Batboard

I've recently received a 99 channel VHF (146-174 MHz) MT1000 and battery. The radio was programmed by the person who sold it to me and worked perfectly when I first tried it (brand new battery was just taken out of box and attached to radio). I turned on the radio and was able to receive NOAA weather and other things that I requested be programmed into it. After a couple minutes, the display changed to "88" and the radio would not function even if it was turned on or off. I assumed that this was the result of the battery being low (the seller said the radio does that when the battery gets low) and I put the battery and radio on the charger for 14 hours. After 14 hours, the radio still only displays "88" and will not function at all. I tried the battery on my 16 channel MT1000 and it works perfectly. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? I'm quite sure that the radio is programmed for the proper bandsplit. Thanks.

BTW, the battery and radios are both from different sellers.

A few of my Visars will do that from time to time with low battery on the display, but I'm not sure why it would remain. I would suggest leavinig the radio alone w/o a battery on it for a few hours, then try it again.

I've tried that for the last couple days with no luck. Any other ideas?

The 88 on the display means the controller failed to boot or has another problem, VCO unlock also causes. I have also seen a corrupt codeplug cause it, etc.

If you want someone to look at it let me know i would be happy to help out, i have recovered more than a few 99ch radios from that condition. However, just so you know the possibility, i have seen the controller fail and all it does is display 88 and there is no way to recover it.

You can also try grounding the lock detect line to see if it's the VCO going out of lock and causing the error, but this requires dissasembly of the radio and some experience working with them to prevent damage.

I can't afford to send it to you now, but thanks for the offer. Can you tell me more about grounding the lock detect line? I have some electronics experience.

OK, I did what was described in this thread and it worked perfectly. The radio now RXes fine, but I'm too scared to TX on it. If I reconnect the pin that I grounded, will it go back to only displaying "88"? Thanks.

Connecting the lock detect to ground just forces the controller to ignore what's going on, it will think the VCO is locked regardless.

If you grounded the lock detect line and reprogrammed, then removed the jumper to ground, and it remained working than your ok. The only way to know for sure is to transmit and see what happens. It can always be restored again.

If you meant that you still have the lock detect line grounded to keep the radio working then yes, removing the jumper will cause it to go back to displaying 88. I wouldn't continue using it with the lock detect line grounded, you need to reprogram the radio with the correct split shown on the VCO under those two plugs and then see if it will operate without the jumper to ground.

Sorry for the delay, it's been a busy weekend and i forgot about this thread.

I don't have the ability to reprogram the radio now, so would it be OK to keep the pin grounded as long as I don't transmit? Thanks.

You should be ok for receive. The problem with transmit is if you force the radio to transmit somewhere it shouldn't damage can occur to the PA from high SWR.

If you need help with programming i would be happy to offer help with that, you can PM me if your interested.

If I am not mistaken here, it could be a problem with high resistance in the power switch contacts. Radio does not get full voltage especialy on TX.