Batboard

has any one got the modification for the GM300 to go from 16 ch to 99/100 channels?

Does one exist? I know of the 99ch mod for the Maxtrac, which invloved special firmware which is NLA, and only worked in Lowband. I hadn't heard of similar for the GM300.

Todd

i have heard of it but like many articals on the net . it could be crap
i have heard and seen GM300 radios pictured as 99 channels advertised for sale on VK ham classifies

There's a mod for a 40 channel GM300

proff wrote:i have heard of it but like many articals on the net . it could be crap
i have heard and seen GM300 radios pictured as 99 channels advertised for sale on VK ham classifies

What you saw was likely channel aliasing. You can alias any of the channels to display up to 99.

What I remember of the rumors was that you needed Maxtrac Super Lab and special firmware. Never had it, never seen it, but a friend gave me the info.

As for aliasing, on the GM300 and Maxtrac, isn't that called "zone"? The Maxtrac I have has zone enabled and the display shows A1..A8, B1..B8, C1..C8 and so on based on the "alias" that you enter into the RSS (ie mode a mode aliased as 12 would display B4, 26 would be D2, etc.)

jim wrote:There's a mod for a 40 channel GM300

tell me more about this

which maxtrac are you talking about?
please don't say the 888, that radio drifts like crazy

OX wrote:What I remember of the rumors was that you needed Maxtrac Super Lab and special firmware. Never had it, never seen it, but a friend gave me the info.

As for aliasing, on the GM300 and Maxtrac, isn't that called "zone"? The Maxtrac I have has zone enabled and the display shows A1..A8, B1..B8, C1..C8 and so on based on the "alias" that you enter into the RSS (ie mode a mode aliased as 12 would display B4, 26 would be D2, etc.)

A Maxtrac conventional, VHF/UHF, aka a Maxtrac 300.

It can be done, well sort of, if you want a 99ch lowband Maxtrac then it's easy enough to accomplish.

I tried to make a VHF and UHF in the same manner using a hex edited version of the special 99ch RSS but it never worked right. Many have claimed to, none can prove it. If you search back you will find plenty of info about it. There was some guys working on hacking the bandsplit problem with the RSS so that you could do more than just a lowband 99ch radio, but as of yet i still don't know of anyone that made it work.

I gave up on it after trying to convert a VHF and UHF, the firmware and such is no problem, the problem is the SP RSS was made for only lowband splits, the VHF and UHF splits are not available in the RSS. One edited version floating around will let you enter VHF or UHF frequencies but it still doesn't work correctly, the radio doesn't work right after programming.

please , where can i get this infomation in accesing the firmware?
We have lots of old maxtrac radios

kb0nly wrote:A Maxtrac conventional, VHF/UHF, aka a Maxtrac 300.

It can be done, well sort of, if you want a 99ch lowband Maxtrac then it's easy enough to accomplish.

I tried to make a VHF and UHF in the same manner using a hex edited version of the special 99ch RSS but it never worked right. Many have claimed to, none can prove it. If you search back you will find plenty of info about it. There was some guys working on hacking the bandsplit problem with the RSS so that you could do more than just a lowband 99ch radio, but as of yet i still don't know of anyone that made it work.

I gave up on it after trying to convert a VHF and UHF, the firmware and such is no problem, the problem is the SP RSS was made for only lowband splits, the VHF and UHF splits are not available in the RSS. One edited version floating around will let you enter VHF or UHF frequencies but it still doesn't work correctly, the radio doesn't work right after programming.

That's the problem, you can't, well not legally anyway.

The 99ch lowband Maxtrac was an SP product made for a Canadian power company, at least that's what i remember being said about it. So it's not something you can just buy from Motorola, and even if it was it would have been NLA by now anyway since all the Maxtrac stuff is going away, some parts are still available, but only while stock is available, once its sold that's it.

And it won't do you any good unless you want a lowband 99ch radio, for VHF and UHF forget about it, i'm not convinced that it can be done now, i spent over a year trying to get one made with the help of others that had more experience with software editing, never did make a successfull 99ch VHF or UHF.

Lowband yes, that's easy enough.

kb0nly wrote:That's the problem, you can't,
Lowband yes, that's easy enough.

BUT only in ONE frequency range, 42 to 50mHz........

Mr Proff, the only other 99 channel "Maxtrac" is the Maratrac. But the Maratrac PROM may not work in a Maxtrac logic board.

Ah yes, thanks Will for pointing that out as well. Only the upper lowband split as well.

I have also played around with the Maratrac, nope, you can't put Maratrac firmware in a Maxtrac. How do i know? I tried it! Yeah, one of those boring days and i thought what the heck, time to experiment.

I couldn't get it to power up on one, i tried another logic board and it powered up but wouldn't read or write. So there must be something else different between a logic board put in a Maxtrac versus one put in a Maratrac, though they look the same. Maybe the processor is different, i should compare the component values one of these days.

dam
all the radios we have here are 400 mhz band and others are 800mhz banded.
the reference crystal drift alot

OX wrote:As for aliasing, on the GM300 and Maxtrac, isn't that called "zone"? The Maxtrac I have has zone enabled and the display shows A1..A8, B1..B8, C1..C8 and so on based on the "alias" that you enter into the RSS (ie mode a mode aliased as 12 would display B4, 26 would be D2, etc.)

On the GM300, you can rename any channel a number from 1-99. You see in RSS the actual channel designator AND the name for it which is changeable. You could in fact rename every channel "1," or anything else if you wanted.

The renaming only affects the number displayed when that channel is selected, nothing else.

Right, I get that but on mine it groups them kinda like what the trunking maxtracs do but backwards: A1, A2, A3 are displayed when 1, 2, 3 are programmed into that field. The groupings are by 8's so if I wanted C4 to display for mode one, I'd program the alias to 20. It would be nice if I could alias my channels with numbers instead. Is this a difference in firmware?

Sorry I can't answer your question Ox, I never saw that on a GM300.

I did this years ago and would not be able to give exact details.

I managed to increase the channels up to 99 on a standard GM300/ 16ch BUT the channels repeated the channels 1-40 or so --also channels 17-onwards could not be scanned.

Regards BradZS5SWT /ZS5WT

how did you do that?

bradlington wrote:I did this years ago and would not be able to give exact details.

I managed to increase the channels up to 99 on a standard GM300/ 16ch BUT the channels repeated the channels 1-40 or so --also channels 17-onwards could not be scanned.

Regards BradZS5SWT /ZS5WT