Puxing PX-UV973 Tips And Hints For Eyes-Free Operation

Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV, buddy@brannan.name
Last Updated: 5 March 2014

The Puxing PX-UV973 is an inexpensive dualband handheld radio, operating on the Amateur 2M and 70CM bands. It actually covers 136-174 MHz and 400-480 MHz and is certified for FCC Part 90 commercial use. These radios may be of interest to blind hams, since (unlike more expensive radios from the big three manufacturers) Puxing has managed to implement limited speech feedback for many functions. While we would wish for more, such as voice confirmation of frequency, CTCSS/DCS settings, and so on, this radio provides a very usable alternative to other, more expensive handhelds from the traditional manufacturers. 

Please feel free to distribute this document. please send additions, corrections, or modifications to me via Email to buddy@brannan.name
Thanks.

Attaching the Battery

The battery attaches to the back of the transceiver, much like many modern handhelds. 

With the transceiver face down, line the battery up so that the battery latches are at the top of the transceiver. When the bottom of the battery is securely fit into the bottom of the transceiver, push down toward the top of the transceiver until the latches snap into place.  There are two latches, one on each side, that hold the battery in place. 

Each battery also comes with a belt clip, which is not attached. Simply slide it down so tha the clip fits into the grooves on the back of the battery near the top. You may find it easier to squeeze the top of the belt clip open slightly to make the clip fit more easily. 

Orientation

Stand the radio up with the keypad facing you. Naturally, the keypad will be the front of the radio, and we will discuss it in this orientation.

On the top, from left to right, you will find the on/off/volume knob, the channel selector knob, and the antenna jack. The antenna jack is a male SMA type.

The left side, from top to bottom, has the PTT switch and two buttons, which appear to do exactly the same thing. Their function is set with computer programming software. By default, these buttons act as a “monitor” switch. If either of these buttons is held for a second, the squelch will open until the button is released. Behind the PTT switch, you will find the left battery release latch.

The right side contains the speaker/mic jacks, which is also where you connect the computer programming cable. These jacks are under a cover. To open the cover, pull the  cover open with your thumbnail. Behind this cover, you will find the right-hand battery release latch, directly across from the one on the left.

Of course, the front of the transceiver is where most of our attention will be focused. At the top of the front panel is a fairly large speaker grille. The speaker grille also includes the microphone. Below the speaker and microphone is the LCD display, and below the LCD is the control keypad.

The keypad is a little unusual. It has 16 keys: a row of four at the top, and a group of 12 keys below those, laid out like a traditional telephone keypad. The keys are labeled as follows:

The top keys, left to right, are “Menu”, “Enter”, “VFO/MR”, and “A/B”. These send the A, B, C, and D touch tones if pressed while transmitting.

The 12 keys below the top four are set up like a traditional telephone style keypad and send their corresponding digits. The digit keys are labeled with their shortcut menu functions, while the * and # keys are labeled “Lock” and “TR”, respectively. The “Lock” key, if held down for a second,  will lock the keypad, the PTT, the tuning knob, or combinations of these, depending on the “Lock” menu setting. The TR key, if held down for a second, will operate the reverse function, which swaps the transmit and receive frequencies so you can, for example, listen to the input of a repeater. Pressing the TR key momentarily calls up a one-touch memory channel. (This means there are 129 channels in total.) Here are the labels for the number pad buttons:

1: SCAN
2: PRI 
3: VOX  
4: POW 
5, SQL.  
6: SCR   
7: LED  
8: BEEP  
9: VOICE
*: LOCK
0: ANI 
#: TR

Turning the PX-UV973 On

To turn the PX-UV973 on, turn the power/volume knob to the right until it clicks on. You will hear two beeps if keypad beeps are enabled, followed by a power on announcement if the voice prompts are enabled. If the radio is in Channel Mode (as opposed to Frequency mode), you will also hear the word “Channel” followed by the current channel number. . 

The PX-UV973 has true dual receive. That means you can listen to two channels at the same time. Unfortunately, it is difficult to know which band is active at any given time. One thing you can do to help this situation is to set the volume level of one band significantly lower than the other. By default, both bands are set to maximum volume. Set one band to a lower volume, say, 4 out of 15, while leaving the other at maximum volume.  This will be covered later. 

Resetting To Factory Defaults

You may find yourself in a situation where you’ve gotten your PX-UV973 into an unknown state, or forgotten how something was set. In this case, you can set all settings back to a factory fresh state. While it is possible to completely erase all memory channels as well by selecting a different option from the menu that comes up during this procedure, the default option leaves all memory contents intact. 

