Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
And the signal generator output is accurate?
Get someone with a more current and calibrated unit to verify.
Seems to me you are using an R1200 service monitor that is 50+
years old?
73, Jim W7RY
On 11/2/2022 11:53 AM, Mike Besemer -
WM4B wrote:
Are we sure the receiver (and/or the service monitor) is
on-frequency?
Mike
WM4B
On November 2, 2022 at 12:47 PM "Bob
Dengler via groups.io" <no6b@...>
wrote:
At 11/2/2022 09:35 AM, you wrote:
>Spec for the MTR2000 VHF is 0.35 uv or -116 dbm at 12db
SINAD, so his receiver is pretty close.
1 dB less than that is typically what I get out of a MASTR II or
MVP, which has the same spec. However, at least here in SoCal
that's pretty much equal to the noise floor on 2 meters.
Depending on the site I may or may not try adding a preamp; in
most cases no because the actual S/N improvement is
insignificant. However at 0.4 uV that's 2 dB worse, which in
most cases would clearly be throwing away S/N. So I wouldn't be
happy with 0.4 uV either - worth getting that 1 dB or
(hopefully) more back.
Bob NO6B
--
Thanks and 73, Jim W7RY
|
Yearly support request - Repeater Builder? website - W3KKC
Hello everyone,
Once a year I ask for financial support to help defray the costs
associated with the upkeep and furtherance of free repeater related
help sites.? Repeater Builder continues to grow as we add
information over the course of time.? With your donation, we'll be
able to maintain the site, keeping it free.? Whether it be manuals
or quality conversion articles, all information is provided free of
charge.? There are literally thousands of .? Several manufacturers of repeater
related equipment have gone out of business, but you can count on RB
to continue to provide owners manuals and other information
pertaining to these companies into the future.? Because of its size
- even this group (on groups.io) is not free.
If the Repeater Builder website or this group has helped you, would
you please consider a small donation to help keep them going??
Donations via regular mail (address provided below) or PayPal are
greatly appreciated!
An online donation can be made by going to the and clicking on the PayPal Donate button:
Or, by postal mail at:
Kevin Custer
79 Cochise Court
Palm Coast FL 32137
I'd like to thank my webmasters Matt Wagner N1ZYY and Mike Morris
WA6ILQ who have stepped up in the absence of Bob Meister WA1MIK who
passed away unexpectedly.? It is an enormous task to keep the site
up to date.? I'd also like to thank the numerous authors and
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course my Email Group Moderators for their continued
support.
Repeater Builder? is a registered trademark in the United States of
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is a company owned by me, where I sell some
small project kits and products for (mainly) hams.
is owned by Scott Zimmerman N3XCC and he
is licensed for the use of the name in his business (since 2001).
All of this sometimes causes confusion which can be sorted out here:
Again - - Thank-You very much for your continued support!
Comments or questions are always welcomed - please call or email.
73,
Kevin W3KKC
kuggie@...
kevin@...
(814) 313-4036 (reasonably hours eastern time)
|
Re: Somewhat OT... imaging a hard drive...
This any help Mike?
John - Down Under
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 2/11/2022 6:49 pm, M M wrote: I asked the seller which version of Ghost he was providing as I was looking for 7 or later.
He replied "I think this is version 3 or older, Not what you are looking for."
But thanks for the suggestion.?? It turns out that older versions of Hiren
had Ghost.
Three of the suggestions made here were for a bootable RescueZilla, a bootable CloneZilla and a bootable GParted.
It looks like one of those will do what I need.
Mike
|
Re: Somewhat OT... imaging a hard drive...
Mike:
I may have misunderstood your request but here is a possible
solution. I have not read through all of the emails, but of those
that I have read, I have not seen a mention of "Casper" (Get
it?).? It if has been mentioned, I apologize for taking this
space.
Casper is by Future Systems:?
I have used it for years to make full bootable copies of my OS and
also identical copies of a RAID-1 Data Drive I use in all of my
desktop computers. I typically do this once a week. I prefer
bootable copies to an image since you have to restore an image to
make sure everything worked. I can test any of these clones by
substituting it for the boot drive.
