im looking at doing the tx power alignment in the quantar i assume a simple rf meter and dummy load is needed to align this..
if i remember correctly the alignment instructions simply say if the rf meter and the quantar dont match adjust and then save the settings is this right..?
thanks all
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Re: Occupied bandwidth - (was Windows 7 config)
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Motorola Wildcard Programing
Any Motorola Quantar Wild-card Programming Experts out there? I have a Quantar T5365A that I need to interface to a RL Club controller. The issue is I need to bring out the COR signal and PL Valid on the J17 connector (Pin 18 (RD Stat +, Aux out 7), and Pin 37 (Rx Code Det, Aux out 2). Would prefer that both signals be High true, but this controller can deal with Low True if needed ( Would like to stay with High true like the MTR2000's we are also using). Can deal with other pin numbers on J17 if needed)?
My wireline card has the WildCard basic and enhanced option installed (Per my RSS setup screen (Ver 14.10.00 Codeplug Ver 10).
When I turn off the wildcard option, I can get Pin 18 to show COR, PL Valid, and Both statues anded, but I need separate outputs. Setup screens for wildcard baffle me!
I guess one of the issues is trying to teach a old dog new tricks (Me). I have searched the internet for information on how to set this up, too no avail.?
Lots of smart people out there, can anybody help?
Tnx Rich KQ6EF
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Re: Occupied bandwidth - (was Windows 7 config)
Hi Bob.
?
Bob said: "I'm curious as to how the above frequencies & deviations were arrived at. Are they supposed to approximate the occupied BW when human speech is the modulating source?"
?
That's exactly what the TIA says about the analog SPD Interference transmitter test pattern: "The goal is to simulate normal modulation for generating adjacent channel power data."
?
These standards are developed by working groups comprised of subject matter experts.? Somewhere in the dim dark past there must have been an interesting technical discussion about goals and alternatives. This may have taken place before widespread internet use so finding an archive could be challenging.
?
Also, Bob said: "Here in SoCal we settled on 4.2 kHz some 20 years ago to lessen the amount of distance needed between adjacents."
Bob, earlier I mentioned your comment: "Also the audio has to have a flat response (aside from the usual 6 dB/octave pre-emphasis).??
Any extra slope that favors the high frequencies or hard clipping will shift the PSD to the high end, greatly increasing the occupied bandwidth."
Do you have any test results you can share to illustrate this?
?
?
Attached is a comparison of ACPR for 5 kHz deviation vs. 4 kHz deviation.? Note that there is over 8 dB of improvement by using the narrower format.
?
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Re: Telewave TPRD-1554 Won¡¯t Tune To 600KHz Notch
I figured we had a high split duplexer since it was originally purchased for a commercial VHF system. It's odd that one cavity tunes up just fine but the other doesn't. I'm going to try and slapping on the extra capacitors Telewave says we need and seeing what happens.
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Anybody interested in a six-channel GE Master II voter? I have one complete that I'll be putting up for auction on but thought I'd offer it here first.
PM me if interested
Chris WB5ITT?
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Re: MSR2000 Molex Plug problem
Tin plating was one of the biggest recalls with micor and later radios.? You could order contacts in bulk and
replace them as needed.? Big job.? For some radios they came up with gold plated contact replacement
kits that fixed it for good.? You would have to get lucky with NOS barn find.? A real big job for so many contacts,
but the only fix that lasts except for wiring jumpers around every contact that fails (I have seen this abomination).?
Many of the MSR cards are identical to the micor except for the edge connector.? It is too bad that the cards
are so reliable and robust EXCEPT for the edge connectors.
The tin plating will oxidate at the contact point over time and only wiping or scraping through will restore
for a time.? I always used 90% isopropyl and work the contacts.? I found out there could be problems with Silicone?
or "active" ingredients, especially any where near RF connectors, plastics or circuits.? If you can reach the pins,
you can scrape out the oxidized line where the contacts mated.? I don't know what is in Stabilant, and their SDS
doesn't say what the secret sauce is and I never used it before.? I have used DeOxit but you have to be real careful.?
If the sauce claims to be a contact enhancer, it probably has a weak acid or some other active ingredient.? You only?
know if it's safe after long term experiments.? Nothing really works better than replacing with gold.? Fast was most
important, so rather than tracing out the bad contact, we would just wet the card edge and work it and come back
in 6 months to do it again.
