Batboard

Hello,

I recently put an MSF5000 Limited (RLB) VHF station into service. this station was removed from a police department during a narrowband upgrade. the station is a
146-174 split. it is currently tuned for T146.910/R146-310. it has been in operation since christmas eve. about 4 days ago, i noticed i was sporatically getting a 1 beep and then sometimes a 2 beep alarm over the air. i thought the single beep was very srange being that there are no batteries connected to the station so it wasnt possible for the to be on battery backup. i thought i could be getting a possible PA alarm due to ice conditions we have been having in ohio the last couple weeks causing high VSWR with the antenna. I found absolutely nothing wrong with the antenna system. the PA is making full rated power and could easily make more if i wanted to turn it up.....the PA ON and PA FULL LED's both never miss and the repeater seems to be working as intended as far as i can tell. Also, both VCO's seem to lock up and stay locked with no issues i can see....I also am not getting any kind of error codes on startup or at any other time. what i did notice is that since the TX frequency is set the same as the idle frequency, i can hear the TX oscillator all the time when you are near the rf tray with a portable. and i can hear a single alarm beep about every second or so when the station is just sitting idle. if you leave the portable sit there close to it it will just beep continuosly and i have no idea whats causing this. the only other thing i noticed is that when i happened to set a heater in front of the station for a couple minutes, the beeping would stop. when i would remove the heater, it would come back after a few minutes.(this could be just a coincidence) the room was cold (around 30 degrees F) but i cant beleive that it would bother that station. i have seen them in some pretty bad locations before. As far as the over the air beeping, they dont seem to make any sence and seem to be pretty erratic. im sure the station is trying to tell me something and im just not smart enought to understand exactly what it is trying to say.

if anyone has any idea please let me know, this one really has me stumped

Thanks, Jason 330-406-7120

Just an FYI that is normal to hear the oscillation, many of us just move the idle frequency off just a bit to resolve it. The VCO's in a VHF station are software defined there are no adjustments they either lock or fail. Unfortunately these stations send out redundant audio alarms. They'll send the alarm and wait a few seconds and send it again you maybe hearing the same alarm being sent again.
If the station is close to you recycle the power that will clear any current alarms running after doing that does it start right in with the alarms again?
Doug
And by the way welcome to the board

1 beep - Station has lost AC power and is on battery backup.
2 beeps - PA failure.
3 beeps - Tx or Rx synthesizer is out of lock
4 beeps - Battery charging voltage is too high.

Comes from page 24 of the User Manual