MSF5000 repeaters in 900mhz - any interest?

[n9wys]

I saw someone mentioned earlier about a Yahoo group regarding these stations / this project. Has anything been setup?

For me, trying to follow the threads here is a bit difficult, plus a Yahoo group can be setup to send e-mail direct to our personal mailboxes...

[n9wys]

Mark, The manual i have has a part number on it of
68P81064E70-B MSF5000 Trunked Repeater and Repeater (RT) Stations
and this covers 935-941 tx and 896-902 rx.

Guess you got rid of some stones
Feel Better.
Bob P W2YMM

OK, Bob. Maybe I'll pick up both - just for giggles.

RE: Stones - Thanks for the good wishes!
Yeah, the doctor originally thought I had 9 that needed to come out of the rigt kidney, but when he went in he found 17. (I also passed one late Thursday night the weekend we were in NJ!) Only could get 16 out, so I came home after surgery Monday. Monday evening, I was in SO much pain, I couldn't stand it and went back to the hospital via ambulance. Turns out #17 was passing - iy finally passed yesterday morning at 10AM. Came home last night. Spent most of the week high on IV pain drugs, and still VERY sore. Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll be back to normal. I haven't even had a chance to dust off the machines I have here, so I'm kinda getting anxious. Glad to see all you guys are digging right in and finding all the hurdles first, though! Good job!

[n9wys]

Mark, The manual i have has a part number on it of
68P81064E70-B MSF5000 Trunked Repeater and Repeater (RT) Stations
and this covers 935-941 tx and 896-902 rx.

Bob P W2YMM

I just checked Motorola parts online - this manual appears to be NLA...

[ka1ezh]

Just wanted to thank Scott (N1SEC) and Jason (WA1NH) for their efforts yesterday, in going down to NJ again and retrieving more repeaters (MSF 5000 900Mhz) for the New England area.

It is exciting to see increased interest in 900, here locally in Southeastern MA.

73

Ken KA1EZH

[ffmedic25]

"I saw someone mentioned earlier about a Yahoo group regarding these stations / this project. Has anything been setup?

For me, trying to follow the threads here is a bit difficult, plus a Yahoo group can be setup to send e-mail direct to our personal mailboxes"...Mark - N9WYS

Mark

I don't know about a Yahoo group, but I do know there is a Google group called GEMOTO and it does the same thing, however I believe that the GEMOTO group is full. I can tell you that the GEMOTO group is not specific to this project though. Hope this helps.

73
Scott
N1SEC

[kcbooboo]

There is an MSF5000 Yahoo! Group already; been running for years.

Since these stations are repeaters, most of the MSF5000 questions get posted on the repeater-builder Yahoo! Group.

Bob M.

[n9wys]

There is an MSF5000 Yahoo! Group already; been running for years.

Since these stations are repeaters, most of the MSF5000 questions get posted on the repeater-builder Yahoo! Group.

Bob M.

Thanks, Bob. I searched Yahoo!Groups yesterday and joined the MSF5000 group. BTW - I was surprised that you aren't either the owner or a moderator there...

[Doug]

Bob doesn't have the time. I keep him too busy keeping me out of trouble.

[ffmedic25]

