How to Program a TM-V71A — Step by Step

Kenwood's plain analog dual bander, and one of the most common rigs on a dash bracket anywhere. Hard keys for the things you change while driving, an F layer on top of them, and a three-digit menu you reach by turning the tuning knob.

This page covers: Kenwood TM-V71A, Kenwood TM-V71E. They share the same firmware, so the steps below are identical on all of them whatever name is printed on the front.

What you can do on this radio

• Save a repeater to a memory channel
• Set the transmit tone (CTCSS / PL)
• Set the receive tone
• Set the offset direction and amount
• Set the squelch
• Change the transmit power
• Listen on the repeater's input
• Name a memory channel
• Delete a memory channel
• Turn off the roger beep
• Turn off the voice announcements
• Turn off dual watch
• Lock the keypad
• Factory reset

Save a repeater to a memory channel on a TM-V71A

A memory channel on this radio is a photograph of whatever the VFO is showing at the moment you press MR. So you build the whole thing in VFO mode first — frequency, direction, amount, tone — and only then write it into a channel number. Build it in that order and the channel comes out complete. Store it early and you get a channel that looks right on the screen and will not key the repeater.

1. Press the BAND SEL control for the band you want to work on, then press VFO.BAND SEL›VFOThe screen should show: An arrow marks the band you are on, and the channel number goes away.Everything below acts on the band that arrow is against. The left BAND SEL control selects band A and the right one selects band B.
2. Rotate the Tuning control to the repeater's output frequency.dial → the output frequencyThe screen should show: Your frequency.Watch out. There is a microphone shortcut for this, but it is not switched on out of the box: Kenwood's frequency direct entry page says one of the microphone PF keys must first be programmed as ENTER, and none of the four arrives that way. Menus 509 to 512 are where you would do it.
3. Press F then REV until the offset sign you want appears.F›REVThe screen should show: Nothing, then +, then −, then nothing again.That is the direction the repeater listens, relative to where it talks. No sign at all means simplex.
4. Open menu 400, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item, rotate to the offset amount and press the Tuning control again to save it, then press F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›400 OFFSET›Tuning control›dial → the offset in MHz›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: OFFSET, with a figure in megahertz.Watch out. Come all the way out before the next step. Inside the menu a bare TONE press is the BACK key, not the Tone function — F is what leaves. Most people never touch this item anyway: the radio already defaults to 600 kHz on 144 MHz and 5 MHz on 430 MHz, which is what nearly every repeater uses. The range is 00.00 to 29.95 MHz in 50 kHz steps, and whatever you set here is also what Automatic Repeater Offset will apply.
5. Press TONE once so a T appears.TONEThe screen should show: T.Watch out. T, not CT. One press gives you T for Tone, which is the one that opens a repeater. Two presses gives CT for CTCSS, which is tone squelch and does a different job. Three gives DCS. Keep pressing and it comes back round to nothing.
6. With the T showing, press F then TONE, rotate to your repeater's tone, then press the BAND SEL control for the band you are already on to set it.F›TONE›dial → your repeater's tone›BAND SELThe screen should show: A frequency in hertz. A new radio starts at 88.5.There are 42 tones in the list, from 67.0 up to 254.1 Hz.Watch out. Kenwood says to press any key other than the Tuning control and F, and WHICH key matters. REV turns the Reverse function on, and Reverse is one of the things a memory channel stores — you would save a channel that transmits where the repeater talks. TONE moves the tone type on a step. VFO or MR would throw you out of the mode you are in. Pressing the BAND SEL for the band you are already on selects that band, which it already is, so nothing changes.
7. Press F, rotate to the channel number you want, and press MR to write it in.F›dial → an empty channel number›MRThe screen should show: A channel number while you rotate, then the radio drops back to normal.Watch out. If that channel already had something in it, the old contents are gone. There are 1000 channels shared between the two bands, so there is rarely a reason to land on top of one you wanted.

