Batboard

Hi all,

I have a range UHF range 3 W3 low power Astro Spectra which has the dreaded fail 1/90. I also have a range 1 UHF W9 High Power which is working fine. So, after some reading here I took the vocoder (the one that looks like it fits into a Saber) and the board below that-- is it called the control board? from the W9 and put it into the failed W3. So, the W3 now powers up and thinks that it is a high power W9.

So far so good.

I have Astro Lab and MTSX Lab. both version 3.xx cant remember off the top of my head.

After reading, I think that I can read the profile off my brothers working W3 which has the exact specs of the broken one. and push it into the broken one with Lab.
My issue is, exactly how? I dont really have access to a lot of radios to expiriment with if there is going to be any doorstopping involved...

The part i cannot seem to get my head around is how to retrieve the s-record it think it is called from the working radio.

Do i need a certain version of RSS?

I think that then i need to use LAB to open that s record and push it back into the broken radio? But Im struggling to find a step by step on this if there is one? Normally i would just do some experimentation, but i just dont have the funds to be wrecking boards, as im sure it very possible. If anyone can point to a tutorial or similar i would really appreciate it.

Ev.

ev351 wrote:Hi all,

I have a range UHF range 3 W3 low power Astro Spectra which has the dreaded fail 1/90. I also have a range 1 UHF W9 High Power which is working fine. So, after some reading here I took the vocoder (the one that looks like it fits into a Saber) and the board below that-- is it called the control board? from the W9 and put it into the failed W3. So, the W3 now powers up and thinks that it is a high power W9.

So far so good.

I have Astro Lab and MTSX Lab. both version 3.xx cant remember off the top of my head.

After reading, I think that I can read the profile off my brothers working W3 which has the exact specs of the broken one. and push it into the broken one with Lab.
My issue is, exactly how? I dont really have access to a lot of radios to expiriment with if there is going to be any doorstopping involved...

The part i cannot seem to get my head around is how to retrieve the s-record it think it is called from the working radio.

Do i need a certain version of RSS?

I think that then i need to use LAB to open that s record and push it back into the broken radio? But Im struggling to find a step by step on this if there is one? Normally i would just do some experimentation, but i just dont have the funds to be wrecking boards, as im sure it very possible. If anyone can point to a tutorial or similar i would really appreciate it.

Ev.

The 01/90 error is indicating that you have a serial bus failure. Check the control head and for a cabling issue. If that is good, you could have a command board failure.

Best way to trouble shoot this is to play musical chairs. However, it requires having the same parts to swap around. With a W3 head, the chance you have another head and cable are probably slim.

Jim

If I'm reading this right, you got the W9 VOCON and command board to power on with the W3 head and cable? That pretty definitively points to one of those items being the point of failure. Luckily the command board is not band-specific so you can grab a cheap 800 MHz radio off Ebay for a parts donor.

Could be a bad vocon or command board. Narrow it down farther to see which one.

Then hunt for a replacement.

Jason

Thanks very much for the replies everyone.

Ill try to explain it better. Yes, I think you are right, i have a faulty control board or vocon. BUT this is not the issue currently. I have replaced the control baord and vocon with a working pair from another unit. IT was a UHF range 1 W9, but i need to force in a UHF range 3 W3 s record. I have another UHF W3 from which to read the S record, it has the exactly correct flash to match my faulty unit ehich now thinks its a W9...

All I need to do currently is work out how to read from the working W3 and force in to the faulty unit.... My issue is the specifics of reading / writing with lab.... As I say I have access to pretty much all the versions of mtsx labs and astro labs..... But I cannot find a step by step or similar. As I said, I would normally just expriment, but i dont relaly have the spare parts to door stop...

thanks..

Ev.

Read the donor radio with no unpack (using the merge tcms option) and then write that to the "new" radio. You will need to tune it.

Jason

Hi Jason, thanks for that. Do I need to be using a particular version of lab? I have Astrolab v3.xx not sure off the top of my head, and a number of versions of mtsx lab...??

Thanks

Ev.

Any of them will work as long as they have the option to read with no unpack (it stores the codeplug in memorry but doesn't unpack it to work with in rss).

Jason

Ah, ok, thank you. I shall give it a try as soon as i get back to the shack.

Sorry to be annoying, but can you confirm that this is the way it should work::

using lab...

read donor radio with no unpack.

then disconnect donor radio and connect target radio.

the just write to the target radio??

Ev.

Yup

ok thanks a load!!!

Ev.

Astrolab 3.04

Main Menu->F3->F4->F2 (reads donor radio with no unpack)

after reading hook up radio which your forcing the plug into

F8 (which is write to radio)

Let it finish. Time to tune the radio now.

Jason