Jon Pearl W4ABC wrote:
The radio was expensive and probably over built for the times. Long ago
when the Japanese started kicking our collective asses, Motorolover had to
make some tough decisions. The answer came in the form of radios like the
Mitrek and beyond.
Makes a good remote base or linking radio, but there are so many other
designs (READ Micor) out there more suitable for repeater service, why
bother with looking for something different for the sake of something
different?
Jon Pearl
W4ABC
I have to agree with Jon,
When Motorola designed and built the Micor, they employed the best engineers
that money could buy. This radio was developed as a part of Motorola's
commitment to Americas Space Program. Money was not an object. I have peckered
around with a lot of equipment, both older and new. The Micor line will either
hold it's own or simply blow away the newer technology. I had recently had a
chance to do some work on a newer Motorola MSF line repeater, their newer
synthesized stuff. The Micor's specs, (over 30 years older in technology) simply
blows away the receiver sensitivity. Why? The Micor was intended to work on a
very narrow band from where it is tuned. Performance drops rapidly from this
tuned point. In today's world where we require one radio to tune from DC to
light, there is certainly a need for synthesized, processor tuned radios, but
for a repeater where the frequency don't qsy often, the old slug tuned rigs
cannot be beat. They are more sensitive, more selective, less susceptible to
intermod, the squelch works better, I could go on and on.
Lets face it, there has not really been any technology advances that make a 2
meter or 220 radio receive any better today than 20 years ago. The development
in GaAs fet's only show performance enhancements from about 400 megs and above.
Since the Micor and Mastr II radios are plentiful on the used market, we are now
able to get first class radio technology for little to nothing. Just because
this technology is old... it is not outdated.
Kevin
