Spectra control head

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Sat May 21, 2005 8:23 pm

I bought a pretty nice looking Spectra control head at the hamvention earlier today, and upon connecting it to my working spectra, it doesn't do anything. I can't get the radio to power up or anything.

I've noticed that some of the circuit board components are different, The working control head also has a clear membrane keypad, whereas this 'non working' one has a white colored one with holes for the LEDs to light through. What's more, the LEDs for the xmit/ busy light are red and yellow on my working head while the other one uses clear LEDs.

At any rate, with this little bit to go on, is there anything more or less typical to go bad on a spectra control head? The fuse is good. Nothing is apparently burned up, and there's no odor.

I don't know what else to say. I didn't spend a lot, so it's not a big bust, but I do have that 'other' spectra that needs a working control head to work and figured this would be it.

-Josh

wx4cbh · Post by **wx4cbh** » Sat May 21, 2005 8:39 pm

Not that this will be any help, but the LEDs will vary from clear to colored depending on the models, manufacturing dates, and the vendor at the time. The clear ones will be the correct color when juice is applied. The colored ones get their color from the plastic they're encased in while the clear ones use different elements to achieve thier colors. Remember, the newer LED light bars and dash lights on patrol cars and emergency vehicles are clear when off.

Look inside for obvious differences like model numbers, part numbers, and component differences and note them. Even the button combos are indicative of what it may have been originally used for. Some of the Spectra gurus here can probably ID the thing from those items and tell ya whether it's the right item for your application and what may cause it to be inoperative.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Sat May 21, 2005 9:10 pm

What I have been using is a control head from a B5 spectra, transplanted to a C7 spectra, with the new- appropriate faceplate. It works fine. 800Mhz.

The new control head that doesn't work with it is an 'A5' type head, with phon, scan, and call buttons on the top and the usual H/L, Mon and Dir buttons on the right. The head was sold alone, the only spectra radios that were for sale as well at this vender were UHF C2 trunking units with securenet, which were dash-mount and it's doubtful that these heads came from them, but then again I guess you never know. The radios were smashed up with a sledge or something, I bought one for $2 because it had an intact MLM V6.15 that I hope to convert to 800Mhz w/ "the right features".

-Josh

redbeard · Post by **redbeard** » Sat May 21, 2005 9:22 pm

The radios were smashed up with a sledge or something

I wanted to cry when I saw that. I asked the guy what the hell he was doing and he said that he was doing it to create demand. Next year he thinks that we'll all have kicked ourselves for not buying them now and then he can drive the price up since there are fewer of them. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I do know that about the only things that were useful were the chassis, PA, and MLM because the VCO boards were pulled and the EEPROMs were pryed from the boards by the feds. These were all low range 403-430 types and I guess the logic was take the VCO so nobody has the ability to transmit there and pry the EEPROMs so nobody has the codeplugs.

Anyway, for your problem maybe check to make sure your interconnect board is the new style or modded to be similar. It's unlikey but you never know. Maybe check programming to see if it's set to standard when it should be set to extended for control head type. Those are just a few things off the cuff and unlikely solutions but hey I mostly wanted to gripe about that dude hammering all the radios anyway. Good luck.

Shawn

RESCUE161 · Post by **RESCUE161** » Sat May 21, 2005 10:42 pm

Are you putting the head into a dash mount or a remote?

Have you tried to plug up the programming cable to see if it is forced to come on?

There are some jumpers on the head that can be changed if they are set up differently, but it's a pain in the butt (for me anyway).

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Sun May 22, 2005 3:37 am

Ok, if I've not been totally clear here, I'll try again.

This control head is going on a dash mount radio. The radio itself works fine with the slightly different control head (different as in the reasons stated in my first post, mostly cosmetic). If I take the hamvention head and place it on the radio, I cannot power the radio up- the power button does nothing, I get no beeps, lit display or anything like that. Slapping the old head back on it, everything works fine, so something is up with the head. Now, I guess I could try the pin jumpering thing to force the radio to power on and then see if the head lights up and what not, then I know it's the power button that's messed up, and I'll give that a try later today, after work, when I can get back to the main site and see what I have to do.

Finally, "Driving up the demand", huh? That's kinda dumb. What does he think? Next year is the hot item going to be smashed spectras? IMO, the price had already been driven up on the spectras, most other dealers had them at a pretty high price. I asked a guy how much for his Privacy Plus B5 800Mhz dash mount unit and got a figure of $150.... I dunno about that.

-Josh

Rick Rock · Post by **Rick Rock** » Sun May 22, 2005 9:44 am

The radios were smashed up with a sledge or something

I wish someone would've pointed him out to John and I, we would've shown him what a sledge is really used for!

(Don't get any kinky ideas, Alex!)

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Mon May 23, 2005 3:12 pm

For the record, this non-working head is an HLN6075

Also, what pins need to be jumped either in the head or on the radio to force auto power up? I've spent the better part of an hour searching both the forums and main site, no luck. I read about "JU7" though, but that doesn't help out at all.

