BEWARE THE $25 KNOCK OFF PROGRAMMING CABLES FROM EBAY

[batdude]

I have TWO RADIOS THAT HAVE BEEN BLOWN UP using these POS cables.

This just makes NO SENSE TO ME.

If you are buying a $2000 radio.... why in the heck would you elect to use a knock off programming cable?


YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

Pony up and pay the man (motorola) or don't complain when the radio serial port is NUKED.




doug

[4n6inv]

I've only used the ones from KAWARAD; but I've had great success with them. I've also recommended them to friends who had no problems. I haven't tried any of the others; and I do tend to shy away from aftermarket cables if the Motorola price is reasonable. I have the ones for the XTS3K, XTS5K, and several others. Nada problems. I had to buy the Motorola originals because I had to do flash upgrades, but I keep the clones for spares at the SO's office so I don't have to carry around all of my expensive Motorola cables. Not to endoorse this particular guy, but he does have excellent feedback.

I agree with you that it's not worth the money, if you're going to brick a radio; but I've never experienced that. I'm sure you've programmed a hell of a lot more radios than I have, and perhaps my luck will run out some day. But; they make an excellent backup cable, or if you only have one radio of a particular flavor. In fact; I bought one of them to do the initial programming of the city PD, FD, Utilities, and the county SO. I took the money and bought the Motorola USB cables and legit Motorola software for the remaining models (XTL2500's XTL5000's) as well as the XTS5K's and 3K's.

Now; a personal observation: In my opinion; the Motorola cables are sometimes more difficult to use. For some reason, every cable I've bought from Motorola (Programming, and KVL's); I have to be CERTAIN that the pins are seated well on the radio or I get honks and disconnects. I hope that SOME day; they might get their heads out of their collective asses and just use a mini-USB connector on each of the radios for programming. FFS; if they can do it with micro-sized cell phones, they can find a way to do it with radios! Will it ever happen; probably not .

Have a great Christmas every one!

Jim

[Hightower]

Electronically speaking the rib-less cables are fine - proper logic levels, etc. Construction wise, there are [insert dirty word].

These aftermarket cables are sometimes bad upon delivery due to the crappy construction or go bad shortly after. The plastic used is junk and cracks with the slightest pressure. Solder joints are poor at best. The pins used are sub-par, and can bend causing the wrong pin to make contact with radio - that's where you'll run into BIG problems.

[mikegilbert]

I'm ready to toss my Panter88 XTS5000 calbe in the garbage in favor of an OEM USB one. I've bricked one 2500 and one 5000 in the last month with it. Both were brought back to life, but it's risky to say the least. Might be a 10.00.00 cps issue though.

[Conundrum]

I'm ready to toss my Panter88 XTS5000 calbe in the garbage in favor of an OEM USB one. I've bricked one 2500 and one 5000 in the last month with it. Both were brought back to life, but it's risky to say the least. Might be a 10.00.00 cps issue though.

I've had problem with my Panter88 Cables, they wear out really fast, 4 different ones are either cracking or not sitting properly on the radio any more, and they are all kept nicely packaged, and not squished.

The problem I have with buying OEM programming gear is some of the stuff costs as much as the radio if not more, I know I know, the radio may cost $2000+ new, but when I pay $120 for for the radio, and the programming cable is $160, I will go with the knockoff $30 one.

[libuff]

whats the opinion of moto cables, when they fail? i pay >$1000 for a xts2500, then need to spring $250+ for a programming cable, only to have it fail, now have to pay another $250+ for another cable...

[Grog]

I'm sure motorola really does not want end-users to be programming their own radios. We are a very small part of the customer base.

[escomm]

whats the opinion of moto cables, when they fail? i pay >$1000 for a xts2500, then need to spring $250+ for a programming cable, only to have it fail, now have to pay another $250+ for another cable...

Better than having to pay another >$1000 for an XTS since the depot won't touch a vast majority of the 2500s out on the "public" market...

[mikegilbert]

My biggest gripe is Q52/Q53 radios and their 240+ personalities. It takes forever to read/load/write the codeplug. I'd imagine the USB cable is much faster.

[escomm]

Takes about 5 seconds Mike

[akardam]

My VHF 5k, 400 odd channels, about 7 seconds to program with the USB cable.