Press MR to go to memory mode and your repeater is on the number you chose. If it will not key the machine afterwards, look at the letter on the screen before anything else: a CT where a T should be is the single most common reason a Kenwood hears a repeater perfectly and cannot open it.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the transmit tone (CTCSS / PL) on a TM-V71A

The transmit tone is the quiet one your radio sends underneath your voice to tell the repeater you are allowed in. On a Kenwood it is called Tone and it shows on the screen as a T. Setting it is two keystrokes and then a knob.

1. Select your band, then press TONE once until a T appears.BAND SEL›TONEThe screen should show: T.Watch out. Stop at T. Each further press moves you along to CT, then DCS, then off. CT is tone squelch — it decides what you hear, not what you send — so a radio left on CT sends no tone at all and the repeater stays shut.
2. Press F then TONE.F›TONEThe screen should show: The current tone frequency. A new radio shows 88.5 Hz.This one keystroke edits whichever of the three is switched on. With the T showing it is the Tone frequency you are about to change.
3. Rotate the Tuning control to the tone your repeater wants.dial → your repeater's toneThe screen should show: The frequency counts through the list as you turn.42 frequencies, 67.0 Hz to 254.1 Hz. Pressing F here backs out without changing anything.
4. Press the BAND SEL control for the band you are already on to set it. Kenwood says any key other than the Tuning control and F will do it.BAND SELThe screen should show: The tone is set, and the T stays on the display.Watch out. This is the step people skip — rotating to the number is not accepting it, and F here throws the change away. Pick the accepting key with care too: REV turns on the Reverse function, which a memory channel stores, and TONE moves the tone type on a step. Pressing BAND SEL for the band you are already on changes nothing.

The Tone frequency and the CTCSS frequency are stored separately, so setting one has not touched the other. If you later switch to CT and see a different number, nothing is broken — that is the other setting showing through. And if you store this into a memory channel, the tone rides along with it and you never have to do this again for that repeater.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the receive tone on a TM-V71A

Tone squelch keeps your speaker quiet until somebody sends the tone you are listening for. Kenwood calls it CTCSS and puts it one press further round the TONE key than the transmit tone.

1. Select your band and press TONE twice, so CT appears.BAND SEL›TONE›TONEThe screen should show: CT.One press is T and sends a tone. Two is CT and listens for one. The manual is explicit that these are positions on one loop, so you get one or the other.
2. Press F then TONE and rotate to the frequency you want to listen for.F›TONE›dial → the tone to listen forThe screen should show: The CTCSS frequency, blinking.The CTCSS list is the same 42 frequencies as the Tone list, but it is a separate stored setting with its own value.
3. Press the BAND SEL control for the band you are already on to accept it.BAND SELThe screen should show: CT stays on the display.Watch out. Any key except the Tuning control and F accepts it, but avoid REV — it turns on the Reverse function, and that IS stored in a memory channel, which is exactly what this procedure's closing tells you to do next.

Here is the part that catches Kenwood newcomers, and it is worth saying plainly: because T and CT are two stops on the same selector, this radio will not send a tone and listen for one at the same time from the front panel. If you turn CT on to keep a busy repeater quiet, you have turned your transmit tone off and the repeater will stop hearing you. There is a way round it — store the channel with the setting you actually need on the air — but there is no front panel keystroke that gives you both at once. Radios that offer separate transmit and receive tone menus, like most of the Chinese handhelds, work differently, and that difference is where the confusion comes from.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the offset direction and amount on a TM-V71A

Offset is two separate things on this radio and they live in two different places: the direction is on the panel under the F key, and the amount is in the menu. Most people only ever need the direction, and a good number never need even that.