If I lose the OS drive, I can take the backup copy and simply
replace the OS drive with it and everything is restored to the
point of the last backup copy.? I can get any differential off
Carbonite and add it to the clone.
I also made copies of a boot drive of a Dell 755 and plug it into
another Dell 755 and it will boot, etc. with all the drivers, but
I recall that it will eventually ask for new Product Keys for the
various softwares on the new OS disk.? But this is never a problem
when you put it back in the very same computer.
I use Casper version 8.0.4612.? There are later versions, but this
one still works fine.?
They had a runtime version on a CD called Casper XP that you could
boot to and restore the OS drive from a backup. They no longer
offer this. I think the runtime license to Microsoft ran out. But
it would be superflous for me since I typically use an identical
size drive for the clone.
The few times I have had an OS Drive problem, I take the backup
clone to another computer and make a backup there to plug back
into the problem computer. I don't want to lose two drives if it
is a hardware problem. I leapfrog the clones so that I have clones
for the past three backups in a fire resistant box under the desk.
I occasionally take one home for safekeeping.?
This multiple disk system is all purely driven by paranoia from
having a hard drive fail right in the middle of a project due
within a day or so. It happened the first time, but each time
after that, I had the document on a RAID-1 drive set.? If it was
the OS disk, I take the document off the RAID-1 and go to a new
machine. I keep an identical machine in my library.
If you have it on a computer and you also have two USB ports, you
can take a OS drive out of a another computer and make a copy of
it on the first computer from disk to disk and plug the OS drive
or copy back into the computer you took it from and both will
work.? This would be if you can otherwise make a clone of the
drive you want by installing Casper on that computer.
The only problem I had with Casper was that I had Carbonite
running on my main computer. It was accessing the OS drive at the
same time as Casper.? Too many errors and Casper will stop.? I
pause Carbonite for the time that it takes to make a backup and
that problem went away.?
Casper has a "smart clone" option which evaluates what files are
already on the drive that you are copying too.? It only duplicates
the new files that have been added and rearrange other files to
duplicate the originating drive.? This means that it usually only
takes 20 - 30 minutes to "catch up" the 1 Tb OS copy from three
weeks ago.? My 4 Tb data drive that the first time might 14 - 18
hours or longer to duplicate might take 40 - 50 minutes to add new
data to three week old clone depending upon how much I add.
I hope this is helpful.
Micheal Salem
On 10/30/2022 4:14 AM, M M wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Years ago (before Norton bought them) I used Ghost to image hard
drives
(I was doing field support for a bank).? it worked elegantly.
I could clone one drive to another (usually larger), or creating
an image file of one drive and
placing the entire image as a single file on another drive.
A company in the UK came up with a very elegant derivation of
Ghost that they called Mayfair.?
I learned about it from a friend that did field service on
CityBank ATMs about 5-10 years ago.?
His company issue thumb drive had two drive volumes on it, when
booted it came up as C (read-only) and as D (read-write).
The image file could be placed on the D: volume of the thumb
drive, on a second thumb drive, or could be written to a
blank DVD in the computer it was running on.
I am now in a situation where I could use a copy of Mayfair,
and the company seems to have evaporated.
Does anybody here have any knowledge of the company that created
Mayfair?? Or contact info??
I remember going to a web site and it was a commercial product.
If they are gone, then is there a really good imaging program
that works as well and as elegantly as
Ghost used to be??? I know how to make a USB drive bootable with
"rufus".
Yes, this request is repeater related.?
i have laptops at each repeater site that can talk to the local
controller, be it RLC or Scom or Arcom.
Teamviewer or VNC makes it easy... And a laptop with nothing but
the OS and a remote access
program and a controller manager would have a very small image.
?
But laptops die at inopportune times.?
I like having a "just in case" image file of the laptop at each
of the sites.? I'd love to be able to refresh
my image file just before I leave a site... just restart the
laptop from my bootable thumb drive, image
the laptop to a file on that thumb drive... when it 's done pull
the thumb drive and restart the laptop
in normal mode.? If the laptop croaks I can drop an image on a
replacement laptop and KNOW that
the new laptop has everything that the site needs...