The external controller is a good way to go if you want some feature that just isn't in the stock setup.? My head
would spin to figure out how to integrate an external controller in such a way that I could unplug it and flip over
the cards in the cage and revert to stock without some fiddler blowing something up not understanding what
they were seeing.?
Many radios and TVs of the day suffered copy cat problems.? They all thought board swapping would be the wave
of the future, but contact service became the major service issue.? Mastr2 had some problems too.? The Quasar
"works in a drawer" TV became a joke.? We could get them working but there was so much flex in the chassis that
when we slid it all back together it would fail, or the ride back to the customer and it would fail.? Service people
would snicker and "never works in a drawer" and "quality goes out before the name goes on" would be muttered.?
I would surmise the design team was outvoted by the bean counter and advertising to the point of major FAIL.
Mot got out of the TV business completely and sold the Quasar name to a Japanese company.
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At 11/13/2022 07:48 AM, you wrote: Bingo! That's one of the sources. Fire Departments used to complain that they could not hear dispatch when near a stoplight.
I am forced to keep my 6-M mobile in tone squelch due to all the noise that can be heard as one drives along. I watch the S-meter go half scale on noise quite often. It would drive me out of the car if radio was in carrier squelch. I've found that different radios respond differently to high noise levels: some will blow squelch, requiring you to turn up the squelch to the point that once you get away from the noise source, it takes over 10 dB quieting to open it in the relatively noise free environment. A good example of this is in comparing the Yaesu FT-8900 to the TYT TH-9800 on 6 meters. With the Yaesu I do have to use CTCSS squelch all the time, but the TYT's squelch stays shut when set on threshold unless a stray signal actually quiets the RX. Weird that it's the Chinese knock-off radio that behaves properly, but it's true. I have a Kenwood TK-780 that had this problem so bad I couldn't use it as a mobile radio. I was able to fix it by modifying the noise filter per the attached PDF. Apparently the noise above ~15 kHz is negatively affected by the limiter action in the RX, so putting a limit to the high end response of the noise squelch prevents the changing noise level from affecting it. Bob NO6B
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My 2 meter repeater is on 147.015MHz. It's output frequency is close enough to a microprocessors multiple of 1MHz, such as 147.000, that users occasionally have problems hearing the repeater. It appears that some light devices are very efficient at giving off multiple harmonics. I get reports of the repeater transmitter dropping out at times, when in actuality it most likely a mobile user driving by something causing interference. Stoplights seem to be the biggest offender. I've gone by the problem area reported and, sure enough, there is a stoplight causing noise at times (usually red light for some unknown reason causes noise). Sometimes it causes the mobile receiver to blank out, most likely wide band noise.
It's hard to get users to accept this possible explanation.
Joe
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 11/13/2022 10:54 AM, Chris Smart wrote: For a couple of years now, I've had a broad-band noise like that show up on 2M in my neighborhood, every evening. Start time varies with sunset, and it goes away about four hours later. Walking around with an HT set to AM and a tape measure yagi hasn't helped me locate it, since it isn't quite strong enough for the HT to register a change. But it wipes out any FM signals S5 or lower on my base set up with a Diamond X510HDM on the roof of the house here. I suppose it could be just about anything. Highly annoying.
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This happens to me on 6 meters many times when I am near a new style stoplight. The noise shows up on my S-meter indicator as full scale, but no audio and the squelch does not open. It appears that many of the LEDs create broadband noise on both 6 and 2 meters. It is apparent that it is coming from the stoplight because, sometimes when the light turns green, the noise goes away.
Most interesting discussion!
For a couple of years now, I've had a broad-band noise like that show up on 2M in my neighborhood, every evening. Start time varies with sunset, and it goes away about four hours later. Walking around with an HT set to AM and a tape measure yagi hasn't helped me locate it, since it isn't quite strong enough for the HT to register a change. But it wipes out any FM signals S5 or lower on my base set up with a Diamond X510HDM on the roof of the house here. I suppose it could be just about anything. Highly annoying.
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Bingo! That's one of the sources. Fire Departments used to complain
that they could not hear dispatch when near a stoplight.
