VHS Radio intermittently switching to weather band

[Grec]

I have a Lowrance Link-8 VHS radio. We generally leave it on channel 16 whenever we are on the water, because you never know who could be in trouble close to your location. Over our many years of boating, there have been a few occasions when we were the first to arrive at a scene and lend assistance.

As usual last weekend, we were monitoring channel 16 when suddenly the radio began broadcasting the Weather Band instead. The digital readout on the radio still said "16", but we were getting the local marine forecast; and where the GPS coordinates are normally displayed, it said "No GPS Input".

I switched down to channel 15 and then back up to 16 and the radio began operating normally again, and displaying the GPS coordinates. Then, about 10 minutes later it repeated the scenario, broadcasting the weather again while still displaying Ch 16 in the display.

This time, instead of dropping down to channel 15, I toggled the Wx switch on the radio. Doing that also returned it to operating normally.

This same thing happened 5 - 6 times over a two hour period. Has anyone had this happen to them?

Is it time to scrap the radio?

 

[Fill Ess]

I'm not sure how yours works exactly, but on the Ray215 it has dual and "tri watch" modes where it will keep switching back to the weather channel. So possibly yours is stuck in watch mode? When it switches over to weather, are you getting a tone? I never use it but to get out of the tri watch mode, 16/9 is supposed to exit that mode.

 

[b_arrington]

Some radios have the ability to switch to the weather station if it detects a weather alert signal. See if yours is set to do that.

 

[Grec]

I had thought about that because it does have that feature. But the weather was fine with no alerts. 75 degrees, winds were 5 - 10, no storms in the forecast.

 

[Skybolt]

I had thought about that because it does have that feature. But the weather was fine with no alerts. 75 degrees, winds were 5 - 10, no storms in the forecast.

To Brads point, I believe the alerts will go off for all of the channels available to your area(with in reception range), even though they may not be for your immediate area.

 

[Grec]

So it would start broadcasting my local weather (where there was no weather alert) because some other location had a weather alert - even if it wouldn't affect my area? That seems like more of a hazard than a help.

What if you were dealing with an emergency on channel 16? A thunderstorm 50 or 100 miles away might trigger it to suddenly switch you over to the weather band just to tell you that the seas in your area are 1 foot or less and the winds are 5 knots out of the SW?

That just doesn't seem right.

 

[hughespat57]

It should not change on its own according to the manual.

"If TONE ALERT is ON and an alert tone of 1050 Hz is broadcast from the NOAA weather
station, the weather alert is picked up automatically and the alarm sounds. Press any key to
cancel the alarm and to hear the weather alert message."

Since you lost GPS display also I would suspect another issue.
Check all the soft keys and see if any are cracked or failing and letting moisture in the key pads.
If it continues not much your going to be able to do except replace it, mail in repair may be available if it's a flat rate.