Cimarron QE-2 / Maratrac Problems

KuhnElectronics · Post by **KuhnElectronics** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:56 pm

I installed 2 Cim QE-2's in 2 VHF Maratrac drawers yesterday on the bench, set mod, and tested them using a cdm1250 to decode and they checked ok...

took them to the customer, and swapped out the drawers for pre-existing units there... one worked flawless, and ID'd on dispatch's Mark4 decoder with alias flawlessly.

the other one however i didnt get so lucky with... dispatch said it wouldnt decode... checked the mod, it looks ok... i programmed up a spare ht1250 i had with mdc decode display...and it showed the id as well....so i checked and the radio was almost dead on frequency, actually closer than the working truck...

any ideas on what is causing this? i programmed that 1250 to encode this ID to ensure it would decode with an alias and it did...

i played around with adjusting the mod up and down with no luck at all...

are the motorola radios more forgiving on the decode and the cimarron is just being a little picky or what?

i would like some ideas to throw around before i set this down on the bench again...

thanks in advance...

-nick

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 8:30 am

What is the QE-2 doing for you that the maratrac will not do natively?

Every Maratrac I've seen has Stat-Alert MDC1200 built in.

Im quite sure you have a good reason for using the Cimmaron unit, just wondering.

KuhnElectronics · Post by **KuhnElectronics** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:14 am

mostly because of emergency mdc, and also some features we are not utilizing yet such as remote monitor and nuisance disable...

jackhackett · Post by **jackhackett** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:47 pm

One thing you could try is swap the QE2 modules between the two radios, that should tell you if the problem is with the radio or QE2.

You might also try lengthening the pre-time. I've seen this cause problems, the ID is sent too quickly and the receiving unit doesn't have time to open squelch before the ID burst is sent, this could explain why your CDM decodes it but dispatch doesn't, they might have a little longer delay on their receive opening up than the CDM does.

KuhnElectronics · Post by **KuhnElectronics** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:30 pm

i swapped cards around with no luck...cimmarron still wouldnt decode ....so i know it looks to be a radio issue...

but i wonder what?

jackhackett · Post by **jackhackett** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 8:41 am

I'd still say try a little longer pre-time, might be that radio isn't fully keying as fast as the other. Other than that the only thing that comes to mind is frequency response, perhaps there's some rolloff in the audio of that radio, where are you connecting the QE2's data out wire?