Batboard

Hey guys I picked up a very nice suitcase repeater the other day and am trying to program it. I have the old RSS for the portable repeater as well as the spectra rss but neither seem to work. I keep getting a serial bus time out error. I have never got to play with out of these and am looking for some pointers to make sure I am going the right way.

I have old gateway laptop running win 95 with dos. I open the Portable Repeater Rss in DOS and plug the cable into the controller port on the repeater. Turn the repeater on and try to read it with no luck. Same with the spectra rss. So am I doing something wrong?

I have an aftermarket low power spectra programing cable I use to program my Astro Spectra in my Explorer. I am only guessing that the cable is the same for the Spectra and the Astro Spectra. Is that right?

Any input is great. Thanks guys

You need the specific SW for that unit, it was gov't only and didn't use any normal SW. If you can't find it, I may be able to help, as M won't have/sell it either.

There were three different revisions of the suitcase repeater RSS. The latest is 1.02 if I remember correctly. The one that I have is the last one that they released. I'll have to check to see how mine is configured, but you have to install REGULAR Spectra RSS - Lab is not recommended - and if memory serves me correctly; you have to install Spectra Rev. 6.05(?) then install the PR RSS in a separate directory. PR2 is the exe file. Open the Repeater software, and you'll have to configure it to address the directory in which the Spectra RSS is located. It's quite a production, and one false move will screw your suitcase up big time.

And; yes, the regular Spectra low power programming cable is the one you use.

I have the RSS manual and the Service manual for the suitcase repeater.

I bought one for $50.00 at a Hamfest that was essentially like new. Problem was; it was a UHF R-1. I took both radios out, and after recapping the boards that I was keeping; I swapped out the VCO's for actual NOS R-2 VCO's, swapped the front ends with R-3's (since there is no R-2 front end), added the UHF preamp mod, and replaced the PA with an R-3 which is what is specified in the service manual for the R-3 suitcase. I had to bitbang the MLM to change the frequency split - that part was a walk in the park - and have the duplexer retuned. I now have one super portable suitcase repeater that I coordinated with the Texas VHF Society for emergency use, and it works great. 19.1 watts out of the PA, 17.9 out of the duplexer. I had a separate six cavity Cellwave duplexer that I has tuned for a GRMS pair; and can define in the repeater SW whether I'm using an internal or external duplexer per personality. The Cellwave duplexer slips perfectly into the sleeve on the top left hand side of the lid of the repeater.

Beware! This is one funky beast! Once you are able to read it; be sure to save and backup your repeater codeplug, and both radio codeplugs - although, they should be identical. Don't start poking around with it experimenting because it's not very forgiving if you make a mistake. There also may be someone prior to you that got things screwed up, and you'll need to either rebuild your codeplugs, or find someone who has ones that aren't screwed up.