Longview Hills @ Newport Oregon

The Longview Hills Neighborhood Watch Radio Network has a problem.......

Hello folks,

I am Ron Thomas one of the volunteers that monitors our Neighborhood Watch Radio network 24 hours a day. It normally is not a big deal at all. There are not that many things going on in our little community and everybody respects that by not transmitting very much at all. Now that is very important to the those few volunteers that listen around the clock, that silence.

Say you are one of those volunteer listeners and late at night or in the early morning hours someone keys (pushes the transmit button on their radio) .... The listener will hear a loud beep.. it's loud enough to bring you out of a deep sleep.

This is happening all the time at all hours over the last few days. The result? Well one of our listener's told me that they have turned the radio off so that they can get some sleep... It won't take much and our volunteers will simply tune out. Then we will have no night time coverage. A big loss for the community.

There is a way that this could be happening quite innocently. Let's just assume that one of us doesn't know this is happening and is not doing it on purpose. How could that be? Well turns out there is a feature on all our radios that will cause this. Let me explain how it works. How you can test if you are the person causing this and remain anonymous. Then fix the problem. Personally, I don't think the person is doing this on purpose.

Here is what logic tells me about our person of interest... The person is probably hard of hearing because several of us have called to the person when the problem starts up and we get no answer while the problem continues.

Now here is the possible problem..... There is a feature on everyone's FRS radio called VOX (Voice only transmit). Stop and look at your radio right now (you will need your glasses or magnifying device). The screen that has everything written on it will show your channel selected which is 6.16. Most important... on that screen will be the very tiny letters that say VOX if you are the one that is causing the problem. Now don't be fooled because you know about vox because it can be accidentally activated.. Check anyhow. Here is a test that I want all of you to do.. if your radio has been on the last few days. Hold the radio close to your face and say, "testing", three times BUT DO NOT PUSH THE TRANSMIT BUTTON. If your radio is on vox it will transmit automatically when you start talking. We will be listening. We will respond back to you and tell you that your radio is transmitting in VOX mode and one of us will show you how to take it off .... simple... Just don't assume that you know all about vox and not do the test... Do it now... please.