Ideas??? Comments?
Mike WA6ILQ
|
Re: Somewhat OT... imaging a hard drive...
This was replying to Alan (or who cares) because I can't figure out what switch needs to be thrown? to make the quote feature do what I want.? If only there was a referrence and a spell checker...
"Taxing the brain, With XP, one had to mod the registry to go back to the bios for
the disk driver if the motherboard IDE or SATA driver changes. Then at first boot
on the new hardware, it will install the appropriate hard disk driver and video drivers.
Can anybody remember the details?
Alan VK2ZIW"
On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 12:10 PM, jb wrote:
Unfortunately, detailed explanations of how this was done have been purged from forums and groups
along with any valid license keys because usoft sifts through the internet to kill any mention.
If you have an activated installation with updates and software you want to keep, you can image that and
have a recovery back to where you won't have to screw around with much to get back to normal if all that
crashed was a hard drive and the machine is the same.
Many XP OEMs had a hidden recovery partion that could be activated either by a recovery boot disk or from
running a utility if you could boot up.? This would give you a fresh "out of the box" installation all pre-activated
(but requiring updates).? Using wrong versions of imaging software or incorrectly is likely to wipe out this
feature leaving you without a valid license.?
What you describe is the "bare-metal" solution, that recovers an image that is custom built, mostly virgin in its
registry, and has a variety of drivers that will install minimally, at the first run.? This gives you a mostly clean install,
and will only work if the activation conditions are met (part of the build).? If activation fails, you can trick it to give
you a grace period, but after that you can't get things to work and can't fix it without ratting yourself out to usoft.?
I don't know if it works anymore with XP since it's no longer supported.
DOS, win9x and 2000 don't require activation.? Just have a good key.? Never put your good key on the internet
or it will go dead.
|
Re: Somewhat OT... imaging a hard drive...
Unfortunately, detailed explanations of how this was done have been purged from forums and groups
along with any valid license keys because usoft sifts through the internet to kill any mention.
If you have an activated installation with updates and software you want to keep, you can image that and
have a recovery back to where you won't have to screw around with much to get back to normal if all that
crashed was a hard drive and the machine is the same.
Many XP OEMs had a hidden recovery partion that could be activated either by a recovery boot disk or from
running a utility if you could boot up.? This would give you a fresh "out of the box" installation all pre-activated
(but requiring updates).? Using wrong versions of imaging software or incorrectly is likely to wipe out this
feature leaving you without a valid license.?
What you describe is the "bare-metal" solution, that recovers an image that is custom built, mostly virgin in its
registry, and has a variety of drivers that will install minimally, at the first run.? This gives you a mostly clean install,
and will only work if the activation conditions are met (part of the build).? If activation fails, you can trick it to give
you a grace period, but after that you can't get things to work and can't fix it without ratting yourself out to usoft.?
I don't know if it works anymore with XP since it's no longer supported.
DOS, win9x and 2000 don't require activation.? Just have a good key.? Never put your good key on the internet
or it will go dead.
|
Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
It certainly is worth getting the receiver back to where it belongs. I’m not going to take the time and drive to the site and install everything just for it to continue to be deaf and run like garbage.
The previous owner of the service monitor said the level was accurate to the dial but was 1khz low. But I still use my spectrum analyzer and make sure it’s on frequency and the level is correct. I know it’s a Rigol but it’s better than anything.
I don’t know if the receiver is on frequency, I guess I should figure out how to do that.
|
Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
Are we sure the receiver (and/or the service monitor) is on-frequency?
Mike
WM4B
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On November 2, 2022 at 12:47 PM "Bob Dengler via groups.io" <no6b@...> wrote:
At 11/2/2022 09:35 AM, you wrote:
>Spec for the MTR2000 VHF is 0.35 uv or -116 dbm at 12db SINAD, so his receiver is pretty close.
1 dB less than that is typically what I get out of a MASTR II or MVP, which has the same spec. However, at least here in SoCal that's pretty much equal to the noise floor on 2 meters. Depending on the site I may or may not try adding a preamp; in most cases no because the actual S/N improvement is insignificant. However at 0.4 uV that's 2 dB worse, which in most cases would clearly be throwing away S/N. So I wouldn't be happy with 0.4 uV either - worth getting that 1 dB or (hopefully) more back.
