Batboard

I have several high band Maxar50 radios that I would like to out on ham frequencies. Are these radios programmable? I opened one up and don't see any crystals. How due you go about changing channel?

Maxar 50's are crystal controlled. Here are the International Crystal catalog numbers for VHF:

MAXAR 50 T (144-162.1) 167634
MAXAR 50 R (144-162.1) 167635

Crystal 'kits' for the maxar will net you th crystal, and either a capacitor, inductor or resistor.

They have the 'warp' adjustment (IDC) Instantaneous Deviation Control to 'warp' your channel crystal on frequency.

Best move is to set these on the desk as conversation pieces, they are wideband and quite useless these days.
The cost to channel one is far higher once you go past 2 channels, and the cost never goes down, and a retune will be necessary with each wide excursion from the initial tuning/alignment.

Just buy a newer radio, you will be far better off in the end!

With the Part 90 rebanding mandate in place, there will be a treasure trove of good, used Motorola commercial gear available.
Soon, you'll be seeing programmable Spectra, Maxtrac and Radius mobiles selling for the price of what ICM charges for one discrete crystal.

Sadly, the old rock-bound radios have become more of a glorified bookend, or paperweight. I remember a time, when /\/\ had the corner on the market for select customers, just because /\/\ had DPL (Digital Private Line). Eventually the competition came up with their own trade mark on DCS (i.e. G.E. - Digital Channel Guard, Kenwood - Digital Quiet Talk, etc...).

Considering the quantity of surplus synthesized gear coming on the market dirt cheap, it's really hard to justify putting any money into a crystal-based radio, other than for the challenge, and maybe for nostalgic sake.

And thus the evolution of technology marches on.....

- trg,