How is everyone. I just wanted to give everyone a report of our trip on Friday. Unfortunately the entire trip was sort of rushed and I belive that is part of the reason it was a "successful failure" for lack of a better term. The day started with Jason not being able to get the truck till 0700 that day and so he didn't get to Attleboro till 0930. He had APRS working but it was not a full duplex system and only on a single band radio, which I didn't relize untill we were under way. He brought a portable however it wan't field programable and then he relized that he had gotten 2 dead batteries for it. We then had to stop at the UPS store right near the highway which was a short stop. We finaly got under way at 0950. On the way down in about Warwick RI the adaptor cable from the GPS to the radio came unpluged from the GPS cable so we pluged it back in and thought our APRS was working fine. When we got into southern RI we hit a traffic jam due to a hazmat spill from a tractor trailer but only delayed us for about 15 min. When we got into northern CT we made a quick pit stop to streatch our legs and again on our way. Shortly after we went through New London CT we were told we weren't tracking on APRS and we were informed that maybe CT used a different APRS protocal. We then came accross a rest area with some food at 1130 so we stoped to streatch and get something to eat and we called a fellow ham that was going to meet us to exchange money for the ones he wanted to let him know where we were. We made arrangemets to meet in New Haven CT. We stoped there for about 30 min and again on our way. We made it to the Cross Bronx Expressway by about 1300 and sat in a traffic jam that we later found out was caused by a bad accident just over the G.W. Bridge on the N.J. turnpike. At about 1415 I called the recycling place and found out that they close to shipments and deliveries at 1500 but are there till 1600 but the supervisor had scheduled to leave at 1530 for the long weekend. I explained the situation and told him I would keep him updated and he agreed to stay. By now I was in contact with Dwight by phone/nextel and found out he was comeing down Rt 287 (I think thats it) from the Tappenzi Bridge. Luckly he arrived at the recycling place at 1530 and started to go through the units and we arrived just after 1600. When we arrived we checked out the APRS unit and found out that the serial cable that inputs the GPS data to the TNC had come unpluged and we corrected it and got tracked all the way home. But now we were under the gun because we didn't want to keep the warehouse staff there all night. They were very helpfull with a fork lift and shirnk wrapped every pallet for us. Due to being rushed we miss counted how many units we needed but unfortunately didn't find out untill later. I think we left the recycling place around 1730 and Dwight suggested we follow him back the way he and his friend came to avoid NYC. We stoped at a local dinner to get some dinner and square away the money situation. This is where we relized that we had a shortage of units. We finished eating and got back on the road after Dwight got fuel about 1830. Then we relized we needed fuel too so we went down a few exits and found some deisl fuel. Back on the road and over the Tappenzi we travled untill we got off in White Plains NY to drop off Dwights 5 units and back on the road again. I lost track of time at this point, starting to get tired. We then stoped at a rest area near exit 22 in CT to meet up with my friend Pete N1EZT for a leg stretch and a cup of coffee for the ride home about 30 min. We then contacted the CT guys and made arrangements to meet them in New Haven CT again. We meet them and droped off 6 more units and from here it was non-stop to Attleboro. We finaly arrived at Ken's house KA1EZH at about 0115 and unload 10 more units. After that Jason droped me off at my house at 0145, long day for me and yet he still had to drive back to NH and finish unloading the truck and be up for work later in the morning. According to an e-mail I saw from Jason and the last APRS position he arrived home at 0625 about 24 hours later from when he started the jurney, probably about 6-8 hours later than we had anticipated on. In the end everything worked out ok and everyone (I hope) is happy. Good luck to everyone with their new repeters.

73
Scott

[n9wys]

OK - I have a question for Tony, John and others here who obtained these machines. I've looked at one of these so far, and I think I'm looking in the correct location regarding U831. In the machine I've looked at, all I see is a socket - no chip at all. There are the two vertical "red and white" boards to the right (as described).

I guess my question is: WTF??? Will these operate without the EEPROM totally? If not, why would someone pull it? I have a photo of this, but can't figure out how to get it to you to see.

[n9wys]

Here is a picture of the u831 chip if anyone is interested in seeing it.

I have the IC number,
Its motorola part number
5182335V01
its a EEPOT 50K 10% _9312_
that is whats listed in the book for a U831 ic that was cut

Bob - can you give me a wider shot of this location? I think I'm looking in the wrong place for this chip... Thanks!

[w2ymm]

Here you go Mark, It on the control shelf as you flip it up.

[n9wys]

THAT'S the ticket!! Many thanks, Bob!