-Josh

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Mon May 23, 2005 4:09 pm

Without checking into the part number...

Any chance it's a rear control head? Most of the rear control heads I've seen have the power switches disabled in one fashion or another.

Might be something to look into.

Rick Rock · Post by **Rick Rock** » Mon May 23, 2005 4:14 pm

I have the same head working on a dash mount unit now. What is the part# of the interconnect board/ If it's not a HLN6285A, do the conversion shown on the Batlabs site and you will most likely be in business.

JAYMZ · Post by **JAYMZ** » Mon May 23, 2005 4:50 pm

The older interconnects on the newer control heads will allow the radio to power but drive it into a steady transmit state at all times or until the TOT hits. There are 2 traces that you have to cut/remove in order for the control head to work properly.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Mon May 23, 2005 5:23 pm

My interconnect board is the HLN6285.

The control head that I have that works is an HLN6337. I knew they weren't the same.

Still, what pins need to be jumpered or cut on the head in order to make it either A) function or B) keep the radio powered up all the time?

-Josh

JAYMZ · Post by **JAYMZ** » Mon May 23, 2005 5:37 pm

HLN6285 is the most recent interconnect board for the Spectra radio. You won't need to make any modifications to that.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Mon May 23, 2005 6:26 pm

JAYMZ wrote:HLN6285 is the most recent interconnect board for the Spectra radio. You won't need to make any modifications to that.

This information is all gold, but I need to know where JU7 goes, so I can jumper the radio control head to force power-on. It's documented in a few places, but nobody knows where it is??

-Josh

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Tue May 24, 2005 1:39 pm

[quote="redbeard"]I wanted to cry when I saw that. I asked the guy what the hell he was doing and he said that he was doing it to create demand. Next year he thinks that we'll all have kicked ourselves for not buying them now and then he can drive the price up since there are fewer of them. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I do know that about the only things that were useful were the chassis, PA, and MLM be ause the VCO boards were pulled and the EEPROMs were pryed from the boards by the feds. These were all low range 403-430 types and I guess the logic was take the VCO so nobody has the ability to transmit there and pry the EEPROMs so nobody has out codeplugs.
/quote]

For the record, the MLM works great and is now set up on my C7 Spectra 800- works good, their attempt to keep the codeplug safe from others failed because I have it saved after reading it off the MLM... silly fools.

At any rate, since nobody wanted to tell me anything about JU7 even though I'd been asking about it for days, I went out to the Motorola dealer nearby (they're closing up shop at the end of the month though) and inquired about the jumper. He busted out the gut buster manual and we checked into it.

It's really simple to find and jumper.

I jumpered JU7 as per the manual and the control head works. I'd like to know what is bad on the board that needs replacing in order to get the switch to work as it is supposed to... but asking would seem to be too big a waste of everyone's time.

-Josh

Rick Rock · Post by **Rick Rock** » Tue May 24, 2005 1:46 pm

I was not sure which jumper it was you needed w/o doing similar research, so i couldn't speak up there.

Have you checked out continuity on the power switch? Compare it to the head that works and see if you can find anything out that way. I have the same head here in a radio that works fine, but I don't know what I can offer you as for what to look for.

SlimBob · Post by **SlimBob** » Wed May 25, 2005 5:08 am

Josh wrote: Finally, "Driving up the demand", huh? That's kinda dumb. What does he think? Next year is the hot item going to be smashed spectras? IMO, the price had already been driven up on the spectras, most other dealers had them at a pretty high price. I asked a guy how much for his Privacy Plus B5 800Mhz dash mount unit and got a figure of $150.... I dunno about that.

-Josh

Yeah, kinda hard to ask good money on Spectras when they look like ass and every department is unloading everything they have for new radios. I accidentally insulted a dealer when looking at an 800MHz radio because I didn't see (or it didn't exist) the C5 at the end of the model number. _Shrug_. Just looking for a 800MHz radio for 900MHz recieve...

It's pretty damn difficult to get 900MHz cans or 800MHz cans on the cheap. No one wants to sell the 800MHz cans because public safety can use them.

hvfcadmin · Post by **hvfcadmin** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 3:32 pm

don't know if this will help you but i had the same problem on one of my HLN6075's. there is a Mosfet (Q51) that switches the B+ to the SWB+ that powers up the rest of the head. there was a diode, VR11 - 36v zener diode, goes between ground and the gate of the mosfet that was shorted. one way to tell was to power up the control head directly with 12v on Pin 4 and ground on pin 6. if the display powers up and displays a fail code then the problem is with the power getting to SWB+. the jumper mentioned connects A+/ign to SWB+, buypassing the mosfet. I have seen some 6075 control heads that had a .1uF 1206 smt capacitor installed in place of the diode, not shure why this is.

Spectra control head

Spectra control head

Re: Spectra control head