Batboard

Does anyone know the tuning instructions for the advisor gold and pro receiver boards on 900 MHz? I ordered a service manual and it does not have the tuning instructions in there. I have looked on the board itself. Some boards have a pot and some dont. Any info would be a big help. Thanks..

Sadly, I think your going to be SOL.

The origional Advisor pagers (with the HUGE 4 line display) are the onest that I hear are the best to play with if you need to do tuning, and they go a bit out of their specified range as well.

However, I hear that the Advisor Golds/Pro/etc are Factory aligned for the paging service for which they are activated on, and putting them on a new frequency is damn near impossible to do with quality results.

However, there are solutions. Natcomm in MI will recrystal/tune/etc a pager for a flat labor rate of $12/pager. The Crystals are about $7. I have 7 advisors on their way to them now for recrystal/tuning. They guarentee they will come back tuned to factory specifications, so we'll see what happens.

I think the cost to get them tuned back to spec isn't bad, and wroth the $12. Motorola isn't doing flat rate repairs on the Advisors (or other digital pagers) any more, so your left with 3 companies recomended by /\/\ to send your pagers too.

Good Luck,

-Alex

alex wrote:Sadly, I think your going to be SOL.
However, there are solutions. Natcomm in MI will recrystal/tune/etc a pager for a flat labor rate of $12/pager. The Crystals are about $7. I have 7 advisors on their way to them now for recrystal/tuning. They guarentee they will come back tuned to factory specifications, so we'll see what happens.

Natcomm in Michigan? Cool! Where? Do you have a city or number for them?

Don't get your panties in a bunch. You can retune any of the newer receiver boards. They are not "carrier / provider specific."

On the 900MHz boards (typicaly Discovery 2 boards,) you will see the crytsal. If you flip the board over you will see 2 laser trimmed caps. One toward the antenna and one on the opposing side near the crystal. Guess which is for tuning the crystal?

You will need to remove the laser trimmed cap and put a 10pf variable cap in it's place. Motorola sells them ($3ish) or if you know pagers and parts I can guide you using old pager boards that use them. (If, after reading the rest of this post you feel you can do it, ask for parts specifics.)

Set your service monitor to (Rx freq - 17.9MHz) and put the pager in test mode so the receiver stays on... and zero beat it. Or you could try the official method of generating the Rx freq and tuning for 140Khz or 455Khz depending on the version, but the first is easier and just as good for 900Mhz.

All of the above is assuming you have done radio work before and you have the right surface mount soldering iron, a steady hand, and a signal generator or service monitor. AND it's not a Gold Elite in which case, you don't have to tune (usually) anything.

On a side note... Alex... tisk, tisk... a local pager shop where you are could have done it same day for $5, crystal provided ($4). Not supporting your local companies??? Bummer. Most major areas have pager shops that do good work... just need to find them.

ph

Phantom,
There isn't anyone in Rochester that I'd take a pager to again for recrystal and tune. There are about a dozen in the area, and I've had all of them do work for me. Each pager came back in worse condition than it was sent out in. And NONE of them warranty the work. For the extra $10 each for pagers being issued to emergency responders, I'd much rather have the warranty on the work.

These pagers are going on a county system, so its not going on Arch, Skytel, Weblink or Joe Blow's paging service. They want $25/hour to work on your pager, and usually don't support 3rd party people, unless you goto 1 place, and buy a pager. I was able to talk to a guy here, do the research, and get a warrenty on the work beyond that.

I wouldn't let either of the two way companies here TOUCH any of my radio equipment unless I was in direct supervision of what they were doing, and with full knoledge of the fact that they are NOT ra*ing my wallet. There has been one guy who HAS helped me out, and I thank him for that one time, but no one over there lets me talk to him when I come in....

I once called a local place and wanted a jedi charger. They wanted to charge me $200 above what was listed on accesspoint. When I called thier bluff, I said, I have it right here for $94 bucks. If you want me to buy it I understand you need to make money, but your not going to make $200 above your cost with me knowing about it. He then proceded to sell it to me for $105 or something like that, which I felt was fine.

phantom, I'm all for supporting the little guy when the little guy doesn't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. (thanks Judge Judy). There is some stuff I'll try and buy locally, otherwise, I have a select few who help me out whenever they can, and I thank and appreciate it when they do. If your a local person, let me know, and maybe we can work on something in the future - so far, I'm not impressed by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh wait how could I forget... - they also sold the campus safety dept here a Micor repeater for $40k or something rediculous like that... I'll see if I can find more info on it. I know they paid 1100 for used ht1000's, with 2 batteries, slow chargers, and speaker mic's.... Taking advantage of some places is fun, but there's a point...

-Alex

You need to know who to go to. Joe Blow's pager shop is often the best place to go for pagers. That's thier specialty....

Your campus saftey bought NEW 800Mhz HT1000's from Motorola via the local MSS. They weren't used.

The local MSS there in Rochester isn't the best. God only knows how long before they close. Your Public Safety Communications is overworked by 911 / PD stuff, plus downsizing because of budget constraints. They are the best around. You have some really good radio SYSTEMS companies (Non-MSS) out there but you get what you pay for.

Good luck in Rochester.... "Wait 15min, the weather will change." Where else can you have 80 degree weather, an earthquake and a snow storm... all in a weeks period????

ph

alex wrote:Sadly, I think your going to be SOL.
Natcomm in MI will recrystal/tune/etc a pager for a flat labor rate of $12/pager. The Crystals are about $7. I have 7 advisors on their way to them now for recrystal/tuning. They guarentee they will come back tuned to factory specifications, so we'll see what happens.

Alex, FYI, NatCom, Inc is located in MS, NOT MI.

NatCom has a website: http://www.natcominc.com/

Supposedly, you can track your pager's repair status through their facility, using their XtraNet. Sounds neat to me.

Tell us how things go with NatCom. I might be sending some in soon.

Anyone have a phone # for Natcom
Need their service ASAP
steve