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I was one of the "early adopters" of the KG1000 and it has been my main radio in my Jeep for about 3 years now.  The KG1000G has always had some issues (had to replace one radio early on because of mic gain issues and static/popcorn that would not go away).   But the issue have started to become obvious defects and I'm hoping that perhaps a firmware update or something like that might make the radio function properly.  The latest two issues are as follows:

1. Normally I run with Channel 15 (with tones) on the A side of the radio and Channel 17 with tones on the B Side (our club uses these are our A and B channels).   While on GMRS channel 15 (462.550) or 17 (462.600) on the A-side of the radio (these are the only two tested), there is constant bleed-over from FRS channel 1 (462.5625).  Every time some kid on a walkie talkie starts sqwawking (or there is a blast of interference on that frequency like in my video as I was sitting in an In-n-Out drive-through), it breaks the squelch on my radio and stomps over whatever legitimate traffic is on my selected frequency.  The display will even briefly indicate "GMRS-01" while the interference is happening.   This does NOT happen on the B side of the radio.  I have tried adjusting the squelch up and down and it makes no difference.  This makes the radio nearly unusable and I have to shut off the A side of the radio and only use the B side.

2. On both the A and B sides of the radio, regardless of what frequency or channel I am using, ALL broadcasts received will "clip" a few seconds into the transmission (drop out so I cannot hear for about 1 to 2 seconds).  If I am running an HT right next to the KG1000-G it will NOT exhibit this problem, so I know for certain that the issue is the KG1000 itself.  I can reproduce this issue at will by having another radio make a broadcast longer than about 10-15 seconds.  I have also tested with my DB20-G and it does not have this problem while running trails with my group.

Do either of these issues sound familiar to anyone, and if so is there a firmware update to address the issue?   I don't know what the warranty period is on this radio, but it looks like I'm coming up on the 3 year mark of owning it.   (honestly based on my experience with this radio I'm not sure I can continue to recommend it!). Maybe I just got a buggy one but its been problematic throughout its lifetime with me...  

Buytwowayradio has always provided great support - I hope there is an easy fix to this issue so I don't have to replace the KG1000 in my main vehicle with my cheapie backup radio (which never has problems!)
 

11 answers to this question

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Posted

That sucks.  Hope it’s an easy fix and an isolated issue.  Many of our club members run this and like them.  
. This is why I personally won’t run radios that cost more than about $200.  If/when something starts to go wrong I just toss them and buy a new one.  However I’ve never actually had that happen. All my “cheap”mobiles and base units are still running strong.  Many of them for many years.  

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Posted
34 minutes ago, WRXP381 said:

That sucks.  Hope it’s an easy fix and an isolated issue.  Many of our club members run this and like them.  
. This is why I personally won’t run radios that cost more than about $200.  If/when something starts to go wrong I just toss them and buy a new one.  However I’ve never actually had that happen. All my “cheap”mobiles and base units are still running strong.  Many of them for many years.  

Yea, I'm swapping this radio out for a $90 Radioddity DB20-G that has always performed really well.  Once unlocked it has almost the features of the KG1000 (and no noisy fan).  I hope I can get the KG1000 radio working properly and re-install it because there have been situations where it definitely outperforms the Radioddity DB20 and DB25 units I have.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

None of that sounds good, and the warranty is 1 year..

On a brighter note, the KG-1000G PLUS will make a great replacement!

If these radios are "disposable" after 3 years, I'd probably rather spend $150 versus $400 and go with a Radioddity or Btech.   In my usage the benefits of this radio are outweighed by the issues I've had with it (and its high cost).  Honestly I have used the Radioddity DB20 ($90 radio) as my "base camp" radio for a couple of years (along with a 30' mast).  It gets battered and is exposed to the elements while camped (I mag-mount it to the rear "galley" of my camp trailer exterior while camped) and it has never let me down and always works, never exhibiting the weird glitches the KG1000 seems to exhibit.  It just "works"...

 

 

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Posted

It looks like there might be a cause to this.  However I am still testing and investigating, as it doesn't adequately address the "dropout" problem.  I just looked at my saved codeplug and PRICH-SW is OFF but on the radio it was ON. I also see that PRI-CH is set to 001 (which is GMRS-01 on my radio). What must be happening is that I inadvertently turned on priority scan and that by default it was set to memory slot 001 so any time a signal was received on 001 (GMRS-1) it would break through my normal channel. However, there only seems to be one PRICH-SW setting (not separate for the A & B sides), yet I was only having this issue on the A side of the radio and not the B side.  Maybe it only works on the A side?

 

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Posted

Love my KG-1000G Plus (and UV-980P), but these radios, and most VHF/UHF transceivers, can not be considered good scanners. None of them scan very fast when compared to a Uniden-type scanner.

Not turning PRICH-SW "ON" is probably a good idea. Another suggestion is to turn the receive PL tones off. Some people may disagree with this suggestion, but "scanning" does seem to be less frustrating -- to me -- if there are no receive PL tones in a scan group. 

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Posted

Thanks.  I generally don't scan frequencies unless I'm cruising the highway and bored and want to listen to field workers, warehouse forklift operators, and kids on walkie talkies.  I had no intention of having PRICH-SW on (in fact I'd programmed it off) but I must have fat-fingered the keypad at some point and changed the setting over the weekend. 

Additional testing seems to indicate that this was the source of both issues, so chalk this one up to "User Error"...

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