[n9wys]

RE: U831

Well, I just looked at the two stations I have here. One has the leg pulled out, the other one appears as if it hasn't even been touched. Time to drag one in and start prodding a bit, I think. <wink>

While I'm thinking about programming cable(s). I've seen mention of both a 6-pin and a 50-pin cable. I see where the 6-pin plugs in to the front of the station, and read where the 50-pin plugs in. Do I need to configure BOTH cables, or only one. And if so, which one?

Sorry I'm a bit slow on the uptake here, but after having been laid up all week, I'm playing catch-up now...

As always, thanks!

[kcbooboo]

Mark: at the risk of being chastized here, have you noticed my avatar at the right side of my posts? I didn't put it there because it looks good, which it doesn't.

You really should go read some of the MSF5000 articles on that site. I'll bet you a few kidney stones that they answer many of your questions and raise your knowledge level immensely. It'll certainly be a lot less painful than passing some, and probably a lot more enjoyable.

Bob M.

[n9wys]

Thanks, Bob. I'll do that. I thiink maybe the pain meds have fogged my thinking a bit also...

[n9wys]

10 MHZ is a no-go. Too bad. In addition, there is a regulator board present in the PURC5K HSO boxes, so you'll want to breadboard something to regulate to 12v and add a significant amount of EMI filtering as well. Common and differential mode would be advisable. I'll try to get pictures and schematics from the PURC manual as a guide.

Anybody formed a yahoo or google group yet?

Will

Will - anything on the voltage regulator breadboard write-up, or a schematic/photo from the PURC5000?

I'll be getting my HSO sometime next week from Alltronics. I FINALLY wrestled one of these machines into the shack so I can start "deconstruction" of the cabinet... Mine still had the shipping bolts in the HSO drawer - complete with the "Remove when unpacked from carton" tag!

Thanks!!

[n9wys]

Well, I finally got a chance to dig into the MSF5000 a bit... I checked the HSP drawer and found (I think) the voltage regulator circiut previously mentioned as being in the PURC5000. In tested it and found 15.6V, 9.6V and 3.3V on the board - bit nothing like what the Vectron HSO wants (+12V and +5V, +/- 5% ).

I thought of using a computer power supply, since they supply both regulated +12 and +5V, but I can't seem to figure out how to make one work unless it is plugged into a motherboard.

So it looks as if I'll be building some sort of voltage regulator board. If someone can save me the work of having to reinvent the wheel, I'd be much obliged...

Thanks in advance.

[rrfd43]

Radio Shack 7812 12 VDC regulator...about 2.49. Pick up the power in the drawer, up to 35 volts in gets 12 out at 1 amp.

Thank Tony...NN1D

Works for him, and I will wire the same thing tommorrow...

[Mastertech]

Hey gus, question on the station controller. When you first turn the unit or, power it up, should every single LED on the controller light up? When I switch my unit on only the fail, line ptt, fail soft, and trc encode comes on and then all go off. None of the green leds for PA operation or rx-tx lock come one at all. Clearly these would not be on unless it was transmitting and the station was VCO locked on RX and TX, but shouldent they come on for a few seconds upon power up? If someone could let me know how their machine starts up it would help me out. Thanks

[kcbooboo]

When you first plug it in, ALL of the LEDs on the TTRC will turn on. As the station goes through its tests, the LEDs turn off one at a time, from right to left. They will all be off under normal operating conditions.

On the SSCB, ALL of the segments and decimal points on the display wil turn on. None of the other LEDs turn on. Then the red DISABLE LED turns on and the station goes through its tests, showing various items on the display. When it's all finished, the DISABLED LED turns off, the two green VCO LOCK LEDs turn on, and the display shows "11 ". After a few minutes, the display reverts to just the three decimal points.

For more information on the display sequence during turn-on, you'll just have to go read about it on the web site mentioned at the right of this post, in nice big red letters. That's the site no one here seems to know anything about, but it has all sorts of good up-to-date information that's NOT cast in stone.

Bob M.

