Baofeng UV5R v2 squelch issues

I am a ski patroller working several local hills, and bought abovementioned radio for patrol use. I have noticed several issues that all seem to be related to squelch handling. One hill does not use receive squelch tones, other does. All hills here have repeaters, and operate in narrowband, at frequencies around 150Mhz



1. No rx squelch tone causes radio to either completely/partially miss incoming transmission. Other hill with repeater sending squelch tone does not seem to have this issue

2. No rx tone: will sometimes turn on even w/o transmission and produce loud static

3. Both rx & no rx tones: it will turn on about 0.5 secs later than "official" patrol radios, which can sometimes cause to miss beginning of transmission

4. On few occasions radio stopped transmitting until I turned it off & on

5. End of incoming transmission invariably causes loud "brap" which can be hard on ears (especially when using earphone)



I realize I may be asking too much from 35$ radio, especially considering cold conditions I am using it in (I do use external waterproof mic). I also have upgraded the antenna which did not seem to make any difference.



Are there any settings I can play around with, or the radio is just not cut out for it? If so, what budget models would be?



Advice appreciated!

Peter

Baofeng UV5R v2 squelch issues