Batboard

So, I decided to be a guinea pig and was finally able to put the stuff together this week.

Essentially, all it entails is two W9 radios, and a special Y control cable. I read up on the supporting documentation, and decided to give it a try to see if it will perform as a true dual radio similar to my x9000's.

Well, sorta.

When programmed properly, the 2nd radio will function like a normal radio except xmit. In the wiring diagram, it shows that the Mic Hi/Lo lines are not brought thru to the 2nd plug from the molded Y connector.

The radio is capable of scan on/off and direct opertion, however it will not xmit via MDC or PTT press. However, I haven't tried yet with the radio receieving MDC commands such as call/page yet.

If the 2nd radio is programmed as a primary radio, but still hooked up to the 2nd radio control connector, the radio will Tx and show that the other radio is missing, except you will natually not have any mic audio.

Programming both radio's as a primary radio will have it go into a fail mode.

Obviosuly somewhere in the software is a command that inhibits ptt on the 2nd radio, I am wondering if anyone has found this yet. According to the documentation, in the true setup, the 2nd radio is capable to xmitting to a trunked system, which leads me to believe if the right section of RSS/CPS can be found, it may be possible to overcome this. However, the documentation contradicts itself at points saying that the 2nd radio is incapable of xmitting, but also that it can (go figure).

In the proper HRR setup, the 2nd radio is suppose to be a trunking radio set to monitor 1 talkgroup, and with its own radio ID. So.... time to do some research.

More to come when I play with it some more, but if anyone has found a way around this...I am sure we will all be interested.

I've never heard of a dual astro setup.
Is it similar to the analog SIU system?

mancow

There are two "dual radio" systems that I am aware of.

#1 is the SIU setup, using two astro spectras with the HHCH that is in the same physical case as the Spectra/X9000 dual radio system. You would think they would have (or may have) used a nice W3 HHCH for this, but..no.

#2 is a dual reciever system. All this requires is a special Y cable and turning on the HRR option in RSS/CPS. Radio #1 is a fully functional radio, radio #2 bascially turns into a scanner. This setup uses 1 W9 head. This can be a same band or differenet band radio setup.

My quest is to get radio #2 in this setup (w9) to xmit. Right now as the default setup works, the RSS or firmware "inhibits" (oops tones) any possible user initiated transmissions.

The Dual radio recieve system is covered under Manual Supplement 68P07994D09-O. Also in that manual are part numbers for a dual Y power cable, and a dual radio (low/mid power) radio drawer turnion.

pj,

I have personally seen a dual radio astro setup using a W3 HHCH. The beast is out there.

I'll take your word in it

Yeah, I figured that its out there, I just haven't come across anything about it yet. MOL only has the info with the old style head. I am sure someone somewhere has info on the W3 and W9 dual radio setup.

PJ,

Have you thought about hooking up a second microphone or a switch box with one microphone and hooking up the microphone input and push to talk at the dB25 accessory connector on the secondary radio instead of at the control head. You will have to change some internal jumpers to allow microphone and push to talk inputs to be routed to this connector. It might be a solution.....

Actually, not really. I may have to tinker with that..I'll have to put that on the list of things to try..

Just as an FYI-

The 15TG mod does not appear to play nice with the HRR setup.

The 800 radio WILL scan all 15/16 channels, however after awhile, any button press on the control head will reboot the radio. This only happens on zones with more than 10 TG's enabled for scan. Zones in which I have 10 TG's in the scan list does not appear to have this problem.

With this setup, does the 2nd radio receive simultaneously with the first, or do you toggle between the primary and secondary radio with the AUX button?