[Radioman01]

Mastertech,

when you have the proper 5 mhz ref osc injected into the proper cable, the MSf
when locked and will show 2 green LEDs a RX and a TX on a idle status
when it transmitts you will see 4 LEDS
if the Rx is unlocked the green RX led will be off,
to put the rx in the ham bands you must first lock the VCO by twisting the operate/transit knob
into the transport posisition then by using the same allen key for tuning the front notch/pass filters
turn the VCO adjustment a half a turn upwards untill the Rx lamp on the front panel goes on, its about a half a
turn

this is crude but effective

Tony
NN1D

[Doug]

Tony and group,
I was just reading some of your trials and tribulations with the msf stations. I was looking at the previous post about getting a lock light on the VCO's. Your lock lights will come on long before the required voltage is obtained, shooting in the dark and just guessing with the msf's is going to mess you up. as many will attest to.
Doug

I'm not looking to ruffle an features or anything I'm just trying to save you a bunch of aggravation.

[willbartlett]

I think if you look at the datasheet for the 7805 and 7812, you should see an example sheet. It will include some capacitors. I would follow this as an example. The better filtered the power supply going to the oscillator, the happier you will be in the end. I would strongly advise against using a PC power supply. While they meet some kind of radiated and conducted emissions standard, electricaly they're noisy as hell. you might not get a lock of the switching noise were strong enough, they could cause the oscillator to modulate. It's one of the reasons your HT will hear all kinds of birdies around computer equipment.

The stations have 70 amps of very quiet linear DC available. There should be sufficient current capacity available inside the PLL/14.4 mhz chassis to regulate and supply to the HSO. I'd start there, breadboard the 2 regulators with bypass and common mode capacitors, and you should be very happy in the end. I sugges making sure that the power supply with the fans on it is not the supply feeding the RF shelf or HSO. I think they were cabled with the Fans on the lower amp supply and the rest of the station on the upper amp supply.

I've spent way too much time chasing spurs and other crap caused by poorly filtered switch mode supplies to let anyone else pull what little hair they have left out trying to fix a noisy supply.

Will

Well, I finally got a chance to dig into the MSF5000 a bit... I checked the HSP drawer and found (I think) the voltage regulator circiut previously mentioned as being in the PURC5000. In tested it and found 15.6V, 9.6V and 3.3V on the board - bit nothing like what the Vectron HSO wants (+12V and +5V, +/- 5% ).

I thought of using a computer power supply, since they supply both regulated +12 and +5V, but I can't seem to figure out how to make one work unless it is plugged into a motherboard.

So it looks as if I'll be building some sort of voltage regulator board. If someone can save me the work of having to reinvent the wheel, I'd be much obliged...

Thanks in advance.

[willbartlett]

Haven't gotten there yet. I just got a pile of manuals yesterday. I know the UHSO tray stuff is in there. I'll try to get some of it scanned and up over the weekend.

Also, the Jumpers listed in the manual to change over to 10 MHZ are different than what I worked out. I'll update them too.

I did dig up a station controller from a paging site, and when I'm done 3 of the 5 repeaters, including 900 and VHF-HI for our club, will be GPS disiplined. Probably good enough to use as frequency standards. Some of us around Boston use the control channel from the MSP 800 trunking system as our frequency reference as they are GPS disciplined. Now we can do it with our own gear.

Will

Will - anything on the voltage regulator breadboard write-up, or a schematic/photo from the PURC5000?

I'll be getting my HSO sometime next week from Alltronics. I FINALLY wrestled one of these machines into the shack so I can start "deconstruction" of the cabinet... Mine still had the shipping bolts in the HSO drawer - complete with the "Remove when unpacked from carton" tag!

Thanks!!

[Radioman01]

I think we are getting to critical with VCO voltages and filtering, yes its nice to be perfect
but if you don't have all the proper equipment at hand a simple tuneup will get you in the hood
and operating on the bench to know that your repeater you just bought is indeed working and
nothing else is busted.
granted having them as clean and filtered as possible and the VCO voltage to standards
will make things a bit better, but after 5 repeaters now working i can tell you one
thing these MSF's don't need to be that critical and even with the VCO voltage a bit off it still gets
.15 to open the squelch

i've tested the VCO voltages on the high and low edges and it made no noticeable difference.