	1)	While holding down the “Menu” key, turn the transceiver on.
	2)	Once you hear the power on announcement, release the “Menu” key.
	3)	Press the “Enter” key twice: once to select the reset option and a second time to confirm.
	4)	The transceiver will reboot speaking Chinese. Further, DTMF sidetone will be enabled, meaning you will hear your DTMF tones as you press them or transmit them.

Turning On the Voice Guide

Your PX-UV973 may have been shipped with the voice turned off, or, if you’ve reset it as above, it may be speaking Chinese. To turn the English voice prompts on, do the following:

	1)	Press the “Menu” key. 
	2)	Press the “9/VOICE” key.
	3)	Press the “Enter” key.
	4)	Press the “2/PRI” key.
	5)	Press the “Enter” key. The voice will prompt, “OK”.
	6)	Press the “VFO/MR” key to exit the menu. The voice will prompt, “Exit”.

Changing Channels Or Frequency

You can set the frequency by turning the selector knob, by using the up/down buttons, or by entering the frequency or channel number directly. Note that the numbers speak when pressed. Enter six digits for frequency, i.e. 146520 or 444100, and three digits for the channel number, i.e. 001, 024, or 114. When entering a frequency, the last digit will be rounded to the nearest channel step, depending on the step size set in the appropriate menu. Note that each VFO can have separate step sizes, offsets, and other default information stored for frequency mode. 

Setting Dual Receive

By default, dual receive is enabled. You can toggle this on and off by holding down the “A/B” key. Pressing the “A/B” key will have no effect if dual receive is off, but if dual receive is enabled, a press of the “A/B” key will toggle the active VFO, either A or B. There is, unfortunately, no audible way to know which VFO is active. This is why I recommend putting one band at a lower volume. 

If you don’t know whether dual receive is on or not, there are two easy way to check. 

	1)	Tune to an active channel, the NOAA weather radio station, for instance. 
	2)	Press the “A/B” key. 
	3)	If you hear a slight pause after the confirmation beep from the button press, dual receive is enabled. In that case, you’ll want to press the “A/B” key again to toggle back to the VFO in which you were working.

You will also know that dual receive is on by scrolling through the UV973’s menu. After the “Transmit tone” menu entry, there are several entries that only identify as “Select”. Several of these will only display if dual receive is on. Specifically, if dual receive is enabled, there are seven such menu choices; if dual receive is disabled, there are only four. 

Some perhaps earlier versions of the PX-UV973 will always return you to VFO A when dual receive is turned off. This was a reliable way of returning to a known state if you forgot where you were. However, not all versions of this transceiver do this, so it’s not something you can rely on. It may have been a “bug”, but it was a useful bug.

Programming Memories

Programming memories is fairly straightforward, although there are several steps to programming a channel completely. For a repeater channel, be sure you know the offset amount, the offset direction, and any CTCSS or DCS tones in use. 

While there are a lot of steps listed here to program a memory channel, don’t be discouraged by this. After setting up a couple of these, the process will become easier. Also, since the transceiver remembers the values for offset, offset direction, CTCSS/DCS setting, power, and bandwidth that were most recently used, you won’t have to set those up again unless you need different values than the ones you most recently used.

For making programming and navigation a little easier, I recommend programming standard offset values into each of the two VFO’s while in "Frequency" mode. To access both VFO’s, dual receive will need to be enabled. 

Note that, while I am calling them VFO’s, this isn’t strictly true. Either A or B can be set in VFO (Frequency) mode or in memory (Channel) mode. You can have one set in Frequency mode and one set in Channel mode, or both set in the same mode. However, they can’t strictly be called “bands” either, since both A and B can be freely set within the PX-UV973 frequency coverage.

To set the offset amount:

	1)	Press the “VFO/MR” key until the voice prompt says “Frequency mode”.
	2)	Press the “Menu” key. The voice will prompt, “Menu”.
	3)	Press the “Lock” key. The voice will prompt “Shift set”.
	4)	Click the selector knob one click to the right. The voice will prompt “Shift”.
	5)	Press the “Enter” key. The voice will prompt “Enter”.
	6)	Type in five digits for the offset amount. For 2 meters, this is usually going to be 00600 for 600 KHz. For 70 cm in the US, this will usually be 05000 for 5 MHz. .
	7)	Press the “Enter” key. The voice will prompt “OK”.
	8)	Press the “VFO/MR” key to exit the menu.
	9)	If dual receive is enabled, switch to the other VFO by pressing the “A/B” key and repeat, if desired. 

Now, you can easily program in repeater channels. Just remember which VFO you have which default offset programmed and put in your channels on that VFO. If you forget which band has which offset, you can easily just set the offset amount every time using the above steps.