1. Select your band, then press F then REV to walk the direction round.BAND SEL›F›REVThe screen should show: No sign, then +, then −, then no sign again.Watch out. No sign means simplex. On an E type radio operating on 430 MHz there is an extra stop at −7.6 MHz, which is a European repeater spacing and will not appear on an Americas radio.
2. For the amount, open menu 400 and rotate to the figure you want, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›400 OFFSET›Tuning control›dial → the offset in MHz›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: OFFSET, in megahertz.00.00 to 29.95 MHz in 50 kHz steps. The factory values are 600 kHz on 144 MHz and 5 MHz on 430 MHz, which covers almost every repeater in normal use.
3. Menu 401 turns on Automatic Repeater Offset, which picks the direction for you from the frequency, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›401 ARO›Tuning control›dial → ON›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: ARO, ON or OFF. It comes on from the factory.Watch out. Two things about ARO that catch people. It does not only pick the direction — Kenwood's own description says it selects an offset direction AND activates the Tone function according to the frequency. And it is switched ON from the factory, so on a new radio it may already have done both before you touched anything. It only exists on K and E type radios, and it will not function at all while Reverse is switched on.

Direction and amount are independent, and both have to be right. If you have the plus and minus the wrong way round the radio will still transmit happily — into the repeater's output frequency, where nothing is listening. Press REV to check: it shows you the frequency you will actually transmit on.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the squelch on a TM-V71A

Squelch on this radio is a physical knob, not a menu setting, and there is one for each band.

1. Set squelch on a quiet channel, with no signal present.Wait until nothing is coming inSet it while somebody is talking and you will set it too tight to hear them next time.
2. Turn the SQL control for the band you are on until the background hiss just stops.dial → SQL for your bandThe screen should show: Nothing changes on the display. Squelch has no number on this radio.Watch out. The left control belongs to band A and the right one to band B, so turning the wrong one does nothing at all and looks like a broken knob. Kenwood's panel description says clockwise opens the squelch and counterclockwise tightens it, which is round the opposite way from most radios — so go by the hiss rather than by the direction.
3. If you would rather squelch by signal strength, menu 105 turns on S-meter squelch, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›105 S.SQL›Tuning control›dial → ON›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: S.SQL, OFF or ON. Off from the factory.With this on, the radio only opens for signals above a strength you pick with the same SQL control, which saves resetting the knob every time a weak station you do not care about drifts past.

If the radio has gone completely silent and you cannot work out why, the squelch knob is the first thing to check and the second is which band the arrow is against. Menu 106 sets how long S-meter squelch hangs on after a signal goes, if you turned that on and it is chopping.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Change the transmit power on a TM-V71A

One key, and the radio remembers the setting separately for each band.

1. Select the band, then press LOW to step through the power levels.BAND SEL›LOWThe screen should show: H, M or L at the top of that band's line.Watch out. High only exists on K and E type radios. On other versions the key walks between medium and low and there is no H to be found — that is the radio, not a fault.
2. Move to the other band and set that one too if you want it different.BAND SEL›LOWThe screen should show: The second band's letter changes and the first one stays put.The two bands hold their own power settings. It is a common way to run a rig: full power on the band you use for distance, low on the one you use around town.

Two things to know about that letter. When it BLINKS that is not a transmit confirmation — Kenwood's display table says a blinking H or M means the temperature protection circuit has cut in and dropped your output, which is worth glancing at on a long hot drive. And output power is NOT one of the things a memory channel stores; it is a per-band setting, so it does not ride along when you save a repeater. The bar meter beside it is a second indication, though the book describes it two ways: the display table calls it the power level you have selected and the transmitting page calls it the relative output power.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Listen on the repeater's input on a TM-V71A

Reverse swaps your transmit and receive frequencies so you can hear the other station directly instead of through the repeater. It is one key, and this radio has a second trick alongside it that does the same job automatically.

