Thanks for the link Bob!
Well- the pins were all very clean, nothing metered bad. I cleaned them anyway.
Took a closer look at the uniboard, found I put C368 in backward. It's in a group of three, obviously fudged it up not paying close attention to the + marking on the board.
I got that flipped back, now the unit boots right up.
At first, it all came alive, both VCO's working wonderfully. 5 minutes later I lost the TX VCO again, which is where I was when this all started.
Back to the drawing board, I guess, perhaps there really is a problem with that VCO after all. When it boots up if I am listening on another radio I get some screeches and beeps coming thru while it boots. The RX is working great.?
Tom W9SRV
On Monday, February 15, 2021, 10:50:49 AM CST, Bob M. <wa1mik@...> wrote:
Go (and this is the hard part) READ this article:
About half way down there's a section called "Resolutions:" where it mentions some LEDs are lit dimly. Note the item dated 20-Jun-08 and the photo.
Remove each of the filter/pin assemblies (two Torx screws) and measure each pin to the connector ground. You should get over 20 megohms on every pin. Scrape the crud off the ones that don't until they do. Check and clean both sides. Do each filter/pin assembly separately and remember how they go back in as there is a top and bottom, left and right. Use a permanent marker to make a mark in one corner of both the filter/pin assembly and the chassis.
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- I have access to a few Marti RPU transmitters. Has anyone here had luck using them as link radios? They have beautiful audio, but not sure if they are too wide for ham links.
? Marti's were available with a variety of IF and AF bandwidths, from "very narrow" for P-channel telemetry to "wideband" that were used on 100 kHz channels on uhf, to composite (50 kHz deviation), and everything in between.? In the US, the composite ones were only available for 950 MHz, but in other countries with different STL bands, they were available in other ranges (I've seen 200 MHz and 300 MHz for example).? Preemphasis of 50 or 75 microseconds on the program audio varieties.? Single-ended noise reduction was an option.? Transformer inputs and outputs were options on some models.? There were many varieties and combinations, many of which, from the front panel, may look identical.? Every variety, from the earliest units to the most-recent that were reincarnated by BE (Broadcast Electronics) had different issues, ranging from slightly annoying to debilitating.? Personally, I wouldn't spend any time or money putting one on the air, there are much better choices out there with less hassle and potential aggravation, but that's just me. ? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? --- Jeff WN3A ?
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Skyler,
I have maintained dozens of them over
the years. The transmitters are really junk, spur up fast. The
receivers have a horrible front end. For broadcasting, 40 years
ago I found about 20 GE Master pro receivers that were wide band
(15 KHz deviation). I made an unbalanced to balanced line adapter,
ran the discriminator audio through a Micor squelch IC, a very
small de-emphasis circuit, and had a superior receiver to anything
Marti ever made.
They look nice. They do have clean
audio, but they are also maintenance nightmares. I just dropped of
some 8 pieces of Marti gear to a local ham radio second hand shop.
The hams use the chassis's for projects. One guy took a RPT-2 to
hid a Baefeng with a gel cell and an identifier inside for a
"Fox-Box". Best use for the chassis yet!
Tom K8TB
On 2/15/2021 7:01 PM, Skyler Fennell
wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I have access to a few Marti RPU transmitters. Has
anyone here had luck using them as link radios? They have
beautiful audio, but not sure if they are too wide for ham
links.
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I have access to a few Marti RPU transmitters. Has anyone here had luck using them as link radios? They have beautiful audio, but not sure if they are too wide for ham links.
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Re: A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
YES!! Wayne, I totally agree with you! Have old pair of Maxtracs repeater, with Allstar and Echolink. Great understandable audio. Can judge user input signal strength by good old noise, flutter, and crackle!! Frank N6CES
wide band analog. thank you
AllStar for the linking, sounds like everybody is a local??
and I can keep using my 1990 Midland STII !
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Re: A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
wide band analog. thank you
AllStar for the linking, sounds like everybody is a local??
and I can keep using my 1990 Midland STII !
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Available: Motorola MICOR UHF Repeater w/NHRC ? Controller
I have a Motorola MICOR UHF repeater with a NHRC ? controller available. This repeater is operational?on the 444.825+ pair. It was removed from service several years ago. It's been sitting in my climate controlled basement ever since, so obviously I don't plan to use it for anything. Motorola cabinet with doors and locks included; duplexer is not included. Power amp is TLE1713A-1 60-75 watt unit, however it's delivering only 30 watts at present. I don't know why and I'm not inclined to work on it. The Motorola PSU has a shorted filter cap,?so the PSU has been deactivated. I've modified it to accept 13.8VDC input from an external power supply and still use the regulated 9.6V card on the PSU to supply the backplane with that voltage. The repeater powers up, IDs, receives and transmits. The squelch tail is a tad long for my liking, I'm sure someone can iron that out if inclined.??
