Advisory: MTR2000 VHF

kc7gr · Post by **kc7gr** » Sun May 23, 2004 6:40 pm

Fellow batwingers,

This is a heads-up to anyone considering getting a VHF MTR2000 radio, and trying to put it on the 2-meter amateur band.

If you're going to do so, make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you get a LOW-SPLIT (136-154MHz) unit! As far as I can tell, it is NOT possible to convert a high-split unit to low.

I learned this from bitter experience. I went as far today as trying to force-feed a low-split codeplug into a high-split unit. The image took, but the radio would not boot into operating mode, and it complained that the PA hardware and codeplug were not compatible.

I can only conclude that it's not just the station control module that holds the bandsplit information (I thought it was, and acted accordingly). It appears that said module is reading something in the PA's microprocessor or logic guts that tells it, in no uncertain terms, what the bandsplit is supposed to be.

The station resumed normal operation when I replaced the force-fed image with a correct one. Says something about how durable they are, I guess.

Anyway... unless someone else has learned some trick that I didn't try, I will say, once again, that a codeplug-level conversion of a high-split to low-split radio does NOT appear to be possible outside of spending huge $$ for a replacement PA assembly.

Post by **wavetar** » Tue May 25, 2004 12:04 pm

You are of course, correct. The codeplug is not so important, you can actually easily manually change what the supposed 'working' band of the unit is in the RSS, but it DOES read information from the PA module as far as bandsplit, and will complain accordingly. What power level were you looking for in the 136-154 split?

Todd

kc7gr · Post by **kc7gr** » Tue May 25, 2004 5:46 pm

wavetar wrote:You are of course, correct. The codeplug is not so important, you can actually easily manually change what the supposed 'working' band of the unit is in the RSS, but it DOES read information from the PA module as far as bandsplit, and will complain accordingly. What power level were you looking for in the 136-154 split?

Todd

Actually, Todd, one of the tactics I tried was to force the thing to believe it was a low-split. No such luck. The PA evidently reports what it is to the station control board (I'd thought the information was all on that board, and that the PA was strictly 'dumb').

Since it was a 100 watt PA, I was trying for the 100 watt low-split version.

The whole question is academic now. The owner of the unit (Batlabs inhabitant 'bnice') has already asked that it be packed up and returned to him. I've got it boxed, and I'm just waiting to know how he wants to handle the shipping.

Keep the peace(es).