To program in a channel:

	1)	Enter the desired frequency, either repeater output or simplex channel.
	2)	Press the “Menu” key. The voice will prompt, “Menu”.
	3)	Press the “Lock” key. The voice will prompt, “Shift set”.
	4)	Press the “Enter” key. The voice will prompt, “Enter”.
	5)	Select the appropriate offset either with the selector knob or numerically. Press 0 for no offset, 1 for a positive offset, and 2 for a negative offset. The voice will prompt “Off”, “Plus”, or “Minus” as appropriate.
	6)	Press the “Enter” key. The voice will prompt, “OK”.
	7)	Set DCS or CTCSS tones. See the section below for details.
	8)	When all channel parameters are set, press  the “VFO/MR”. The voice will prompt, “Exit”. 
	9)	If you make a mistake, back out to the previous step by pressing “VFO/MR”. The voice will prompt, “Exit”.
	10)	Once the channel is set up, press the “Menu” key. The voice will prompt, “Menu”.
	11)	Press the “VFO/MR” key. The voice will prompt, “Channel store”.
	12)	Type in a channel number. Use three digits, such as 001, 024, or 128.
	13)	Press the “VFO/MR” key. A long tone will sound followed by the voice prompt, “Store”.

Setting CTCSS And DCS

The PX-UV973 has the ability to set CTCSS and DCS tones for both transmit and receive. If a repeater channel both transmits and receives a CTCSS or DCS tone, it is possible to set this up easily in one place. If it transmits a different tone than it receives, it is also possible to set this up. Of course, this also means a channel can be set up to only transmit or only receive CTCSS or DCS. Most Amateur repeaters require that you transmit a tone to access them, but do not transmit a tone on their output. In most cases, therefore, it is probably advisable to leave the receive CTCSS or DCS off. In any case, all three menus work identically. If you run into a situation where you think you should be hearing a signal that you are not, ensure that both the “Receive/transmit CTCSS” and the “Receive CTCSS” options are turned off. If one is off and the other is not, your receiver will stay muted until it hears the tone it expects.

CTCSS and DCS settings are all grouped together in the menu. The first setting in the group, “Receive Transmit CTCSS”, sets both the receive (squelch) and transmit CTCSS or DCS tone to the same value. Find this quickly in the menu by pressing “Menu”, then “TR”. From here, you can press “Enter” to adjust this setting, or click the selector knob once to the right to adjust “Receive CTCSS”, and then again to adjust “Transmit CTCSS”. Remember that the last value used for all of these settings is stored in Frequency Mode for each VFO, so you must remember to disable those settings that will not be used.

All of these menus work the same, but for simplicity, we will use the “Receive Transmit CTCSS” menu option to illustrate how these settings work.

	1)	Press the “Menu” key. The voice will prompt, “Menu”.
	2)	Press the “TR” key. The voice will prompt, “Receive transmit CTCSS”.
	3)	Press the “Enter” key. The voice will prompt “Enter”.
	4)	At this point, you must select whether you want to disable all tones, set a CTCSS tone, or a DCS code. This setting is toggled by pressing the “Lock” key. There is no way to quickly know which setting is active. Thus, you have to try them all. 
	5)	Press the “Lock” key, followed by the number 1. If you hear a confirmation of the number “1” read back, either CTCSS or DCS is enabled. 
	6)	Press the “Lock” key again, followed by the “1” key. Again, if a number is echoed back, DCS or CTCSS is enabled. 
	7)	Repeat the above key presses until pressing the “1” key emits a higher pitched tone followed by the word “Error”. At this point, both CTCSS and DCS tones are disabled. 
	8)	The next press of “Lock” will enable CTCSS. The second press will enable DCS instead. With DCS enabled, the TR key will toggle form normal to inverted tones. Again, there’s no non-visual way to determine this setting.
	9)	Once you have DCS or CTCSS selected, simply type in the value for the tone you want. For instance, to select an 88.5 hz CTCSS tone, type 885. 
	10)	Press the “Enter” key. The voice will prompt, “OK”. 
	11)	Once your tones are set up for your channel, press the “VFO/MR” key. The voice will prompt, “Exit”.

Remember that the menu entries for “Receive” and “Transmit” CTCSS, one and two clicks to the right of the combined receive/transmit entry respectively, are set up exactly the same way.

Deleting A Memory Channel

Only one memory channel can be deleted at a time. To delete a memory:

	1)	Press the “VFO/MR” key until you are in channel mode. The display doesn’t matter, but this will not work if you’re in Frequency Mode.
	2)	Turn the transceiver off.
	3)	While holding down the VFO/MR key, turn the transceiver on.
	4)	Enter the memory channel to delete.
	5)	Press the “Enter” key twice. The first press will be silent. The voice will prompt, “Delete” upon the second press.