Also those power supply's have more then enough filtering for using a standard 7812 regulator
for the vectron osc. mine has been running for over a week with a single 7812 mounted in the
lower cabinet using the feed voltage from the 14.4 osc into the 7812.
i cannot tell you how clean those EEPOTs and all the other timing logic IC's need but, from
looking at the control panel boards in the manual, the filtering is more then enough for
the external 5 mhz osc.

Tony
NN1D

[Mastertech]

hey guys, thanks for the replies

[Mastertech]

Ok, well the station is up and running with the HSO I got out of a PURC and I am now into the programming but I have a problem. When I try to write the code plug it tells me:

"sscb Firmware Is Version# 03
The Codeplug You Are Programming
Is Version# 04
Cannot Program Station"

What is the problem? any suggestions? Thanks, Mark.

[rrfd43]

You may need to load the default conventional codeplug included with the software. I didn't have to do this but you may have to. I think then you go into the upgrade codeplug section and set the firmware levels you have here.

My oscilator is in and the beast has come alive. A slight turn on the recieve VCO and both vco's are locked. Now off to the tunning rack!

[Mastertech]

This programming is really a problem on my end. I have tried to program with an original conventional file, right system numbner and sscb firmware number and I keep getting the same ole error and it won't porogram.

[Radioman01]

Sri i took a while..
this requires a few steps


1: make sure the secure option is not enabled in software
2: make sure the station type is set in the F8 option (what band type)
3: after all the programing changes are made (call sign blah blah ) you must upgrade your code plug to
version 4 of the SSCB board and version 5 of the TTRC board

the upgrade is F9 in the read/write/program sub menu
you must upgrade the code plug version you have after loading it to match the hardware you have
make sure in the F9 menu you actually do the upgradeto both the SSCB side of the code plug and the TTRC side
or you will get the errors you have now..

Tony
NN1D

[Mastertech]

hey Tony, thank you for the reply. Unfortunatly I did all these steps, exactly as described, and still the msf wont allow me to do the upgrade. Therefore, I have gotten the part numbers for the motorola SSCB and TTRC eeprom upgrade and ordered them on MOL. I saw that some other people have had this problem and gone this route. The firmware I bought is version 5.xx on both eeproms. Hoefully this should resolve my problem.

[Radioman01]

Ok..
no matter what you should be able to read the boards, if your not reading the boards then something else is wrong

if you can read the boards, then while its reading the MSF program will say what version the boards are, while its in the process of reading
the other thing is you can just write to the SSCB board and not the TTRC board by just saying there is no TTRC board in software
after reading the boards go into the upgrade area and see what version the code plug is

im guessing it was version 4 for the sscb and version 5 for the TTRC because all 3 of mine were

Tony
NN1D

[Radioman01]

Oh, also while upgrading (F9) the code plug you must hit the F8 key to preform the upgrade in the upgrade window
it don't upgrade automatically you must use the F8 key and a pop up box will tell you if it was sucessfull or not
i missed that one the first time.

Tony
NN1D

[Mastertech]

Hey Tony, thats correct, when I read the machine it says SSCB version 4 and TTRC ver. 5, however, I cant write that. I did try disabling the TTRC and I got a warning stating that once I do this the TTRC cannot be enabled. I ignored this, was able to write the station and now get a fail code D83 (SSCB file is no good). SO, ill keep at it. The firmware will be here tomorow and hopefully ill be on to the alignment procedure and done with these computer issues. Incidently, with this fail code I cannot read the station now, even with the "read station with fault" command. However, im not to worried, im sure Ill work this out sooner or later.

