Radio Anomoly

[R. Johnson]

Something kind of weird, don't know if anyone will really be interested. Anyway, I decided that I wanted to mess around with amateur radio a little so I've been studying for the technician exam (I'll be taking it next week). In the mean time I got a cheap little Baofeng hand held radio to play with and listen to repeaters until I get my license. A neat little radio, it can tune a lot of frequencies outside of what is legal for a ham to use. It can even tune the FRS frequencies, even though you can't legally use this radio to transmit on those freqs. Anyhow, I programmed the FRS freqs into my radio just because I can monitor them if nothing else. What's weird is that someone is constantly breaking squelch on what would be FRS channel 5. Squelch breaks about once a second and has been for days. I live down here on the south end of Norman near the 77/ 9 interchange. Has anyone else noticed it? Are the black helicopters coming for us all??? Perhaps the low men in yellow coats? All kidding aside, I'm kind of curious why it is...

 

[SMS]

Does it go away if you adjust the squelch? Probably interference from a nearby transmitter...either direct or harmonic.

 

[R. Johnson]

So I turned squelch up to the max and still hear it. I'm very curious. It doesn't bother me, I just wanna know what it is.

 

[kd5rjz]

You're probably dealing with intermod. Keep in mind the Baofengs have about the cheapest and crappiest design possible. They are an ok backup or extra radio for a ham that understands the downsides of using bad gear, but you will frustrate yourself to death trying to use one as a new ham.

 

[ronny]

Could be first contact. Don't screw it up.

 

[Sanford]

Side lobe of the NWO beacon from Tinker to Ada.

 

[Poke78]

Those things have horrible internal "birdies" and it happens even on frequencies they are supposed to be designed to work, i.e. the ham bands. They make the Mannford UHF link system repeater unusable on 442.000.

 

[SMS]

Side lobe of the NWO beacon from Tinker to Ada.

NWO Beacon to Ada?

 

[R. Johnson]

So I got to wondering if the problem was in the radio itself and dug out an old FRS walkie talkie to see if it was catching the same signal. I tuned up channel five, and lo and behold, there it is. I'm thinking of making a game of trying to locate it. I shouldn't be as interested as I am in it, but I can't help it.

 

[dennishoddy]

Get out the old radio beacon locator and follow it to the source. LOL. Good luck.