1. Press REV to turn Reverse on, and press it again to turn it off.REVThe screen should show: A reverse icon appears.If you can still hear the other station with Reverse on, you are close enough to talk directly and could free the repeater up for somebody else.
2. Hold REV for a second instead and you get the Automatic Simplex Checker.hold REVThe screen should show: An icon appears, and starts blinking when direct contact becomes possible.Watch out. ASC listens by dipping the receiver for a moment every three seconds, so you will hear a small regular interruption. That is the function working, not a fault. Press REV to get out of it.

Three things to keep in mind. Reverse cannot be switched on or off while you are transmitting. Turning ASC on switches Reverse off, and they will not run together. And Automatic Repeater Offset stops working entirely while Reverse is on — so if you have left Reverse on from earlier, ARO will look broken for reasons that have nothing to do with ARO.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Name a memory channel on a TM-V71A

Six characters, typed on the radio itself, and the name shows instead of the frequency when you land on the channel.

1. Press MR and rotate to the channel you want to name.MR›dial → the channel to nameThe screen should show: The channel number and its frequency.Watch out. Store something in a channel first. Menu 200 does not exist on a radio with no memories in it, so on a brand new rig it looks like the feature is missing.
2. Open menu 200 and press the Tuning control to go into it.F›Tuning control›200 M.NAME›Tuning controlThe screen should show: M.NAME, with a cursor.
3. Press the Tuning control again to start the cursor blinking. Then rotate to a character and press the Tuning control to set it and move to the next position, and repeat that pair for each character.Tuning control›dial → a character›Tuning controlThe screen should show: The character under the cursor changes as you turn.Up to six characters, from 0 to 9, A to Z, and the dash, slash, at sign and space. Call signs, town names, whatever you will recognize at seventy miles an hour.Watch out. One opening press for the whole name, then ONE press per character — not two. REV moves the cursor left and LOW moves it right, and PF1 deletes the character you are on.
4. Press F to come out when the name is complete.FThe screen should show: Back to the channel, now showing its name.Watch out. Kenwood never spells out a separate done press for a memory name. What the character entry page does say is that F exits Menu mode while TONE cancels the setup and goes back to the menu selection — so F is the one to use and TONE is the one to avoid. Check it landed: in memory mode a press of the Tuning control flips the display between the name and the frequency.

To change a name, do this again over the top. To remove one, you have to clear the whole channel — there is no way to blank a name and keep the channel, and clearing a channel on this radio means switching it off first. That is on the delete page.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Delete a memory channel on a TM-V71A

This is the strangest procedure on the radio and it is worth reading before you start, because it involves switching the radio off in the middle. That is not a misprint and it is not optional — there is no way to clear a memory channel while the radio is running.

1. Press MR and land on the channel you want gone.MR›dial → the channel to clearThe screen should show: That channel's number.Watch out. Get this right now. The radio will clear whatever channel was selected when you powered it down, and after the next step you have no chance to change your mind about which one.
2. Turn the transceiver off.Switch the radio offThe screen should show: Dark.
3. Hold MR down and switch the radio back on with it held.hold MR›Switch the radio onThe screen should show: A confirmation message.The radio comes up asking whether you meant it. This is the only thing standing between you and a channel you wanted.
4. Press the Tuning control to clear it.Tuning controlThe screen should show: The channel is empty.Watch out. Press F instead and you walk away with the channel intact. That is the escape hatch if you got to this screen by accident.

Clearing a channel takes its name with it, which is the only way to remove a name on this radio. If what you actually want is to keep the channel but stop the scanner landing on it, do not delete it — menu 202 locks a channel out of the scan and leaves it where it is.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Turn off the roger beep on a TM-V71A

This radio does not have this feature. What follows is what it does have, and why the thing you were looking for is not here.

Short answer: there isn't one. This radio does not send a tone at the end of your transmission and there is no setting to make it. The menu table is printed complete, from 000 to 999, and nothing in it is a roger beep. If you are hearing a beep, it is one of these instead.

