Making a 148-174 Saber II work on 2 meters

[wes11b10]

I have a VHF Saber II that I believe was bought from a GSA auction (the front is machine engraved "HQ-AG-005", whatever that means). It's a typical Securenet Saber II with the 148-174 band split. I want to know how I can make it work on all amateur frequencies. I understand that there is a way to modify the RSS to accomplish this and I've also heard that there is a version "out there" that lets you enter freqs +/- 10MHz. Does anyone know what the version number/part number of that RSS is? Most importantly, once I get the frequencies entered that I want, will the radio need to be re-aligned? Thanks as always!

[Pj]

Simpliest way to do that, is in RSS, just change the band split and see if the radio will take it. IIRC, the VHF saber had a number of VHF range modules, but telling it is a 146-162? usually worked. Been awhile since I've programmed one. IIRC as well, changing the model and secure designation of the radio also affected some of the band splits.

No special software needed.

[wes11b10]

I am probably going to take the leap and hex edit to get my Saber to work from 144 on up but (and I'm thinking, if it's this easy, there is no possible way it could work) how about if I just built a new codeplug, using the 136-162 split? Since I wouldn't be going much further south of 146 (all I really want to do is program in more of my local repeaters that start at 145.XXX), tuning/alignment shouldn't be affected, correct? Or am I waaaaaaaay off base here? Why can't Sabers be more like their GP300 cousins and let me use the shift key trick?!!?

[mike m]

There were two version of RSS for saber version R06.01.00 one programmed 136-184, 147-184, 136-172, 126-161, 64-98, 58-94, 393-443, 472-522, 448-500, 430-480Mhz I typically just picked a split that centered my desired frequencies and never had a problem with the radio not operating as long as I didn't stretch frequencies too far from what the internal modules were designed for.

Good luck finding this version as it is the least shared of any Motorola RSS package an I do not know why.

An easier method is to pick the exact model number of your radios internal modules but change the model to a low power version and this would let you extend he frequency range.

An example , your model is a H43qxk7139 you select a model H33qxk7139 in the RSS F3, create radio personality file, and the RSS may let you program out of band 4 or 5 MHz.