Changing Between VFO And Memory Modes

You can easily switch between memory (Channel) mode and VFO (Frequency) mode simply by pressing the “VFO/MR” key. This key toggles between three different channel mode displays and Frequency Mode. The voice will prompt, “Channel mode” three times, one each showing various configurations of channel number, frequency, and channel name if a name was set for the channel. The only difference in the three “Channel mode” announcements is how the channels are displayed; there is no functional difference.

Adjusting Menu Options

The first ten menu options can be accessed directly from the keypad with their corresponding shortcut keys. Simply press one of these keys followed by the “Enter” key. For instance, to change power levels, press these keys in order: “Menu”, “4/Power”, “Enter, then 0 or 1 for the desired power level”. The Lock key is a shortcut to the “Shift set” menu, while the TR key is a shortcut to the “Receive transmit CTCSS” menu. All menu options can be accessed with the rotary selector knob. 

Fortunately, menu navigation can be accomplished fairly quickly by selecting the nearest shortcut and then using the selector knob to reach the desired option. The selected menu is not active until the “Enter” key is pressed.

Note that in channel mode, menu options to adjust offset amount, offset direction, and CTCSS/DCS values are unavailable. If dual receive is turned off, options to set full duplex receive, crossband repeat, and volume level are unavailable. 

Once a menu option is selected for adjustment, that option can be adjusted directly from the keypad with numbers starting at 0. Also, many of these settings, just like many of the menus themselves, will speak their settings. Not all of them do, but many of them do. The ones that do not speak their settings are still adjustable directly from the keypad. 

For example, navigate to the “Step” menu and press the “Enter” key. The settings for this menu range from 2.5 KHz (0) to 100 KHz )7). .

Below is a listing of all menus and their corresponding options. Where warranted and available, clarification of that menu's use is also listed. Again, please note that only menus 1 through 10 (with 10 being represented by 0) are accessible by their corresponding digit keys. Menus 15 and 17 are directly accessed with */Lock and #/TR, respectively.

1: SCAN (Channel Scan) 
2: PRI (Priority Channel Scan) 
3: VOX (VOX Ssensitivity); 0: OFF; 1-9 for increasing levels of VOX sensitivity. 
4: POW (Transmit Power; )0: Low ;1: High
5: SQL (Squelch setting); 0: Off; 1-9 for increasing squelch
6: SCRM (Scrambler); 0: off; 1- for eight scrambler groups..
7: LIGHT (Backlight color); 0: Blue; 1: Orange; 2: Purple.
8: BEEP ( Beep tone); 0: Off; 1: on 
9 VOICE (Voice prompts, the voice prompt says "Tone"); 0: off; 1: Chinese; 2: English 
10 ANI (ANI code); 0: OFF; 1: BOT; 2: EOT; 3: both BOT and EOT. 
11: KEYBO(Keypad lock); 0: Manual; 1: Auto
12: TOT (Time out timer); 0: Off; 1-9 from 30 to 270 seconds in 30-second increments.
13: SCANS (Scan selection) 	
CO (Carrier operated); TO; (Tinmed/stops on active channel for 5 seconds): SE (Seek, stops scan on an active channel)
14: N/W: (Channel bandwidth); 0: Narrow; 1: Wide
15: SHIFT (Repeater shift); 0: off; 1: Plus; 2: Minus
16: OFFSET (Repeater offset); 0-42.000 (VHF) 0-80.000 (UHF) 
17: C-CDC (Receive/Transmit CTCSS and DCS); Off, CTCSS 67.0-254.1, DCS D023-D754 (see the section on setting CTCSS and DCS)
18: R-CDC (Receive CTCSS or DCS)
19: T-CDC (Transmit CTCSS or DCS)
20: Step (Frequency step); 0: 2.5K; 1: 5K; 2: 6.25K; 3: 10K; 4: 12.5K; 5: 25K; 6: 50K; 7: 100K
21: CTC.s (CTCSS scan)
22: DCS.S (DCS Scan)
23: LED (Backlight setting); 0: Off; 1: On; 2: Auto
24: Roger (TX End Tone/Roger Beep); 0: Off; 1-10
25: DW (Dual watch/monitor FM radio and transceiver); 0: Off; 1: On
26: Lock (Locking mode); 0: Keypad+Selector knob; 1: PTT; 2: Keypad; 3: All
27: Save (Battery save): 0: Off; 1: On (save ratio is set with programming software)
28: Volume (Adjust volume for current VFO)
29: TX.SEL (TX response selection); 0: fixed (on the selected VFO); 1: CALLIN (band with activity is active)
30: RPT (Repeater mode); 0: Off; 1: On
31: DUPLEX (Duplex mode, full dual receive even while transmitting); 0: Off; 1: On
32: ScanAdd (Add/remove channels from scan); 0: Add; 1: Delete
33: Name (Channel name)