1. Menu 000 is the beep on every keypress. This is the one people usually mean, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›000 BEEP›Tuning control›dial → OFF›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: BEEP, OFF or ON. On from the factory.Watch out. Even with this off, the radio still beeps in two situations: one minute before Auto Power Off shuts it down, and when the time-out timer cuts your transmission. Those two are not switchable.
2. If you want the beep quieter rather than gone, menu 001 sets its volume, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›001 BP.VOL›Tuning control›dial → 1 to 7›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: BP.VOL, 1 to 7. It sits at 5.Worth trying before you switch beeps off entirely — the beep is how you know a keypress registered.
3. Menu 109 is the time-out timer, which beeps and drops you back to receive, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›109 TOT›Tuning control›dial → 3, 5 or 10 minutes›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: TOT, 3, 5 or 10 minutes. Ten from the factory.Watch out. If people tell you that you keep getting cut off mid-sentence with a beep, this is why, and it is doing its job — it exists to stop you sitting on a repeater.

If somebody on the air tells you they are hearing a beep at the end of your transmissions, it is not coming from this radio. Check the repeater — a courtesy tone from the machine itself is by far the likeliest answer, and a hotspot or a cross-link is the next.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Turn off the voice announcements on a TM-V71A

This radio can speak, but only if somebody has fitted the part that does the speaking. Voice announcements come from the optional VGS-1 unit, which goes inside the case. Without it, menus 003 to 009 are simply not there — so if you cannot find them, that is your answer and no amount of scrolling will help.

1. Menu 003 turns announcements on. AUTO speaks as things change; MANUAL speaks only when you ask, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›003 ANN›Tuning control›dial → AUTO or MANUAL›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: ANN, with OFF, AUTO and MANUAL. It arrives on AUTO.Watch out. MANUAL needs somewhere to ask from. You have to program one of the microphone PF keys as VOICE first, using menus 509 to 512, or MANUAL leaves the radio permanently silent.
2. Menu 004 is the language: English or Japanese, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›004 ANN.LNG›Tuning control›dial → ENG›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: ANN.LNG, ENG or JPN.
3. Menu 005 sets how loud it speaks, 1 to 7, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›005 ANN.VOL›Tuning control›dial → 1 to 7›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: ANN.VOL, with a number. It sits at 5.Watch out. There is no zero here. To silence it you turn menu 003 off rather than winding the volume down.
4. Menu 006 sets how fast it talks, 0 to 4, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›006 ANN.SPD›Tuning control›dial → 0 to 4›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: ANN.SPD, with a number. It sits at 1.

With announcements on, the radio reads out a good deal more than most: the frequency when you change bands, the channel number and frequency when you recall a memory, the menu number as you open one, and the name of every reset before it performs it. That last one is genuinely useful — hearing "full reset?" out loud has probably saved somebody's memories.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Turn off dual watch on a TM-V71A

This radio has two complete receivers, so watching two frequencies at once is not a special mode you switch on — it is how the radio normally sits. The only question is whether you want the second one showing.

1. Hold the BAND SEL control of the band you want for about a second.hold BAND SELThe screen should show: The display drops from two bands to one, or comes back to two.Kenwood calls these dual band and single band OPERATION, not just a display choice, and it matters for one thing: the repeater function — cross-band and locked-band both — cannot be activated while the radio is in single band mode or on a weather channel. Ordinary repeater work through your own radio is unaffected. What the manual does not say is whether the second receiver stops listening; if you want a band genuinely silenced rather than put away, that is the separate band masking function, which the manual does say makes a band impossible to receive or transmit on.
2. Back in dual band mode, a short press of the left or right BAND SEL control chooses which band you are acting on.BAND SELThe screen should show: The control arrow moves to that band.Watch out. There are two separate markers and they mean different things: one shows the band you are operating — the one the knobs and the menu act on — and the other shows the band you will transmit on. They are usually the same band and they do not have to be.
3. Menu 527 hides the bar that divides the two halves of the display, if you find it cluttered, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›527 DP.BAR›Tuning control›dial → OFF›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: DP.BAR, OFF or ON. On from the factory.Cosmetic only. It does not change which receivers are running.