[Radioman01]

you'll have to start a new code plug and upgrade it to version 5 of the SSCB and version 5 of the TTRC board
but at the moment it sound like you have a bad e-prom or something else is wrong,
If you use F1 for help there are error codes at the bottom of the screen
E errors and D errors and others by using the "F" keys

if you have another computer try it, sounds like its not behaving correctly,
another guy here was having the same trouble, and this all seems to be around computer issues

my PC is a P3 850 it run's XP and i duel boot for dos when needed.


Tony
NN1D

[Mastertech]

funny, I was beginning to suspect computer issues myself. I am using an IBM 390E and its in really nice shape. Running 98se I have always been able to program anything and everything off of it. I am using an aftermarket rib as well, so if these problems continue Im going to grab a moto rib and cable and give it a try with another computer. Its the computer problems I find most aggravating, Just give me my IFR1600 and let me go play with RF!!

[willbartlett]

Hey All. For the budding MSF5000 owner I present the list of capacitors you will likely feel compelled to replace once you notice the green crud climbing down the leads to the board. My amounts represent repairs to 5 of these with a bunch of spares left over for my parts box.

Actual count per repeater is as follows.

radial lead
100uF at 25v x 5 some of these could be 16v but I opted to up them all to a common value.
10uF at 35v x3
4.7uF at 35v x1
22uF at 25v x 1

axial lead
500uF at 20v x1
660uf at 50v x 1 Mouser didn't find these in mouser but you could probably put a 500uF at 50v here.
1000uF at 20v x1

Will

Mouser #: 140-HTRL25V100-RC
Mfr. #: 140-HTRL25V100-RC
Desc.: Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 25V 100uF 105C
50 $0.072 $3.60

Mouser #: 140-HTRL35V10-RC
Mfr. #: 140-HTRL35V10-RC
Desc.: Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 35V 10uF 105C
30 $0.06 $1.80

Mouser #: 140-HTRL50V4.7-RC
Mfr. #: 140-HTRL50V4.7-RC
Desc.: Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 50V 4.7uF 105C
20 $0.06 $1.20


Mouser #: 140-HTRL35V22-RC
Mfr. #: 140-HTRL35V22-RC
Desc.: Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 35V 22uF 105C
20 $0.06 $1.20

Mouser #: 140-TG102M1E-1322-RC
Mfr. #: 140-TG102M1E-1322-RC
Desc.: High Temperature Axial Capacitors 25V 1000uF 105C
5 $1.05 $5.25

Mouser #: 75-TVA1209
Mfr. #: TVA1209
Desc.: TVA Axial Electrolytic Capacitors 25V 500uF
10 $2.00 $20.00

[n9wys]

Hey Tony, thats correct, when I read the machine it says SSCB version 4 and TTRC ver. 5, however, I cant write that. I did try disabling the TTRC and I got a warning stating that once I do this the TTRC cannot be enabled. I ignored this, was able to write the station and now get a fail code D83 (SSCB file is no good). SO, ill keep at it. The firmware will be here tomorow and hopefully ill be on to the alignment procedure and done with these computer issues. Incidently, with this fail code I cannot read the station now, even with the "read station with fault" command. However, im not to worried, im sure Ill work this out sooner or later.

Error d83 is: "Codeplug on SCCB not SCCB type".
Corrective action is: "Reprogram the SCCB codeplug. Refer to the RSS manual."

Hope this helps... but I don't have the RSS manual.

[Mastertech]

all your info has been helpful, thank you

[Mastertech]

It just occured to me that I have been running my version of MSF5000 RSS in a dos box in windows 98SE, perhaps that program wont run right in a dos box.

[Mastertech]

Ok.... I am retarded. Once I took two seconds, booted up in dos, got into MRSS\MSF and opened the software in full dos I have no problem reading and writing to the station. I did all the upgrades and im in the clear. moral of the story folks: DO NOT RUN YOUR MSF5000 RSS IN A DOS BOX UNDER WINDOWS 98SE. YOU MAY THINK IT''S WORKING BUT IT WON'T WORK CORRECTLY

[Radioman01]

Oh gosh,

i though you were running in a real DOS, and not a dos/doz thing

DOH!

