Radio lights up but nothing else

The RX light should light up when receiving a signal. It may be your squelch setting is too high. Push the VOL knob until it enters the squelch setting, then set the squelch so it just cancels noise. If still not working you could have a wire broken in connector from headset that plugs into the radio.

sounds like the PA has failed, I would have the radio shop serviced

The VX 160's may have bad oscillators. It is not user repairable. The simple thing to check are the antennas. Vertex radios are very susceptible to broken antennas and will not transmit. This is true of Uhf and Vhf. Replace one and try it on all the radios. Never transmit without a antenna. It can cause the PA in the radios to fail.

Three things come to mind:
1) The radio is receiving, hence the light, but you may have a different PL code than the other radio and it is muting the transmission. Check your programming to be certain both radios are programmed alike. The red light indicates activity on your frequency.
2) Your radio may have a problem with the receive side of the radio or a bad speaker.
3) The transmitting radio may have a problem with transmit. This can be a sign of a bad battery. Swap batteries and see if the problem moves to the other radio. If so, replace the battery. (It takes more energy to transmit than to receive, so loss of transmit is common with a bad battery.)
Best regards.

• Anything could have happened. More than likely it took some "front end" damage. Do you get any transmit? Receive? Lights. When a PA speaker is hooked up and the CB set to PA do you hear any response? If yes then the voice chip is probably good. You may open the cover and see if anything looks like it came loose. Really there needs to be some testing done on a scope.

• If you have any comments please feel free to leave them here.
• Hope this helps and thank you for using FixYa.

Regards, Tony

look into buying a new radio. If you had researched further you would have found out that unless you are on cb your radio will not operate . If you are on PA the you can only transmit through the PA system not the cb. If you changed the audio IC then you probably did a cold solder on it. You need an external speaker to operate the pa mode and an external speaker to operate the CB mode .If you decide to fix it more it will cost you more then buying a new radio.

make sure the RF gain is all the way up, and the dynamic is all the way up or most of the way up.

When you say the antenna is good, have you checked the SWR's and or have tuned the antenna to be the correct length for the radio? If this has not been done ever, your radio could be a brick.

Also, make sure the PA/CB switch is on CB. if its on PA(public address) it will not receive or transmit because it is on PA mode, which if you have one hooked up, a PA speaker, then you can talk to people through it out side your car.

Also, make sure the S/RF SWR CAL switch, its the first one on the left, is all the way up on S/RF. this is your signal/ receive setting for the meter. When you hold the key, does this needle swing forward? As well does the RX/TX light turn red? If it does, then the radio is transmitting.

There is another light on the radio under the TX/RX light. It is the Antenna warning light. If this light comes on when you transmit, or has come on all the time during transmit, and now it doesn't then the radio is a brick. That is a warning light. It means that the antenna is not matched, or has not been tuned to the radio. If this has not been done ever, you have killed the radio.

Here is why. When you transmit, you are sending off a radio wave. This radio wave, at 27mhz, is about 36 feet long. In order for the wave to radiate off the antenna, the length of the antenna has to match the length of the radio wave. Now it does not have to be a full 36 feet. It can be an exact multiple of 36 feet. In other words it can be 1/4( one quarter) or 5/8(five eights) of a wave in length. 1/4 of a wave is 108 inches, or 9 feet long. Your antenna is still probably does not seem 9 feet long, but there is usually a loading coil that is not exposed making up the rest of the length of antenna, so that it matches the length of the radio waves electrically. If you were to stretch the coil out with the antenna whip, it would be 9 feet long.

When the antenna does not match the wave length, part of the RF energy does not leave the antenna, and goes back down the feed line(coax) and hits the transmit transistor. Prolonged reflection to the transmit transistor, otherwise known as the final will blow it out. As well depending on how bad the length was off, the more off, the more reflect energy, the more RF energy you are blasting back into the radio, and this causes more things then just the transmit to blow out. Some time the receive goes along with it when it finally goes.

So if the RF gain is up all the way, which by the way is basically how much receive you have, and there really is no reason to have it down at all, and the CB/PA switch is on CB and the needle does not swing forward when its on the S/RF setting, chances are that the radio is now no good.

It is fixable, but if there are no CB shops near you then you will have to send it out. And Cobra will not cover this under warranty because its stated in their warranty that they do not cover damage due to high SWR.

Take the cover off,you will need a vom-ohm meter,check the final and regulator,if the led light is working, then its not the keying transistor,check D77,under the mike plug, original #MA27T, the sub is NTE-605A varistor. Also check the mike plug,see if pa works. ..hope this helps..

IF YOU CAN RECIEVE THAT IS A VERY GOOD SIGN THAT YOUR SWR MATCH IS OFF....I DONT KNOW IF YOU MATCHED UP YOUR RADIO WITH YOUR ANT.IF NOT YOU CAN BUY A CHEAP SWR METER @ RADIO SHACK...CHECK THAT YOUR COAX CABLE IS OK TRY TO REPLACE THE COAX......GOOD LUCK

i know this may sound stupid. I can not tell you how many times a radio came into the shop with this problem.try this make shure that the cb/pa switch is on cb not PA.