Bob NO6B
|
I have to agree with Chris on this.? Running raw discriminator audio directly into the modulator is going to cause problems.? You need "something" ahead of the modulator to control the maximum deviation.? This is one of the reasons I disagree with the idea of coming out of the discriminator, going directly into the modulator and setting the system for 5 kHz in and 5 kHz out.
Years ago when I was on the TASMA technical committee one of the most frustrating problems I regularly faced was with people who would do this.? In a lot of cases the squelch tail was measured going out to 20 or more kHz of deviation, while popcorn and noise from signals that were only partially quieting went out to almost the same.? They don't understand.? It's just bad practice.
Burt, K6OQK
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On Tue, Nov 1, 2022 at 10:29 AM, Chris Boone wrote:
I strongly disagree Scott... That's a recipe for disaster. Feeding wide band unsquelched noise to a modulator will cause the transmitter to over deviate. Remember the squelch noise out of a discriminator is half the bandwidth of the IF filter which means you have audio at 7.5 khz + coming out of the receiver.. Anytime I run flat audio, I always put a clipper/limiter circuit in line to prevent over deviation, and also to limit the audio bandwidth to 3 kilohertz maximum. Under FCC part 97 rules we are required to make sure that we use good engineering practices. Running raw discriminator audio straight into a transmitter modulator without any processing violates that rule. I've done that in microwave systems but that's a special case and you have the bandwidth to do it. In the crowded VHF/UHF bands, it's totally ludicrous to do so
?
Chris
WB5ITT?
|
Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
At 11/2/2022 09:35 AM, you wrote: Spec for the MTR2000 VHF is 0.35 uv or -116 dbm at 12db SINAD, so his receiver is pretty close. 1 dB less than that is typically what I get out of a MASTR II or MVP, which has the same spec. However, at least here in SoCal that's pretty much equal to the noise floor on 2 meters. Depending on the site I may or may not try adding a preamp; in most cases no because the actual S/N improvement is insignificant. However at 0.4 uV that's 2 dB worse, which in most cases would clearly be throwing away S/N. So I wouldn't be happy with 0.4 uV either - worth getting that 1 dB or (hopefully) more back. Bob NO6B
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Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
Spec for the MTR2000 VHF is 0.35 uv or -116 dbm at 12db SINAD, so his receiver?is pretty close.
Brian n1bs
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On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 12:14 PM Kevin Custer < kuggie@...> wrote: Okay - -
Yea - -115dBm for 12 dB SINAD is pretty numb. Many receivers are much
better at -120 (something) or so for 12dB SINAD.
On 11/2/2022 11:30 AM, Jared Smudde wrote:
> The MTR is reading 0.4uV (115 dBm) at 12DB SINAD. I’ve aligned the
> repeater 3 times now and even tried directly to the port on the
> receiver module. I must be doing something wrong, my UHF MTRs are much
> more sensitive.
>
> I need to take a VHF MaxTrac I have and test it’s 12DB SINAD by itself
> and then through the duplexer and see how it goes. I’m sure I’m
> chasing a ghost and really have a receiver issue.
--
Amateur call: n1bs
Brian Swann
|
Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
Okay - -
Yea - -115dBm for 12 dB SINAD is pretty numb. Many receivers are much better at -120 (something) or so for 12dB SINAD.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 11/2/2022 11:30 AM, Jared Smudde wrote: The MTR is reading 0.4uV (115 dBm) at 12DB SINAD. I’ve aligned the repeater 3 times now and even tried directly to the port on the receiver module. I must be doing something wrong, my UHF MTRs are much more sensitive.
I need to take a VHF MaxTrac I have and test it’s 12DB SINAD by itself and then through the duplexer and see how it goes. I’m sure I’m chasing a ghost and really have a receiver issue.
|
Re: Somewhat OT... imaging a hard drive...
?
IDE drive device ID/order is determined by the controller (typically only one is present).
SATA drive device ID/order is determined by which SATA port/cable a drive is connected to.