I am forced to keep my 6-M mobile in tone squelch due to all the
noise that can be heard as one drives along. I watch the
S-meter go half scale on noise quite often. It would drive me out of
the car if radio was in carrier squelch.
It's sad that the FCC doesn't care about noise levels any more. But
in reality, they don't care about much of anything these days.
Chuck
WB2EDV
On 11/13/2022 10:24 AM, Joe wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
This
happens to me on 6 meters many times when I am near a new style
stoplight.? The noise shows up on my S-meter indicator as full
scale, but no audio and the squelch does not open.? It appears
that many of the LEDs create broadband noise on both 6 and 2
meters.? It is apparent that it is coming from the stoplight
because, sometimes when the light turns green, the noise goes
away.
Joe
On 11/13/2022 9:03 AM, Chuck Kelsey wrote:
I can be full quieting into the repeater
and drive into an area with a lot of noise and it will wipe out
the mobile's receive - yet I'm still full quieting into the
repeater. And I'll add that I cannot (usually) hear any noise,
yet it desenses the receiver. This typically happens in a
populated area/business district.
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This happens to me on 6 meters many times when I am near a new style stoplight. The noise shows up on my S-meter indicator as full scale, but no audio and the squelch does not open. It appears that many of the LEDs create broadband noise on both 6 and 2 meters. It is apparent that it is coming from the stoplight because, sometimes when the light turns green, the noise goes away.
Joe
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 11/13/2022 9:03 AM, Chuck Kelsey wrote: I can be full quieting into the repeater and drive into an area with a lot of noise and it will wipe out the mobile's receive - yet I'm still full quieting into the repeater. And I'll add that I cannot (usually) hear any noise, yet it desenses the receiver. This typically happens in a populated area/business district.
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The Delta I used as mobile for a while had a noise blanker that did not help at all. The noise I'm talking about is continuous - coming from POS terminals, routers, DSL, LED sign boards and lighting, etc. Before these things came along, noise blankers worked great on in things like ignition and other random buzzes, clicks, bursts.
Chuck
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On 11/13/2022 9:24 AM, Chris Boone wrote: ?The IF based NB's that are used in radios such as the GE Deltas, Midlands, etc will work in a duplex mode.
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Depends on the noise blanker... My 30+ years of low band FM experience found that some noise blankers work better than others.. The lowband Motorola Micor "extender" had a bad habit of breaking into oscillation and actually killing the main channel.... yet a GE Master 2 kept on clicking. I ran into this several times on my low band base stations at Gulf States Utilities.. in fact we picked up a number of Micor low band receiver decks that came from CHP, with the noise blanker tune to 51.0 megahertz which is exactly what I was doing. They acted the same way.
Oddly enough, the Midland Syntech 2 series outdid other brands. Unfortunately most amateur gear does not have NBs that works in the FM mode. I complained to Yaesu at Dallas HamCom a couple of years ago and they answered oh it works! I looked at them with one eyebrow raised and said really? Have you checked that? Their response was Well maybe it doesn't.. But then you don't need it on FM! I shook my head and told them my experience on low band commercial VHF and then asked if you don't need it, why does your commercial line have it on low band? I got a blank stare back on that one...
6m along with 10m to a lesser extent needs a noise blanker on any mode.. which is why most people on 6 m FM only run commercial gear... My Midland Syntech 2's can out hear a Motorola Syntor 9000x... Using legacy gear on a repeater, such as a GE Master 2 or similar, along with a duplexer, means you can't use the built-in noise blanker as it requires a separate frequency away from the receive channel and the duplexer won't allow that to pass. The IF based NB's that are used in radios such as the GE Deltas, Midlands, etc will work in a duplex mode. Personally I prefer split side on 6m anyway even though it's hard to find two tower sites sometimes ....But it may be cheaper than a duplexer on low band lol.
Chris WB5ITT?
On Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 8:03 AM Chuck Kelsey < wb2edv@...> wrote: I've operated a 6-meter repeater for a couple decades. The thing I've
learned is that noise generated near the receiver will desense it a lot.
6-meters now has a LOT of noise sources that were not there in the 80's.
With my repeater, its receiver is essentially noise free in a very rural
area. Going mobile is an entirely different thing.