Well, its nice to see the thing working, is the station locked now and transmitting?

BTW you can get rid of the TTRC board after your done with the tuning part
by telling it in software and JU1 jumper, right next to the main TTRC (light blue) ribbon cable
JU1 and JU2 are normally jumped close together,
when your done if you wanted, JU1 will be moved towards the repeater cabinet and you must unplug that
ribbon cable so you don't get any error codes
this is if you want to remove the board, it serves no purpose for the repeater to operate
but before you can do this in the main programming of frequency menu you must set the remote control and
channel slaving to STATION, all 3 of those options must be set the STATION and not remote

Tony
NN1D

[Mastertech]

I know, what a stupid thing to overlook.

As far as how the station operates... When I took delivery of it I brought it to my shop and completely disassembled it. I did this for 3 reasons, the first of which is I don’t like working on dirty equipment. Once the dust was all gone it practically looked new, no rust or corrosion and no scratches. Second, when everything is bright and shiny it’s easy to spot physical problems. Third, I tested the components, such as coax, cables and power supplies, individually on the bench to make sure they were in good operating condition. I found a few very minor issues relating to age, logged into moto and order a few things here and there. Once it was fully reassembled (prior to the programming debacle) the station powered up fine and was in fault due to the lack of an HSO. I injected 5 MHz off the IFR1600S, got lock and got RX and TX lock.

I wanted to keep the station original, so I ordered up a PURC5000 HSO tray ($100) from which I grabbed the ovenized HSO, its 11 volt regulated power supply, and the short coax that goes from the 14 MHz synth to the HSO output. Once I had these items I installed them in the MSF5000 HSO draw. Next I ran the power cable from the HSO power supply to J500 of the uniboard, tie wrapping it all together with the bundle from the right hand side of the HSO draw. According to my maint. manual, J500 was intended for HSO power (15.8 volts there on my station).

I powered up the station, got vco lock and now the MSF runs off its HSO draw with the original parts. After last night (early into the AM) I fixed my stupidity and was able to read and write to the station. I shot a CONV.codeplug that I wrote with some basic parameters and test freqs, and hooked up the IFR. The freqs I entered were 927.7500 TX, and 902.7500. Once the station reset, the TX lock light was on but not the RX. As it was very late, I locked the VCO's down into "transit", quickly re-tuned the RX and TX vco's and easily got lock on both with plenty of room to spare. I keyed up the station from the toggle on the SSCB and saw an beautiful signal into the IFR. The station is working well. Now the real work can begin.

I was able to buy the original maintenance manual for this station from moto last week, along with the alignment kit, and latest firmware chips for the SSCB and the TTRC (As is said earlier, I ordered a few other parts as well) The maintenance manual is a MUST HAVE, it has everything you could ever need from schematics, block diags. trouble shooting trees, and part numbers. My next step this week is to go through the alignment section and do a full and complete alignment to the station. The IFR indicates a freq. error of +150KHZ +/- so Ill addresses that during the tune up.

So, to answer your question Tony.... YES it’s working. And no thanks to my sophisticated computing abilities My last hurdle it that I have to get hold of Digital Metering Panel so that I can move forward with the rest of the process. I’m looking tp buy on, but I’m not paying the $545 that moto is asking.

[Radioman01]

well if you wanted to go that deep, then yahoo..
but if you attach a lineman or a butt set, to the L2 on the side of the cabinet
you should be able to hear the service monitor generate a signal into the RX
remove the PL from programing or flip up the PL disable and off you go..

Good luck sir and I'm glad to see everything is working well..