The BIOS has no drivers.? It is coded to recognize sets of standard interfaces/devices and access them accordingly.
Most/many BIOS do provide a Boot Order selection - by device type/port. Perhaps this is what you're referring to?
Upon boot the BIOS will detect/instantiate known devices and determine which if any device/media contains boot information and try to follow the boot order selected above.
Typically the first device is IDE 0 or SATA 0.
'most' BIOS provides a visible or hidden key-press option to select which device to boot from different from the default Boot Order above.? This allows you to select a CD/DVD for raw boot/OS installation, a bootable USB 'stick' - for OS or in this context a bootable GParted/Clonezilla stick running Linux, or other types of utility media that would likely be running WinPE to jump start an application or OS install process.
Once an OS kicks off it determines if it has a default/basic driver to access a device, or fail out if the boot 'build' doesn't know how to talk to something. Another level of discussion about device detection and drivers, etc.? Life was almost simpler way-back in DOS and DOS-based Windows days - then came a progression of industry groups to sort and organize all this into something expandable to the future today.? (interesting journey through all that, sorta, from the time I worked for a PC diagnostic company and "was there" when such things were evolving. )? ? Next we can talk about "device not found, driver errors, relevant to DOS vs Windows serial devices... Prolific/Prolific clones, FTDI, Motorola's bizarre serial data clocking for older HTs...)
Confused yet?? :O
?
On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 04:16 AM, Alan Beard wrote:
Taxing the brain, With XP, one had to mod the registry to go back to the bios for
the disk driver if the motherboard IDE or SATA driver changes. Then at first boot
on the new hardware, it will install the appropriate hard disk driver and video drivers.
|
Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
The MTR is reading 0.4uV (115 dBm) at 12DB SINAD. I’ve aligned the repeater 3 times now and even tried directly to the port on the receiver module. I must be doing something wrong, my UHF MTRs are much more sensitive.
I need to take a VHF MaxTrac I have and test it’s 12DB SINAD by itself and then through the duplexer and see how it goes. I’m sure I’m chasing a ghost and really have a receiver issue.
|
Can you give me some more details on how to make these measurements?
?
Brandon Vetter
Office 208-714-4651
Cell 208-625-0892
?
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From: [email protected] < [email protected]>
On Behalf Of Chris Boone via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, November 2, 2022 6:09 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [repeater-builder] TKR-851 power issue
?
Did you measure the voltage at the PA transistor? I'd look at that first. Also measure the exciter output and see what it's doing. If I recall correctly, the repeater uses a relay to switch in and out a dropping resistor for backup DC operation.
I've seen that really fail or the circuit land open up. I had a TKR 750 that acted the same way but it had been underwater for 7 weeks after tropical storm Harvey! It worked for about 10 minutes until the microprocessor went crazy.
?
On Wed, Nov 2, 2022, 7:50 AM Brandon Vetter <Brandon@...> wrote:
Hi Group,
????????????? I have a TKR-851 that I thought had bad finals. It had about 2 watts output. Installed a new transmitter board with new driver and final transistors and now I get
3 Watts output. If I drop it to low power, I get less than 1 watt. The power in the software is turned up. The power adjustment pot does not seem to be functional. There are no PLL errors flashing. Anyone have any thoughts on what might be going on?
?
Brandon Vetter
N7IRG
?
?
|
?
?
Brandon Vetter
Office 208-714-4651
Cell 208-625-0892
?
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
From: [email protected] < [email protected]>
On Behalf Of Chris Boone via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, November 2, 2022 6:09 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [repeater-builder] TKR-851 power issue
?
Did you measure the voltage at the PA transistor? I'd look at that first. Also measure the exciter output and see what it's doing. If I recall correctly, the repeater uses a relay to switch in and out a dropping resistor for backup DC operation.
I've seen that really fail or the circuit land open up. I had a TKR 750 that acted the same way but it had been underwater for 7 weeks after tropical storm Harvey! It worked for about 10 minutes until the microprocessor went crazy.
?
