Recommended PL Tone List?

[Lscott]

I've got several commercial Kenwood radios with provisions for operator selectable tones in a list. The list only has room for 16 tones for the radios I'm interested in at the moment. The question is what are the most popular tones used for repeater access?

[OldRadioGuy]

Best way to find out is go on mygmrs.com and look at repeater listings.

You have to be logged in for the tones to show.

 

141.3 and 123 are fairly common but check your area.

 

Vince

[Extreme]

List of the 7 active repeaters programmed into my Kenwoods.  There are 2 other generic repeaters in my radios but have no name since they're not 'assigned'.

 

Locations range from NW Montana, NE Idaho (I-15 corridor), one in Utah, including a few in my local area and 1 in Quartzsite, AZ.   

141.3 appears to be most common.  None of these listed have split tone and only one has one tone and not the other.

 

A couple of these will overlap with other repeaters if/when I travel to other areas.

Unfortunately, there is no selection for "Show Outdated Repeaters" on the MyGMRS Map via mobile app.  And that is where I found 2 of my local 'open' repeaters.  So, cruising the country, one could drive right past repeaters while never knowing.  Plan ahead is what I've done on the standard map.  Guess I could build more Groups in the radios and name the distant repeaters.

 

Probably my only issue with the Kenwoods in lack of FPP to change PL on the run.  I know there's a way to make FPP available but I'm not keen on breaking into and modifying a perfectly good unit.  Again, more Groups would solve it I suppose.

 

100 Hz

141.3 Hz  

141.3 Hz  

141.3 Hz 

114.8 Hz

123.0 Hz

192.8 Hz

[Extreme]

I've got several commercial Kenwood radios with provisions for operator selectable tones in a list.

The list only has room for 16 tones for the radios I'm interested in at the moment. The question is what are the most popular tones used for repeater access?

 

Operator selectable?  Via programming or front panel?

Edited March 18, 2021 by WRAF233

[WRAK968]

I added the ORI tone (141.3) Then added tones supported by local repeaters, then a couple random ones so we had a few tones to chose from on the simplex channels.

[axorlov]

Operator selectable?  Via programming or front panel?

Not really va the FPP, but rather OST feature - Operator Selected Tone. Kenwood 3170/73 can store up to 40 combinations, they can be split tones too. You'd need to program a button on the HT to chose the tone combination.

[Lscott]

Operator selectable?  Via programming or front panel?

As axorlov mentioned the Kenwood TK-2170/3170/3173 radios have a table for 40 tone entries so those aren't much of a problem. The radios do offer "Operator Selectable Tone (OST)" you can assign the function to one of the PF keys on the radio. This allows you to select one of the pre-stored tones in the tone table.

 

The Kenwood TK-270G/370G, TK-2140/3140 radios have only 16 entries for the tone table. Those are of course more restricted. The radios I'm looking at to revise the code plugs are the TK-2140 and TK-3140 radios. With only the option to program in 16 tones I wanted to pick ones the are most likely to be used.

 

By the way the TK-270G, TK-2170 and TK-2140 are VHF radios while the TK-370G, TK-3140 and TK-3170/3173 are UHF.

 

And yes these radios could be programmed through the front panel, BUT you need to remove a small surface mount component off a circuit board inside in addition to enabling the function in the programming software. This is all covered in the service manuals for the radios. After looking at the very inconvenient multi button pressing while powering up the radio plus the rather cryptic multi layer menus you have to go through it really isn't worth the trouble.

[axorlov]

And yes these radios could be programmed through the front panel, BUT you need to remove a small surface mount component off a circuit board inside in addition to enabling the function in the programming software. This is all covered in the service manuals for the radios. After looking at the very inconvenient multi button pressing while powering up the radio plus the rather cryptic multi layer menus you have to go through it really isn't worth the trouble.

Same with me. I enabled all three of my TK-880 for the front panel programming, and I used it, let me remember how many times... oh yeah, never! I do keep a printed reference card in the glovebox, just in case of apocalypse, or when I'm tooooo bored. With the handhelds TK 3170 I did not even bother to enable FPP. Too much trouble.