Learn your radio
Signal strength
Bars showing how strong the signal you're receiving is.
Signal strength
Signal strength
Bars showing how strong the signal you're receiving is.
Battery
Remaining charge. When it runs low the icon empties and flashes — time to recharge.
Channel number
The channel you're on, 1–16. Press [CH], then ▲ / ▼ to change it.
Auto power-save (S)
Battery-saver is on: the receiver micro-sleeps between checks when idle, and the S blinks while it's dozing. It wakes the instant a signal arrives.
Transmit time-out (TOT)
A single continuous transmission is capped, then forced back to receive, so a stuck PTT can't hog the channel.
Auto power-off (APO)
The radio switches itself off after a set idle time to save the battery.
Squelch (SQL)
How strong a signal must be before the speaker opens. Higher levels mute weak, noisy signals.
Scanning (SCAN)
The radio is sweeping channels for activity. Hold [P1] about 2 s to start; press [P2] to stop.
Function menu (F)
This icon shows you're in the function menu — press [P2] to open it, then step through F1–F10.
Dual Watch (DW)
The radio is monitoring two channels at once — your current channel plus a second watched channel.
VOX
Hands-free transmit: the radio keys up when it hears your voice. Sensitivity is set in F4.
Tone call
The radio can send an alert tone before you talk to get others' attention.
Keypad tone
The confirmation beep on each key press is switched on.
Volume
Appears while you set the level with ▲ / ▼.
Keypad lock
The keys are locked against accidental presses. Hold [CH] about 1.5 s to lock or unlock; PTT, Monitor, power and backlight still work.
Scrambler
Voice-inversion scrambling — both radios must match to understand each other. Note: scrambling isn't permitted on licence-free PMR-446.