Batboard

I have an opportunity to pick up a Maratrac at a dirt-cheap price
and it's missing its display control head, (All other accessories are there, though) but I have two spare systems 9000 heads (for Syntor X9000) that are physically similar.

I don't know Maratracs, never having had one, but a cheap 100 watt programmable remote mount mobile radio is an attractive deal if it'll work without much effort.

Just for fun, what happens if I connect the 9000 head to this radio system and power it up? Anything bad? What will and what won't work?

Has anyone ever verified if a conversion is possible, and what do you know about it?


Elroy

Elroy,

Don't do it!! I vaguely remember reading somewhere that power and ground are reversed in the S9000 head, and connection to the maratrac will fry one or both.

I need to check the references. Just wanted to make sure you didn't jump the gun before I could check.

The last information I saw was on March 12, 2001 on the old Batlabs board. It claimed a HLN5343CSP01 "might" work with a Systems 9000 control head. Different Motorola technicians made different claims about its viability.

In any case, according to my manuals the MaraTrac uses directional, synchronous serial communication (data in, data out and a clock line). The clock line is in charge of the transfer speed and timing.

The Systems 9000 control head uses balanced differential, bi-directional, asynchronous serial communication with a bi-directional busy line at 9600 baud (+ bus, -bus and busy).

The two systems are so totally different a standard unmodified MaraTrac has no hope at all of working with a Systems 9000 head.

I suppose someone could engineer and build an external converter box to connect these two together? Because of all the work involved it is not very practical though .

I also heard that plugging them in with the wrong head will produce smoke, but, I never verified it myself.
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Mike B

Mike,

That board you mentioned HLN5343CSP01 is listed as a Maratrac Interconnect board for the State of Florida.

Nice find, could we be onto something

While doing radio swaps on our fire apparatus a syntor X9000 head was accidently installed on a 99 channel maratrac and as soon as the radio was turned on the radio smoked as well as the head. This was a simple mistake as both rigs were identical but a very costly one as the maratrac was less than 2 months old.

Yep, Smoke..... A few years ago I had a "What the hell" moment with a Spectra head and an Maratrac transceiver.

SMOKE.....


Oh well, "Live, Learn and Do Better."

Typical. Welcome to Motorola.

The interconnect board you are referring to is for the loband maratrac with an external squelch knob and not for the system 9000 head. If you do hook up the 9000 head, you will smoke the interconnect board and if you do not disonnect it in time you will smoke the rest of the radio.
I speak from past experience, HOWEVER, I have benn playing with the maratrac and 9000 head and have successfully put a syntor x9000 head onto a maratrac BUT, i have not yet gotten it to change channels yet. it does key up and recieve but it will take more research.

Thanks for the cautionary tales. I know not to do THAT, then...

Anybody got a 99 channel Maratrac head they want to get rid of, cheap?

By the way, that's not smoke that comes out of overloaded circuitry. That's the ghost of the item as it dies and goes to electronic heaven.


I've got some interesting items I'm going to offer on the buy/sell board, too. Anybody want a Syntor X9000 cable with encryption, in the physical security housing, and with a connector for a PAC-RT? The PSH is in great shape and yes, it has the keys.

I have two of those cables available, as described. No radio, but
the cable with PSH and PAC-Rt connector.

How about a Syntor X9000 Handheld Control Head? Got one of those, too, available for sale or trade.

All items are in excellent condition.


Elroy

Is there any more Maratrac radio chassis? I can't wait to play with one with the standard four ch head.

No, there's just one Maratrac in this bunch of stuff. And it's UHF, which limits its usefulness to me but it could be somewhat useful if the price is right.

Elroy

I know Texas DPS has some vehicles with that setup in them. Check with screenname Penstar, he might have more info on this since he probably drives one of the vehicles.


Frank

Just for clarification, the HLN5343CSP01 information I had was from an old Batlabs post on the date indicated (I was not the author). Thanks metro121 for clearing up the confusion and revealing its true function.
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Mike B

I know this is an old thread so maybe just kicking it will get some later results, I don't want to disagree with anyone but the low band Maratrac did not need an interface board for external squelch, unless a large pile were ordered without that option and even so I would think Motorola would just provide the correct audio squelch board rather than "inventing" an interface, the alpha numeric X head would be pretty cool on the Maratrac...

Well it looks like Metro121 is absolutely correct (not that he needed me to tell him that) I cought my local service mgr in a good mood today and he did some research, turns out the HLN5343CSP01 is exactly the same as the HLN5343D only priced under contract to the state of Fla. BUMMER!
PS it was something like $380.00 to Fla and a little over $400.00 to the rest of us, not bad for a board in a radio that one can not easily give away!!!
Anyone have a good stash of A7 control cables??
Craig