maratrac vhf

[kb2crk]

a couple quick questions on the maratrac vhf.
can it be programed to the 2 meter ham band with minimal mods?
can it also be programed to monitor police and fire freqs?
it is a T73XTA7TA7BK.
it was listed as a 16 channel but it is an advanced control head shown in the pictures. i believe i can extend that to 99 channels but i am not sure yet.
thanks in advance for any help.
paul

[motorola_otaku]

No hardware mods needed to get a VHF-Hi radio to play on 2 meters; just gotta hack the RSS to take the frequencies. And yes, after that it'll receive fine from 144 to 174.

If it has the "advanced" A7 head and not an old-school Syntor-style rotary clamshell head, it's already capable of 99 channels. And even if it does have the clamshell head on it now you can get the A7 head and cable later and switch it to a 99-channel radio in the software.

They're good solid radios with hot receivers. I think you'll like it. Just make sure you fuse and insulate the power wiring properly.

[Will]

Just make sure you fuse and insulate the power wiring properly.

Yes definitely fuse the radio properly. The green and orange leads going to the control head: GREEN 5A MAX Orange 1A nominal.
The big read lead, the main transmitter power should have a 25 or 30 Amp fuse.

The GREEN lead, the receiver power, should go directly to the battery WITH the big Red lead.

Enjoy, one mighty fine radio.....

[kf4sqb]

Often, the "shift trick" of entering frequencies works for entering Ham frequencies on the Maratrac. Hold down the shift key when entering the out-of-band frequencies, and it should take them. You must use the number keys across the top of the keyboard when doing this! You will actually be entering symbols, not numbers, into the fields. For example, 146.520 will show up as !$^.%@) , just remember to release the shift to enter the decimal.

[kb2crk]

thank you for all the great info.
i should have it tomorrow and then it will be time to fire up an old computer and try programing.

[kb2crk]

well i have the radio and the receiver is powered up and working in the house. the radio looks good and seems to receive just fine. i hope to attempt programing this weekend and then time to try installation in the old plymouth acclaim. hopefully i can get the uhf maxtrac programed and installed also.

[kb2crk]

here it is almost 2 months later.....
i am going to be setting up another computer today and moving software around.
the toshiba laptop i had planned on using has some issues that are not worth correcting.
wish me luck.. lol

[kb2crk]

ok now i have a new issue. i have the computer running in dos but when i try to bring up the software it tells me i have a bad command or file name. any ideas?

[kf4sqb]

Just to verify that everything got moved to your "new" computer correctly, you should have, at a minimum, :

maratrac.exe
m1000._hd
m1000.hlp
maratrac.tab
maratrc1.ovl
maratrc2.ovl

If anything is missing, mainly the .exe and .ovl files, it won't work properly.

[Bill_G]

ok now i have a new issue. i have the computer running in dos but when i try to bring up the software it tells me i have a bad command or file name. any ideas?

Are you starting in the directory the rss is located, or from the root directory? If from the installed dir, then follow kf4's advise. If from the root, then either add the dir to the PATH, or cd to that dir.

[kb2crk]

ok i found an issue with the computer. i changed computers to an old packard bell 200 mhz desktop. i disabled the processor cache and there was a way in the bios to reset the speed. i set it at 16 mhz. i got the rss to open and was able to change the radio from 20 modes to 99 and tested a couple freq changes. it looks like it all took. thank you for all the help. i have a list of frequencies to put together.

[kb2crk]

well i made a post yesterday saying i had the programing working. well the radio is in a temp install in the car and working well. i was working a repeater that my old 50 watt kenwood could not hit from here and had a much harder time hearing. thanks for all the help

[kb2crk]

the maratrac is up and running well now. install is almost complete. thanks again for all the help.