I can be full quieting into the repeater and drive into an area with a
lot of noise and it will wipe out the mobile's receive - yet I'm still
full quieting into the repeater. And I'll add that I cannot (usually)
hear any noise, yet it desenses the receiver. This typically happens in
a populated area/business district. Noise blanker does absolutely no
good as the noise in continuous.
Repeater is running at 100 watts, my mobile is about 50 watts. One of
the reasons my county moved away from low band fire radios - mobile
receive became very spotty in populated areas.
Chuck
WB2EDV
On 11/13/2022 12:00 AM, Bob Dengler via wrote:
> At 11/12/2022 07:55 PM, you wrote:
>> Yeah we'd be much better off with a wider split on 6. I only found one 6 meter repeater in SLC: it had a 1 MHz split & so much desense that it was unusable.
>>
>> Bob NO6B
>>
>>
>> I run one of the 6 Meter repeaters in SLC on 53.150 with a 1 MHz split and it does not have any desense. It has been on the air for over 2 decades now.
>>
>> Where did you get your data?
> My own radio (TH-9800), & observing that while I could kerchunk the repeater all over the place, that's all I could do.? It had to be full scale & then some & I had to use 50 watts to get through while the TX was on.? Was able to use (I think) 448.150 to duplex.? My rough estimate was 20 to 30 dB of desense.
>
> Bob NO6B
>
>
>
>
>
>
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I've operated a 6-meter repeater for a couple decades. The thing I've learned is that noise generated near the receiver will desense it a lot.
6-meters now has a LOT of noise sources that were not there in the 80's. With my repeater, its receiver is essentially noise free in a very rural area. Going mobile is an entirely different thing.
I can be full quieting into the repeater and drive into an area with a lot of noise and it will wipe out the mobile's receive - yet I'm still full quieting into the repeater. And I'll add that I cannot (usually) hear any noise, yet it desenses the receiver. This typically happens in a populated area/business district. Noise blanker does absolutely no good as the noise in continuous.
Repeater is running at 100 watts, my mobile is about 50 watts. One of the reasons my county moved away from low band fire radios - mobile receive became very spotty in populated areas.
Chuck
WB2EDV
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Show quoted text
On 11/13/2022 12:00 AM, Bob Dengler via groups.io wrote: At 11/12/2022 07:55 PM, you wrote:
Yeah we'd be much better off with a wider split on 6. I only found one 6 meter repeater in SLC: it had a 1 MHz split & so much desense that it was unusable.
Bob NO6B
I run one of the 6 Meter repeaters in SLC on 53.150 with a 1 MHz split and it does not have any desense. It has been on the air for over 2 decades now.
Where did you get your data? My own radio (TH-9800), & observing that while I could kerchunk the repeater all over the place, that's all I could do. It had to be full scale & then some & I had to use 50 watts to get through while the TX was on. Was able to use (I think) 448.150 to duplex. My rough estimate was 20 to 30 dB of desense.
Bob NO6B
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Re: Occupied bandwidth - (was Windows 7 config)
At 11/12/2022 05:30 PM, you wrote: Chris and JB posted some excellent comments. I'd like to return later to address those after covering some additional basics. Those are: Receiver ACRR and Transmitter ACPR. There is a defined ACRR measurement procedure that employs a test signal modulated by two test tones, one at 650 Hz at a deviation of 50% of the maximum permissible frequency deviation, and another at 2,200 Hz at a deviation of 50% of the maximum permissible frequency deviation. I'm curious as to how the above frequencies & deviations were arrived at. Are they supposed to approximate the occupied BW when human speech is the modulating source? In analysis of co-channel interference, the receiver is often referred to as the "victim". In many cases, especially like the discussion of amateur use of 15 kHz spacing, the victim receivers are fielded equipment whose characteristics cannot be modified. This generally does not apply in SoCal, where the bandplan in the 15 kHz spaced 146-148 MHz segment calls for inverting the offset direction every 15 kHz. That puts the repeater RXs "see" adjacent channel repeater TXs, not user TXs. Those TXs are typically of higher quality than user radios, & since they are coordinated their characteristics can definitely be addressed if needed. Since the subject of amateur band plan channel spacing has come up, let's look at the issue.
