Batboard

What is the function of the 3 red buttons on the top of the front panel, seen on Saber II and III radios? My theory and service manuals don't mention them at all.

Below the display or somewhere else? The only three red buttons I have ever seen on those models are the menu keys...

On 2002-02-22 11:09, Pj wrote:
Below the display or somewhere else? The only three red buttons I have ever seen on those models are the menu keys...

correct, the three buttons directly below the display. i'm curious if a Saber I housing could be used on a radio equipped with the display and 3 menu (?) buttons.

Most likely, but I do not know what the clearances are, so you may scratch up the display or damage the circut board. I would leave it in the II/III case. If you are trying to "seal" it up, look for the ruggidized cases that pop up on ebay. The problem is that if you do put it in a I case, you will be limited to one zone only, instead of the 48 or 128 channels that the readio has.

On 2002-02-22 12:12, Pj wrote:
Most likely, but I do not know what the clearances are, so you may scratch up the display or damage the circut board. I would leave it in the II/III case. If you are trying to "seal" it up, look for the ruggidized cases that pop up on ebay. The problem is that if you do put it in a I case, you will be limited to one zone only, instead of the 48 or 128 channels that the readio has.

Saber IE radios, at least the ones I service, use an 8k display board, and have a total of 24 channels in 2 zones (selected by the zone switch at the top of the radio). having the display under a non-display case is nno problem in this case. the radio in question here is, i believe, also technically a saber IE, already housed in the non-display case. the user does not have it programmed and is inquiring as to whether or not the radio is usable without the 3 menu buttons accessible. my guess is yes, but i've never used a saber with those buttons so i'm not sure what the use is.

Speaking from experience the answer is yes, you can put a III case on a I Saber or vice-versa. There is no clearance problem.

If you put a II case on a III model Saber you lose the advantage of direct zone entry via the keypad, because while you have a keypad on the chassis you don't have access to it via the case. Therefore to change zones you must step through the zones until you reach the one you want, then you hit the enter button. BTW, the Saber USER'S manual is the place to learn about the red buttons.

Tom, W2NJS
...in D.C.

I have three Saber 1E's and none of them have any keys on them. Just the 8k display boards and the associated flex interconnect cable make them physically different.

I did a little experimenting and tried plugging in the 8k display board from a 1E into an exisiting Saber III just for the heck of it and the RSS notified me that there was insufficient memory. It did allow me to program the 1E display board as a Saber II 48 channel though. But then I had a Saber III case being wasted on a Saber II 48 Channel so I just reverted it back to the 1E.

I think I could have forced it to program as an 8k but did not want to do so as it can be risky(Corrupted Codeplug).

The RSS asked me at one point if I wanted to program the display for a certain memory size. It also stated that this is irreversible once it is done. This makes me think maybe the RSS formats or masks the 8k display down to a 2k for some models(which would explain why it thinks it is a 2K even though it has the 5 chips indicating a 8K). I wish I would have wrote down exactly what the RSS said...... but after all the fooling around trying to gain something I was exhausted!

I am sure someone else out there has been through all this before.

Ed
N4UMJ