VRS-EP Problems/Questions

[Josh]

I recently bought one of those VRS-EP units from eBay, and while it works fine and dandy, I have a bit of an issue and other technical questions that perhaps someone can answer.

First, the fidelity of the repeated audio is somewhat poor. It's not horrible, it just sounds overdriven and distorted, as if the audio going into it is overpowering...is there any way to fix this?

Second, the audio sounds somewhat bad, but the outbound audio deviation is a bit low, is there a pot for that?

It's supposedly a 300mw unit, has anyone successfully given one more power output? I know the VRS750 is 275mw-2watts, one watt would even be an improvement because 300mw isn't giving me the coverage that I need, which my old PAC-RT oddly does well.

FINALLY, on the transceiver module inside the VRS, there is a set of dip-switches. What do these switches do? and how can they be configured? Obviously frequency is rock-set and PL is programmable, but what other options do these switches offer?

-Josh

[Hartley]

Hi Josh,

If it's really a VRS-EP, then the frequency and bandwidth (and other neat stuff) is set by the CPS - look under "Radio Wide". Note also that the VRS will change channels on the Astro-Spectra depending on what PL the portable sends to it (up to 8, I think)
I don't know about the audio path or the dip-switches, however. If the output deviation is low, you might want to see if it's set as "narrowband" (12.5 kHz). I note also that it offers you a choice of "low" or "high", but I don't know what it will do with those.

73 DE Hartley

[Josh]

Hi Josh,

If it's really a VRS-EP, then the frequency and bandwidth (and other neat stuff) is set by the CPS - look under "Radio Wide". Note also that the VRS will change channels on the Astro-Spectra depending on what PL the portable sends to it (up to 8, I think)
I don't know about the audio path or the dip-switches, however. If the output deviation is low, you might want to see if it's set as "narrowband" (12.5 kHz). I note also that it offers you a choice of "low" or "high", but I don't know what it will do with those.

73 DE Hartley

You might be confusing the VRS750 with the VRS-EP. The RSS makes no mention to power output or channel bandwidth, just PL, and of course the channel steering.

-Josh

[Hartley]

Hi Josh,

I don't have one here to look at, but I do have the CPS installed on this computer - if I turn on the "VRS-EP" option under "Advanced" in "Radio Wide", all of the VRS windows become active (there are three under "Radio Wide") and the one called "VRS Personality" contains band, bandwidth, frequency and power settings.

Unfortunately, the "Search" function on Batlabs is hosed, or we could look up and see what the differences are..

73 DE Hartley

[Conundrum]

I was looking at getting one of these too, and there doesn't appear to be any definitive answer as to weather the frequency is crystal controlled or software programmable as it seams everyone seams to have a different answer.

I would love some proper documentation on one of these things, as I would like to get one for an application I have a use for it for, but don't want to be stuck with something that I can't get crystals for.

[WCHija]

Anyone know where I can find a VHF VRS-EP unit?

[kt2728]

Josh, have you had any luck with this yet?

kt

[Hartley]

Hi Guys,

FWIW, I bought one of the eBay "VRS-EP" units, and I can confirm that the radio in it is a single-channel crystal-controlled transceiver. It would seem that Mike (and you) were right..

73 DE Hartley

[Conundrum]

Anyone know where I can find a VHF VRS-EP unit?

They show up on eBay every so often

Hi Guys,

FWIW, I bought one of the eBay "VRS-EP" units, and I can confirm that the radio in it is a single-channel crystal-controlled transceiver. It would seem that Mike (and you) were right..

73 DE Hartley

Yup, I got a couple of them and they are crystal controlled, all you can program through RSS is just some basic options, and the mode steering...


on the note of them being crystal controlled, does anyone know where to get replacement crystals for these?

[Conundrum]

I've been playing around with the VRS a bit more, and noticed there are a fair bit of options, but a lot of them are there but inaccessible, such as the In Car Monitoring Options... you can select in the programming weather you want Base or Both as a monitoring option, and below it, it has User Selectable ICM set to disabled, does anyone know if there is a way to enable this so you can select weather you want to hear the base or both via a button on the control head?

[WB4JGI]

You can get crystals from ICM (International Crystal Manufacturing) http://www.icmfg.com/about.html .
Those are Expo radios inside the VRS box if I remember correctly. Here's the site for Moto radio crystals http://www.icmfg.com/motorola.html .
They're about $20 a crystal, I think.

[radioinstl]

The VRS-EP RF platform is based on the Slimnet Transceiver, which is crystalled not synthesized.

it comes in 300mW in vhf and uhf and 2w in UHF