Two receivers running means two squelch controls and two volume controls, and that is where most of the confusion with this radio starts. If one band has gone silent, check that band's own SQL knob and its own BAND SEL volume ring before you look at anything else.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Lock the keypad on a TM-V71A

Three separate locks for three separate sets of keys. Do them in this order — the panel lock is last, because once it is on the only things that still work are the power switch and the PTT, and that includes the keys you would need to reach the other two settings.

1. Menu 513 locks the microphone's programmable keys as well, pressing the Tuning control to go into the item and again to set the value, then F to come out of the menu.F›Tuning control›513 MIC.LCK›Tuning control›dial → ON›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: MIC.LCK, OFF or ON. Off from the factory.Watch out. Separate from the panel lock, which comes last on this page. If the thing getting pressed in your car is the microphone swinging on its hook, this is the setting rather than the panel lock.
2. Menu 304 is the lock for the microphone's DTMF keypad.F›Tuning control›304 DT.LOCK›Tuning control›dial → ON›Tuning control›FThe screen should show: DT.LOCK, OFF or ON. Off from the factory.Three locks for three different sets of keys. Worth knowing they all exist so you can tell which one is stopping you.
3. Hold F for about a second to lock, and hold it again to unlock.hold FThe screen should show: A key icon appears.This is the main one and covers the front panel keys and the knob. Exactly two things still work while it is on: the power switch and the PTT. Hold F again to unlock.

If the panel has stopped responding and there is no key icon on the screen, the lock is not your problem — check whether the radio has been put into remote control or repeater mode, both of which take the panel away too.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Factory reset on a TM-V71A

Four different resets, and the difference between them is the difference between a tidy-up and losing every channel you own. Read which is which before you pick one.

1. VFO reset clears the VFO and what goes with it. PART leaves your memory channels, DTMF memories and PM channels alone and resets everything else. PM reset touches only the programmable memory channels. FULL puts the whole radio back to the factory, memories included.Decide which reset you wantThe screen should show: Nothing yet — this one is a decision, not a keystroke.Watch out. PART is almost always the one people actually want. It fixes a radio somebody has fiddled with while leaving the work you did programming it.
2. Open menu 999, press the Tuning control to go into it, rotate to the type you want, then press the Tuning control again.F›Tuning control›999 RESET›Tuning control›dial → VFO, PART, PM or FULL›Tuning controlThe screen should show: A confirmation message naming the reset.The confirmation names the type out loud on screen, so you get one last look at which one you picked.Watch out. Do NOT press F here. Everywhere else on this page F is how you leave the menu; at this confirmation screen Kenwood lists it as the key that CANCELS the reset. Stay where you are.
3. Press the Tuning control again to carry it out.Tuning controlThe screen should show: The radio restarts on factory settings.Watch out. Press TONE at the confirmation to step back, or F to cancel outright. Once you press the Tuning control the second time there is no undo.
4. There is a second way in, for a radio you cannot navigate: hold F while you switch it on.hold F›Switch the radio onThe screen should show: The same reset chooser.Watch out. Kenwood blocks the key route while the radio is in remote control or repeater mode, and in repeater mode no transceiver function works at all. There is a second blocker printed against the MENU route: with the Channel Display function or the Key Lock function on, the reset cannot be performed. Key Lock comes off with a one-second press of F. Channel Display is the awkward one, and the book gives two different keys for it — the Channel Display pages say LOW plus Power ON, twice, and the troubleshooting table says REV plus Power ON. Try LOW first.

Before a FULL reset, get your channels off the radio with the programming software if there is any chance you will want them back. A full reset on this radio really is full — 1000 channels, all the names, the DTMF memories and the PM channels, gone together.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.