[Pj]

If your using channel annocement with the serial cable, the intial write takes a month of Sundays to load. After that, its pretty quick. I had most of the 240 channels in my 5K FPP used, and most with channel annocement. The first write took about 30-45 minutes. After that, it goes quick (10-15 sec).

[4n6inv]

One thing I have to admit: The damn USB cable is light years faster than the serial cable - Motorola or aftermarket. I did 29 flash upgrades, and reprograms (clones) in an hour and a half (180 channels). And, that's counting the time it took for the officers to bring them to me to do! Panter88 is a good source for radio parts, but programming equipment... uuuuhhh - nah; probably not.

What really cracks me up, is that not too long ago; everyone was bitching about how bad the USB cables from Motorola were. Now; they're a Godsend. Like I said in my previous post; it would be NICE if Motorola would simplify things and just use a mini-USB port on all future radios and eliminate all of the BS. Again; is it going to happen? Don't bet your sweet ass.

[mikegilbert]

Takes about 5 seconds Mike

[lexxtank]

I just bought a RIB required programming cable from panter88 for my Astro Saber. After seeing that eBay name on here I'm hoping the cable would be safe to use. Can anyone provide insight to this? I have the auction number if needed. Thanks

[Tom in D.C.]

There is no way to tell you in advance of buying some particular item whether or not
the item will work properly. I have two Panter88 XTS5K programming cables that work
fine; some day they may not work fine, but for now they do and they were not expensive.
For a RIB I use a Motorola 4008, but I have two others just in case the Motorola unit
ever quits, which it probably won't ever. The way I see it you pay your money up front
and don't worry about things very much, or you pay a lot less and take your chances
with the less expensive programming equipment, but in the end it's nothing more or less
than a crap shoot whenever you go with the aftermarket items.

[n7maq]

I just bought a RIB required programming cable from panter88 for my Astro Saber. After seeing that eBay name on here I'm hoping the cable would be safe to use. Can anyone provide insight to this? I have the auction number if needed. Thanks

You should be OK with that set up. The RIB clones form Lau seem to be fine. Plus if you ever do make a mistake when programming the Astro Saber, they are a lot easer to bring back. Always save an s-record on the units that you can. They can be a life saver.

What Doug was originally talking about is the $25.00 XTS cables. If you mess up an Astro 25 unit do to a bad cable, it's going to cost you more to repair the radio than the OEM cable to begin with. When you are programming a $1 to 2K radio, why risk it? IMHO the OEM USB is the best way to go.

Jim

[ads47]

I have used Kawa's and OEM's and have had problems with both. In the beginning of the USB moto cables were burning up USB ports on the laptop. Then they advised using a powered USB hub. So I ordered a different laptop that actually still had a serial port and went back to serial cables. I got a few Kawa cables because I get tired of the all the moto cables being that long and having the test set connection. I wish Moto would make a 12in USB or Serial cable, nothing extra just a simple short programming cable. I guess if I was dreaming I would want the connections, and board potted.



ads

[gatekeep]

I have used Kawa's and OEM's and have had problems with both. In the beginning of the USB moto cables were burning up USB ports on the laptop. Then they advised using a powered USB hub. So I ordered a different laptop that actually still had a serial port and went back to serial cables. I got a few Kawa cables because I get tired of the all the moto cables being that long and having the test set connection. I wish Moto would make a 12in USB or Serial cable, nothing extra just a simple short programming cable. I guess if I was dreaming I would want the connections, and board potted.



ads

I've had and used OEM cables and agree they tend to be a bit long ... IMHO I find Kawa cables to be pretty decent cables as long as their taken care of.

[PeterGV]

I suspect the cables KAWA is selling on EBay are the same cables as the 3rd party cables being sold by WisComm. These cables did have a confirmed timing problem. See the thread at http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=76071

It has apparently been fixed (because I see these cables have returned for sale to the Wiscomm site).

It'd be interesting to know if these cables have actually been fixed (and what the original problem was),

Peter

[lexxtank]

Thanks. My good friend gatekeep keeps a copy of all my S-Records, and I think I have one around here somewhere as well. Looks like it's gonna be a fun day when the cable arrives to test it.