Tony
NN1D

[Mastertech]

well, thats a good idea

[n9wys]

Well, I have breathed new life into my station as well! (or, qouting Dr Frankenstein: "It's ALIVE!!!") I decided not to go as far as Mastertech did with his (I don't really care whether it has a Moto HSO in it or not) so I ordered the one from Alltronics. It came in on Monday and today I built up a power regulator from a 7812 and a 7805. Once I got power to the HSO, I connected it to the station and got RX Lock and TX Lock... Seems all is working well so far!

Next step is to get the HSO and regulator mounted in the drawer. BTW - I took power for the regulator circuit/HSO from the feed going to the 14.4 board. Seems this has a 1A in-line fuse on it, which of course blew as soon as I tried to power up the HSO... Since the 78xx series regulators are rated at 1A each, I upped the fuse to a 3A and all plays well so far.

Now I need to build the programing cable so I can try to read/write the station. After that, re-alignment is in order. (FWIW - I got my digital metering panel off eBay for about $50...) Anyhow - I'm making progress, albeit slow progress.

Mark - N9WYS

[Mastertech]

Ok, so the station is up and runnig in the shack into a dummy load... but now comes the next set of problems so lets see if any one has some advice on this. When I key the station into my IFR i hear a really loud whine that goes allong with the carrier; it sounds a lot like mic feed back into a radio. I can't seem to get rid of it and I was wondering if any of the MSF experts out there might have some advice. Thanks.

[Mastertech]

Ok... some updates on my machine.

Today the new SSCB and TTRC firmware arrived. Installed it in the station, shot a codeplug into the machine and everyhting seems to work well. However, I did discover some problems and issues that I wanted to share with you guys


For those of us who have the MSF5000 maint. manual and are looking to power your HSO's we should not be using J500 as I stated earlier. According to the manual, and the guy at Motorola, J500 is for HSO power and antenna relay power. J501 is for 14.4 synth power. The ground on J500 is an audio ground that is connected to a transistor on the interconnect board. I spoke to a tech at moto this afternoon who use to work on these machines and he told me that when these things left the factory they simply ran a power lead to the top power supply (one without the fan) and that was it.

Second, as I stated in my earlier post I had bad interference on my TX signal. Well, its fixed and I suggest you guys take a close look at the coax going from the Uniboard to the IPA. On my machine the coax is grounded via a solder clip to the RF tray housing. Well in my case that connection became weak and the coax outer braid was badly frayed. I pulled out the desoldering station and removed the cable. Next I removed the connector (you can reuse it) and I prepared a new length of the same type cable. Put it all back together and the problem was solved! The machine is putting out a beautiful signal into the IFR and things are looking good. Next step is to pick up my alignment tools from my friend at proceed through that process.

As a final point of interest: I noticed that when I keyed the machine I had some significant frequency error, in the neighborhood of +150 KHz. Well I addressed this problem today and I was surprised to see how sensitive this machine is at the HSO and 14.4 MHz synth area. According to my freq. counter the HSO was off by 1 Hz after 60 min of warm up time... Not an issue I thought, who could possible care about 1 cycle! I thought wrong. I removed the screw cover from the front the HSO and adjusted the oven for 5.00000 on the nose; I was surprised to see how much you had to turn that pot to move the thing even a few Hz. Once it was stable with literally zero error I moved to the 14.4 MHz synth board. I noticed that moving the HSO on freq by 1Hz moved the signal generated by the 14.4 MHz synth 100 Hz. Next I took out a very tiny screw driver and moved the 14.4 MHz back on to freq with zero error and closed up the HSO draw. Once I TX'ed the station into the service monitor I was amazed to see that my 150 KHz freq error was now down to +5Hz. Clearly these stations require a very precise and very stable 5 MHz reference.

[Radioman01]

Besides the coax problem on the IPA board
the rest sounds like a normal tuneup after a long bouncing ride in the back of a pickup truck and
introducing an after market HSO, into a Motorola repeater.

I'm expecting my version 5+ E-proms soon to get this linking project moving forward
the version 5+ prom allows you to strip PL/DPL on hang time with a simple software toggle

Tony
NN1D