Oh. Me stupid. I forgot you wrote you’re on a pi. All those levels are managed through alsamixer on the pi. I just learned how to do that on the pi, and posted it here if you need it: Auto Gain Control in Linux?
I think I understand what youre describing about the behavior of the baofeng. Yes, if one radio is transmitting correctly, you should hear noise on the other. At the risk of overexplaining, here are some things I would check:
- Make sure the CTCSS codes are turned off on both radios. If you have non-compatible CTCSS codes, you may not hear the transmission from the second radio even if the first radio is transmitting properly. Of course also double check the simple things like frequency, wide/narrow band, that the antenna is screwed onto the radio, connections to the digirig, and make sure offset is turned off for simplex use.
- Check the time out timer in the settings. If you have TOT set for 120 seconds, the transmission will stop after 2 minutes.
- Feel the case of the transmitting radio. If it is too hot to comfortably touch after 2 minutes of transmission, you may be exceeding the duty cycle of that particular radio, causing the transmitting radio to malfunction in unpredictable ways. This could be remedied by upgrading equipment, selecting a faster digital mode, or transmitting fewer characters (send the information directly from fldigi without all the extra characters transmitted by an flmsg form).