Rocky Talkie FRS transmitting to Garmin Rino 755t

[WRMN491]

Hello, new to the forum. Using a Garmin Rino 755t and a Rocky Talkie FRS. The Garmin GMRS/FRS transmits very well to the Rocky Talkie but not the others way around.

I have to turn the volume up on the Garmin and the received transmission volume is still too low. I have checked the CT and DSC codes and all match. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help.

[OffRoaderX]

Just a pure guess, but the Rocky Talkie is probably transmitting at Narrowband.. See if there is an option to change it to WIDEband (probably isn't), or see if there is an option on the Garmin to switch to narrowband.

[WRUU653]

1 hour ago, OffRoaderX said:

Just a pure guess

But a pretty good one. 

[rijim19]

There is also a power difference. The Garmin is a 5 watt max radio, and the Rocky is a 2 watt max. Both radios use only 0.5 watts and narrow bandwidth on channels 8-14. Do a test using one of those channels and see if the reception if the same in both directions.

 

[WRMN491]

Thank you all. Rocky Talkie customer support replied as well and stated this:

"Thanks so much for reaching out! I'm really sorry to hear about this issue you are experiencing while communicating between radio brands. I think this could be an issue of a mismatch between the transmitting volume settings of the Rocky Talkie and the other brands involved here. There is no clear industry standard for the volume, and we chose our settings based on the quality of audio. Unfortunately, a lot of brands increase their microphone gain quite a bit to make sure the volume is loud at the cost of audio quality. That said, we know this can be annoying for our customers, so we have plans to make some adjustments for future versions to solve this issue. Apologies that we don't have those updated versions for you just yet. In the meantime, if you use an external mic, often the mics are more sensitive than the Rocky's internal mic, so your volume on the other side will be increased! Rocky Talkie radios are compatible with any dual-pin 3.5mm-2.5mm (Kenwood "K1" type) accessories. We released our very own Waterproof Hand Mic that’s fully sealed and does bump up the volume of your transmissions! I hope that something like this could be a good solution for you!"

I also tried channels 8-14 with the Garmin set at .5 watts which was a great suggestion but did not help. My BTech ext. spk/mic helped slightly but not enough without turning the volume completely up on the Garmin. 

Thanks again for your help.

 

 

[timclark82]

My Garmin Rino 755t HTs are very quiet. Initially I thought it was a wideband>narrowband issue, but the FCC docs for the 755t show that it is narrowband-only. I really only use the Rinos for texting and sending location data to hunting partners so it doesn't bother me much. When I try to use it in a noisy environment I have to put the speaker pretty close to my ear. They "support" BT so you may have luck pairing a Bluetooth headset to the Rino.

[WRMN491]

Thank you Tim for that confirmation.