Open to offers; can deliver within a short distance of Nashville, TN. Photos?attached, please email me directly; good on QRZ.
Thanks,
Robin Midgett K4IDC
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Re: A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
Each phone uses their own software and hardware, so the are all a
little different. It's just like all car companies have anti lock
brakes, but they all call it something different, and they all
work a little different, but all do the job.
On 2/15/2021 10:46 AM, SRG wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I'm curious what makes the Apple better?? Or perhaps that should
be another topic? I'm on Verizon with a flip phone. I don't use
texting, social media or anything like that. Just voice for
emergencies or urgent stuff from the wife.
--
Regards, Karl Shoemaker
To contact me, please visit SRG's web site at?
for the current email address.
-
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Speaking of Repeaters built out of a couple mobiles
I have repeaters available that are constructed out of Motorola Spectra Radios interfaced directly on AllStar. Great Backyard?repeaters or home simplex nodes if you want to experiment with the AllStar network. No duplexer or antenna.?
Obviously not as a replacement for a purpose built repeater, but a good budget setup for a low profile deployment and the spectras have fairly reasonable selectivity.?
Available on sale through the end of?the month at
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With some of the Motorola software one can enter out of band frequencies by first holding the <SHIFT> key down while entering the digits to be entered.? Dont hold shift key during decimal.?
The screen will display bogus numbers, but when you do display the channel information it will read actual digits for the frequency.
Not sure if will work with Mag One, just have to try.? Older software would work, seems it was written by Hams.
73, ron, n9ee/r
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Re: A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
Apple uses their own DAC chips. Some
Android phones have budget chips and suffer from poor audio.
-J
SRG
wrote on 2/15/2021 10:46 AM:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I'm curious
what makes the Apple better?? Or perhaps that should be another topic?
I'm on Verizon with a flip phone. I don't use texting, social media or
anything like that. Just voice for emergencies or urgent stuff from the
wife.
--
Regards, Karl Shoemaker
To contact me, please visit
SRG's web site at?
for
the current email address.
-
|
Go (and this is the hard part) READ this article:
About half way down there's a section called "Resolutions:" where it mentions some LEDs are lit dimly. Note the item dated 20-Jun-08 and the photo.
Remove each of the filter/pin assemblies (two Torx screws) and measure each pin to the connector ground. You should get over 20 megohms on every pin. Scrape the crud off the ones that don't until they do. Check and clean both sides. Do each filter/pin assembly separately and remember how they go back in as there is a top and bottom, left and right. Use a permanent marker to make a mark in one corner of both the filter/pin assembly and the chassis.
|
Re: A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
I'm curious what makes the Apple better?? Or perhaps that should be another topic? I'm on Verizon with a flip phone. I don't use texting, social media or anything like that. Just voice for emergencies or urgent stuff from the wife.
--
Regards, Karl Shoemaker
To contact me, please visit SRG's web site at?
for the current email address.
-
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Re: A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
Funny you should mention Apple cell phones.
I have an Android. I got into a little poll myself. Whenever I got a
call that was harder-than-normal to understand, I'd ask if they were
using an iPhone. The response from them was always "How did you
know?" My response back was "You are very difficult to understand."
Chuck
WB2EDV
On 2/14/2021 10:40 PM, john ni0k wrote:
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Just as with cell phones, people won't know any better, with the
exception of Apple products with their proprietary vocoder.
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I was asked if I could make a Mag One into the UHF ham band. My software will not let it go below 450 mhz. Is there a way to get around that. Jim
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Just a thought; to post the arraignment I built for my repeater, showing the (good quality) charger, battery, fuses and documentation on the wall. There's more details on the web site, of course.
--
Regards, Karl Shoemaker
To contact me, please visit SRG's web site at?
for the current email address.
-
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Good evening all-
Just finished up the recap- I did the ones on the control boards as I did find one leaked out.
Put it all back together and of course, it seems more broken now...
I get E40 & E41, and the PA Key light is dimly lit. Those error codes indicate a synthesizer problem. Does anyone want to hazard a guess which caps I screwed up?
I took it slow and did them one by one to make sure I didn't screw up a value. I did them all on the anti-static mat with the straps on. Guess I need to go check each one again...
Tom
W9SRV
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Nice thread, folks.?? In my two cases, one local Club and another Club (SRG); The first Club I'm researching options with some others as a team effort. For my Club (SRG) I do all the engineering so it's a no-brainer. I'll talk about the first Club first.
