzles me is on N/W setting the issue is there only when changing to W which causes constant squelch but changing back to N it stops and only on the non repeater frequencies. Also it only happens on the changed frequency not any other frequency! Thanks for your response. Mike

It's just background noise from just about anything. I had a similar issue with only select channels on my 8150 and the issue was eliminated when set to 5 or higher.

[JohnE]

yeah, it needs to be tuned properly

in the program tab there is read, write and test mode.

test mode is where the tuning is done. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TUNE W/O THE PROPER EQUIPMENT

here is the service manual

http://www.repeater-builder.com/kenwood/pdfs/tk-8180-svc-man-suppl.pdf