BTECH GMRS 50V2 Microphone issue

[WRWL705]

II bought a BTECH GMRS 50V2 about a month ago. I checked it out in the house first, every thing was good. So then, I installed it in my 1998 Jeep Wrangler TJ.

Turned it on and every thing was working great. It would transmit, receive, change channels; everything was great until I hung up the microphone onto the dash clip. In which, is screwed onto my dash thru the plastic into the metal that is grounded. Then, the LCD display went blank. The radio was still working just fine, just a blank LCD.

So I bought another radio and it had the same issue. 

Does anyone know anything about this issue? Looking for suggestions, help, or advice as to this issue. I really like the radio otherwise, so I am trying to get to the reason as to why this happens. 

I have contacted BTECH with this issue with no results. They just want to send me a new radio, in which I have already done with purchasing the 2nd radio.

Thank you in advance!

[wayoverthere]

20 minutes ago, WRWL705 said:

 

II bought a BTECH GMRS 50V2 about a month ago. I checked it out in the house first, every thing was good. So then, I installed it in my 1998 Jeep Wrangler TJ.

Turned it on and every thing was working great. It would transmit, receive, change channels; everything was great until I hung up the microphone onto the dash clip. In which, is screwed onto my dash thru the plastic into the metal that is grounded. Then, the LCD display went blank. The radio was still working just fine, just a blank LCD.

So I bought another radio and it had the same issue. 

Does anyone know anything about this issue? Looking for suggestions, help, or advice as to this issue. I really like the radio otherwise, so I am trying to get to the reason as to why this happens. 

I have contacted BTECH with this issue with no results. They just want to send me a new radio, in which I have already done with purchasing the 2nd radio.

Thank you in advance!

Were you able to check with a multimeter as @KAF6045suggested in the other thread? If it's something acting up when the mic button is grounded, I'd be tempted to disassemble the mic and disconnect any wires connected to the hanger button.

(I know my vertex mics have a ground wire to the mic button it uses to detect "on hook" for scanning...when one wouldn't scan, I traced it down to that ground wire being broken)

[WRWL705]

Thank you for your reply. Greatly appreciate!

 

Yes I took the microphone apart, and it does have a ground lead. I Disconnected it, and everything works great, just like it should.

The lead has 2.3 volts on it.  I don't know what it's for, and  I wonder why  the microphone would be wired this way? After all it came from the factory like this.  If you come across anything or hear anything about this please let me know. It would be greatly appreciate.

[wayoverthere]

1 hour ago, WRWL705 said:

Thank you for your reply. Greatly appreciate!

 

Yes I took the microphone apart, and it does have a ground lead. I Disconnected it, and everything works great, just like it should.

The lead has 2.3 volts on it.  I don't know what it's for, and  I wonder why  the microphone would be wired this way? After all it came from the factory like this.  If you come across anything or hear anything about this please let me know. It would be greatly appreciate.

Glad it helped! I haven't seen anything in the settings on my x1 that indicated a need for the mic button to be grounded; the only setting I've seen on anything that used it was the Vertex LMR radios, which stop scanning when you take the mic out of the holder.

(Its kind of nice have it scan, and ever stop on the current  channel or back you what you set as "primary" when you pick up the mic)

[WRVR303]

On an old Mororola mic I was messing with a few months ago,I found a voltage present on the "button" on the back of the mike, that slips into the mic clip. When shorted by being in the clip, the radio would scan, and when open it would stop scanning and park on the last used channel. The current from the button was just a few milliamps.

 

[WRQC527]

I'm going to take a guess here that the microphone for this radio is a clone of a for-reals Kenwood microphone, since it looks identical. I had a comercial Kenwood TK-something-or-other that had the same feature. When you hang up the microphone on a grounded clip it trips a scan circuit. Most likely,  Btech has no such circuit, and for that matter they're not even expecting anyone to screw that clip into anything metal. Or some manufacturer is just cloning that microphone with zero regard to what that extra wire even does.

[axorlov]

Commercial radios have the on- and off-hook behavior programmable in the software. Very often off-hook is programmed to monitor (i.e. squelch off, tone off), that gives the operator a second-two to monitor before transmitting. But it can be programmed to many other functions, home channel, off-scan, etc.

[WRWL705]

Thanks everyone  for all the info!   I wonder why other people who have bought this radio, (BTECH GMRS-5050V2) haven't  said anything about this problem? I'm sure I'm not the first to notice ? Any thoughts on this?

[wayoverthere]

1 hour ago, WRWL705 said:

Thanks everyone  for all the info!   I wonder why other people who have bought this radio, (BTECH GMRS-5050V2) haven't  said anything about this problem? I'm sure I'm not the first to notice ? Any thoughts on this?

Perhaps something changed in the wiring with the move to the V2? I had the metal mic clip mounted on the side of the radio/mount and didn't see any issues with my x1.

[KAF6045]

4 hours ago, WRWL705 said:

Thanks everyone  for all the info!   I wonder why other people who have bought this radio, (BTECH GMRS-5050V2) haven't  said anything about this problem? I'm sure I'm not the first to notice ? Any thoughts on this?

They may have microphone hangers that are only in plastic panels -- not through to metal and hence not "grounded".

[WRQC527]

6 hours ago, WRWL705 said:

Thanks everyone  for all the info!   I wonder why other people who have bought this radio, (BTECH GMRS-5050V2) haven't  said anything about this problem? I'm sure I'm not the first to notice ? Any thoughts on this?

I have that same style of microphone on a Juentai JT-6188 (a no-longer-marketed clone of the QYT KT-8900). I took it apart to do some mods to get better audio. I didn't see the metal tang on the hanger screw. Mayhaps their microphone suppliers aren't very consistent and some microphones have it, some don't. With so many clones and knock-offs of radios and microphones, it's hard to know what you're getting. Plus, with all the plastic in cars, the odds of screwing into metal are diminishing. Which means maybe some folks might not have that type of microphone, or they do and they don't know it.

[wayoverthere]

11 hours ago, WRQC527 said:

 Mayhaps their microphone suppliers aren't very consistent and some microphones have it, some don't.

 

On 4/17/2023 at 5:21 PM, WRQC527 said:

I'm going to take a guess here that the microphone for this radio is a clone of a for-reals Kenwood microphone, since it looks identical..(snip) Or some manufacturer is just cloning that microphone with zero regard to what that extra wire even does.

I think you're probably pretty close to the mark. I dug out the mic for my 50x1 and opened it up, and while it does have the little tang inside, it's not connected to anything.