We have mostly DC (12v) equipment at the sites for the packet stations so a KISS arraignment may be the best way to go; that's a charger/supply feeding the station battery, feeding the equipment.? But with a twist; a LVD unit to save the battery from long term outages.? However, one other site using a PC for the RMS gateway for winlink as I understand it. That may require a UPS.? However, their are thoughts to have a PC that runs on 12v, so we would be back to a simple backup.? The other question we are chewing on is the size of the battery. For sites with a reliable motor generator a small battery is all that's needed to protect the equipment (mainly TNCs) from the transfer switch.? For sites with questionable generator situation we may need a larger battery (more outage backup).
For the SRG Club, I had a 2,000 amp-hour battery (not a typo) made up of 7 cells (Liberty series like the picture) for a "14v" supply being charge by a Ratelco unit. I have great experience with that brand of equipment.? That arraignment was very good in spite of each cell weight of 100-200 lbs. each. A handtruck was required to install the system by myself. Those cells finally went bad after being about 30 years old. The replacement was a simple set of American Battery, two 6-volts one in series for a 12v system. I've had several grid outages and they hold up well. The site is in the woods and almost every time we have a snowfall we loose power. I don't mind it since it's like camping out with something on the barbecue on the back porch.? This summer I plan to change to a 24v system but that's another subject.? Keep up the stories, folks !
--
Regards, Karl Shoemaker
To contact me, please visit SRG's web site at?
for the current email address.
-
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Re: A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
I must admit NXDN is a good product along with the Kenwood line. The audio is very equilized and sounds better than the Motorola..even the Harris stuff sounds better than the Motorola. At IWCE..tested alot of these radios sound quality and I must admit the Icom/Harris engineering came a long way in engineering plus Kenwood gives you 4 channels. I remember a company in Dallas called com-space designed a similiar system that was similiar to the Motorola tetra system that utilized 4 slots per channel. they were using Philip radios and had good audio quality.. too bad they went tits up
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----- Original Message ----- From: John <jhaserick84@...> To: [email protected], Bob Dgler <no6b@...> Sent: Sun, 14 Feb 2021 18:55:23 -0700 (MST) Subject: Re: [repeater-builder] A poll for preference. Analog or digital? I concur with very narrow NXDN giving better results than legacy 5KHz FM. We did a test using a handheld Kenwood NXDN/analog 450 portable on our deck with an NXDN/analog repeater about 40 miles away. Our lot and adjacent land is full of large oak trees, so tons of phasing nulls. With analog, as I moved around the deck, about every few feet the repeater would go from nearly full quieting to completely noise. Walking around the deck the same way on very narrow NXDN, there was 100% voice copy with some areas of R2D2, but very clear copy. Night and day difference between modes! John W1GPO On 02/14/2021 6:18 PM Bob Dengler <no6b@...> wrote:
At 2/14/2021 11:22 AM, you wrote:
I believe the best reason to use digital is the same as the basic reason for using a repeater. That is to extend simplex range. Then there is little reason to use digital. With the possible exception of 4k0 NXDN, I can always hear a signal further into the noise on analog than digital.
But I have heard recordings of on the air tests of hams checking into distant repeaters analog vs fusion, same power levels same antenna and fusion is full quieting and analog was noisy. I have heard an improvement of 30-50% That has not been my experience. At the point where I can no longer understand an analog NBFM transmission, every 11k0 or wider digital mode has already turned into R2D2 or total silence.
Bob NO6B
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A poll for preference. Analog or digital?
My vote is for analog, as well. I qualify
as an 'old fart', having been licensed since 1970 and working 2M FM
repeaters since then. I remember the heyday of repeaters when there was
only one game in a major metro area and it was transmitting almost 24/7.
You had to work to get a word in edge-wise. The conversations haven't
changed at all, though. Back then "narrow-band" had just come
into use, made possible by more stable equipment. 5 KHz? Wow! There
is a huge push for more efficient spectrum use because of a lot of
reasons. Fortunately VHF has a lower demand now because of the huge
migration to 900 MHz by government agencies. Here in Minnesota all of
law enforcement is now on the Borg-like ARMER system that is run by the
State. So, hams can blissfully stay on the (noise-polluted) 2M band. It
seems like most of the DMR systems are on 70cm around here. Many of the
people building these repeaters have no idea that the digital system
masks all sorts gremlins. The cheap DMR radios tend to have really bad
audio, both transmit and receive. Too bad... new hams buy them and have
no idea that there is anything better. Good DMR and P25 systems
(with quality subscriber units) sound *pretty* good, but as many have
pointed out the individual's voice characteristics are erased by the
vocoder. Just as with cell phones, people won't know any better,
with the exception of Apple products with their proprietary vocoder. --
73,
-de John NI0K
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Robin Midgett
Don Clark
Bob M.
Karl Shoemaker
