Tone Button?

[PartsMan]

I wish my radios had a button to turn the tone on and off quickly.

We have two families using a tone to communicate but I like to scan for anybody else sometimes.

Some off my radios let me set up extra GMRS channels without a tone but not all.

Does anybody offer this feature? Maybe I could reprogram the monitor button to disable tone.

[Sshannon]

4 minutes ago, PartsMan said:

I wish my radios had a button to turn the tone on and off quickly.

We have two families using a tone to communicate but I like to scan for anybody else sometimes.

Some off my radios let me set up extra GMRS channels without a tone but not all.

Does anybody offer this feature? Maybe I could reprogram the monitor button to disable tone.

It might help if you tell us which radios you’re asking about.

[PartsMan]

I have a Retevis RA25, RT98, Midland GXT100, and Radioddity GM-30 so far.

They don't have a tone on\off button.

Are there any radios on the market that do?

[Sshannon]

20 minutes ago, PartsMan said:

I have a Retevis RA25, RT98, Midland GXT100, and Radioddity GM-30 so far.

They don't have a tone on\off button.

Are there any radios on the market that do?

Not that I know of. Pushing the moni button disables squelch though. 
For most radios you configure channels with or without tones. 
I almost always tell people to just leave the tone off on receive. That way you’ll receive everything. 

[PartsMan]

1 hour ago, Sshannon said:

I almost always tell people to just leave the tone off on receive. That way you’ll receive everything. 

I do that in my truck but my wife's car needs the receive tone cause she doesn't want to hear everybody.

Setting a tone works great for our two family coms but I think it would be handy to tap a button and scan without tones.

[MichaelLAX]

So are you asking for your wife's car radio or yours?

If it is yours and you don't mind hearing others, just program the tone for transmit only on your radio and leave receive tones empty.

That way you can scan and hear everybody transmitting, and when you transmit to your wife, your transmit tone will open her receiver.

[PartsMan]

I am really thinking forward on my everlasting search for the next new toy.

You know n+1. N being the number of radios I have now.

The best setup I have come up with so far is unlocking a radio so that I can set up more than one version of each frequency.

I don't like the idea of a legal gray area just for convenience.

Regular, with a tone, and repeater. It works but my regular channel 17 is 54th in my radio right now.

 

[Lscott]

15 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

If it is yours and you don't mind hearing others, just program the tone for transmit only on your radio and leave receive tones empty.

I typically do that with my radios as well, no RX tone. It also eliminates the stupid hassle with RX tones, or split tones, when using a repeater.

[Radioguy7268]

I just program the Monitor button for "sticky monitor" and that way if I want to hear open squelch, I can temporarily disable squelch.  There's rarely any reason for me to want to listen on an open frequency 24/7 - especially if some other user has CWID or MDC on the channel.

Private Line may not create any kind of privacy, but it does create peace and quiet for the non-radio geeks in my family.

Or, if you've got a mobile, you can just program the radio to go into Monitor mode the moment you go off-hook. Hang up the mic = PL enabled.  Pretty simple. Not sure if there's  a PL enable function on any radio once you set a channel to CSQ for receive.  

[KAF6045]

30 minutes ago, Radioguy7268 said:

Or, if you've got a mobile, you can just program the radio to go into Monitor mode the moment you go off-hook. Hang up the mic = PL enabled.  Pretty simple. Not sure if there's  a PL enable function on any radio once you set a channel to CSQ for receive.  

That's only applicable to high-end, former LMR, class radios.

The more common GMRS mobiles (Midland MXTs, Radioddity, etc.) do not have on/off hook sensing. The microphone hanger is just a common (CB) spring clip.

[PartsMan]

2 hours ago, Radioguy7268 said:

Or, if you've got a mobile, you can just program the radio to go into Monitor mode the moment you go off-hook. Hang up the mic = PL enabled.  Pretty simple. Not sure if there's  a PL enable function on any radio once you set a channel to CSQ for receive.  

We had that on our farm radios when I was a kid. Very handy.