The attached comparison shows the difference in ACPR for a victim receiver having a 16 kHz ENBW at channel spacings of 15 kHz and 20 kHz. The transmitter is based on 16K0F3E. The SPD data is the published TIA data for that format. Note that at 20 kHz channel spacing, the ACPR is a very acceptable 63.3 dB whereas at 15 kHz spacing the ACPR is an unacceptable 27.2 dB. I think we've all agreed that 5 kHz deviation is not compatible with 15 kHz channel spacing unless significant geographic separation is used. Here in SoCal we settled on 4.2 kHz some 20 years ago to lessen the amount of distance needed between adjacents. Bob NO6B
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At 11/12/2022 07:55 PM, you wrote: Yeah we'd be much better off with a wider split on 6. I only found one 6 meter repeater in SLC: it had a 1 MHz split & so much desense that it was unusable.
Bob NO6B
I run one of the 6 Meter repeaters in SLC on 53.150 with a 1 MHz split and it does not have any desense. It has been on the air for over 2 decades now.
Where did you get your data? My own radio (TH-9800), & observing that while I could kerchunk the repeater all over the place, that's all I could do. It had to be full scale & then some & I had to use 50 watts to get through while the TX was on. Was able to use (I think) 448.150 to duplex. My rough estimate was 20 to 30 dB of desense. Bob NO6B
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Thanks maxtrac2002 73¡¯²õ, Stephen K3SEM -.. . / -.- ¡-- ¡ . --
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On Nov 12, 2022, at 21:37, Ken Arck AH6LE <ken@...> wrote:
?
Slick would certainly know
At 06:29 PM 11/12/2022, you wrote:
THE DEMISE OF HENRY RADIO RUMORS ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED! So said Mark
Twain some years ago and today I am here to dispel the rumors of Henry
Radio closing down too
forums.qrz.com
From: [email protected]
<[email protected]> on behalf of Stephen K3SEM via
groups.io <s.semerod@...>
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2022 6:20 PM
To: [email protected]
<[email protected]>
Subject: [repeater-builder] Henry radio
?
I just noticed that Henry has none of their current
production amps listed for sale on their website or eBay. Are they still
making amps?
73¡¯²õ,
Stephen
K3SEM
-.. . / -.- ¡-- ¡ . --
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President and CTO - Arcom Controllers
Makers of repeater controllers and accessories
Phone: (503) 678 6182
Authorized Dealers for Kenwood and Telewave.
We offer complete turn-key repeater packages!
"We don't just make 'em. We use 'em!"
![[]](http://www.arcomcontrollers.com/arcom.png)
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Yeah we'd be much better off with a wider split on 6. I only found one 6
meter repeater in SLC: it had a 1 MHz split & so much desense that
it was unusable.
Bob NO6B
I run one of the 6 Meter repeaters in SLC on 53.150 with a 1 MHz split and it does not have any desense. It has been on the air for over 2 decades now.?
Where did you get your data?
John, K7JL
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Re: MSR2000 Molex Plug problem
https://www.stabilant.com/sizes.html
Mike
WM4B
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On November 12, 2022 at 10:16 PM Carl Beaudry <va2cmb@...> wrote:
Hi to All,
?
We have many Motorola MSR2000 VHF, UHF and cross-Band RX VHF TX UHF station still on the air and they have a common Molex plug intermittence on the audio and control card¡¯s.
?
Every couple of years¡¯ they start to have intermittent problem¡¯s and we have to go to the site and pull out an in a few time all the card and the station return to normal use
?
I know it is very common in commercial use to pull out all the cars and use an external controller like a CSI or Zetron, that could be applied to certain station like our cross-band one.
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But some are a voting station connected to a Motorola Spectra-Tac and some are RF Link I would need 3 Zetron to do it¡
?
Si I am looking to keep using the original Motorola card¡¯s but find a fix to the contact problem.
?
Doe¡¯s anybody ever found a fix to this common problem?
?
For info here are the card¡¯s we use:
?
Line Driver (to drive audio to the RF link)
?
Station Control (to control the station)
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Squelch-Gate (for local repeat operation)
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Original Motorola Morse ID
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PL Card for RX and TX CTCSS
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R1 Audio (the Squelch control the audio going to the RF Link)
?
Time-Out Timer
?
?
Any suggestion would appreciated.
?
Best 73 to All.
?
Carl
VA2CMB
?
?
?
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Jared Smudde
Chris Boone WB5ITT
Mike Besemer - WM4B