On Wed, Nov 2, 2022, 7:50 AM Brandon Vetter <Brandon@...> wrote:
Hi Group,
????????????? I have a TKR-851 that I thought had bad finals. It had about 2 watts output. Installed a new transmitter board with new driver and final transistors and now I get
3 Watts output. If I drop it to low power, I get less than 1 watt. The power in the software is turned up. The power adjustment pot does not seem to be functional. There are no PLL errors flashing. Anyone have any thoughts on what might be going on?
?
Brandon Vetter
N7IRG
?
?
|
Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
I may have missed something but have you tried this ?
Hook a transceiver to the antenna and see what kind of range you are getting.? If as expected, hook the repeater receiver input directly to the antenna and see if you are getting about the same from a distant station.
Have you tried cutting the transmitter off and on while receiving a signal to check for desense ?
When you injected the signal did you up it a db or two to compensate for the loss in the duplexer ?
Ralph ku4pt
On Wednesday, November 2, 2022 at 08:19:18 AM EDT, Jared Smudde <computerwhiz02@...> wrote:
So last night, I measured the MTR at 0.4uV at the receiver port and 0.5uV at the duplexer antenna port.
I injected a signal into the receiver port of the MTR that had just barely had no noise and when I injected it through the duplexer into the repeater, there was noise present. It wasn't heavy noise but it still had noise on the signal.
|
Re: Got a trimble thunderbolt E need more info.
Thanks Cliff, will order one as soon as I have the trimbler?working.
Still searching for a suitable?24 volt power supply as my trimble has the internal voltage controller?that takes care of the?+5?+12 and -12 volts signal. Still have not connected it yet as I also search for the mini connector type that is in front of the device. I will try to inject 24 volts from my test power supply first. surely this weekend.
Tks for the info again
Pierre
VE2PF
Le?ven. 28 oct. 2022 à?12:11, k1iff < k1iff@...> a écrit?: I would also recommend getting one of .? Also comes in kit form for a bit less.?
Gives you four filtered and amplified outputs.? I use all four - two for my NXDN repeaters and two for the service monitors.
73 Cliff, k1iff
|
Connect the repeater to a power supply that can tell you how much current is being drawn. Determine if it’s low or in the expected range.?
If low, troubleshoot the DC power circuitry. If it’s as expected, troubleshoot the RF path/cabling circuitry.? tnx Mike / K5JR? Alpharetta GA
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Nov 2, 2022, at 8:50 AM, Brandon Vetter <Brandon@...> wrote: ?
Hi Group,
????????????? I have a TKR-851 that I thought had bad finals. It had about 2 watts output. Installed a new transmitter board with new driver and final transistors and now I get 3 Watts output. If I drop it to low power, I get less than
1 watt. The power in the software is turned up. The power adjustment pot does not seem to be functional. There are no PLL errors flashing. Anyone have any thoughts on what might be going on?
?
Brandon Vetter
N7IRG
?
?
|
Re: VHF MTR2000 Poor Receive Performance
Jared,
I think your SM allows you to read dBm directly.? Please consider
using that measurement unit instead of uV, because it requires
less conversions and makes more sense in the end.
Taking your two measurements of 0.4uV and 0.5uV the equivalent dBm
for each is -115dBm and -113dBm respectively - or a difference of
2dB.? You stated your duplexers IL is 1.67dB - I consider that
pretty darn close.
There is no free lunch.? A duplexer allows you to use one antenna
in a duplex system - - at the expense of signal loss.?
In my book - .4uV (-115dBm) bench sensitivity is pretty deaf - but
you don't say what you're referencing at that level.? Is that the
level where you achieve 12dB SINAD?? 20dB of quieting?? The
cracklies are totally gone??
Kevin
On 11/2/2022 8:19 AM, Jared Smudde wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
So last night, I measured the MTR at 0.4uV at the receiver port
and 0.5uV at the duplexer antenna port.
I injected a signal into the receiver port of the MTR that had
just barely had no noise and when I injected it through the
duplexer into the repeater, there was noise present. It wasn't
heavy noise but it still had noise on the signal.
|
Kevin Custer
Jared Smudde
Mike Besemer - WM4B
Burt K6OQK
Brandon Vetter
Pierre Martel