Batboard

Hi
I have just bought two ASTRO III's and they are mint .H04RDH9PW7AN

Can anyone give sound advice before I start reading and writing to the radio.

Are there any procedures to safeguard against turning these into bricks , such as backing up codeplugs or checking basics -I have many other motorola radios that I have programmed and out of band stuff but the closest to this radio I have come is the mx-2000 (saber 2 analog) .

Regards

Brad

Brad,

Programming an Astro Saber is almost totally different from
an analog Saber/MX radio. The program has a feature which
tells you if you've made a mistake in setting it up and then
won't allow you to write to the radio, and this is obviously
good and bad. Good because it keeps you from writing a
program that won't work and bad because it's frustrating
when it happens. If you see the dreaded red marks you'll
know you're in trouble, and you'll also get a message.

The other basic difference is that you must first write the
frequencies in list of "conventional personalities," and then
assign each numbered personality to a zone and channel. It
takes some getting used to but works. (Another nice thing is
that if your radio is flashed for digital P25 operation you can
set the receiver for "mixed mode" so you'll hear both P25 and
analog transmissions on the same channel.)

Other than the above (and I haven't touched the myriad
signalling options!) it's an easy program to work. Just be sure
to, as you already know, save the first program you read from
the radio.

One last point. If you remove the AS3's case there is a small
pot below the display that allows you to increase or decrease
the intensity of the display. The adjustment works in very
small increments.

Regards,

Hi

Thanks Tom for the information -so far I am hoping it has the P25 capability.
If it does not have it would it be a simple software upgrade or would one require additional hardware.

By reading the radio would I know what the capabilities of that radio are?

I would really like to experiment with the P25 as I have only read up on it and we do not have P25 radios in operation in my country-they are way behind.

Any place to get hold of the P25 spec

Regards

Brad

Brad,

The best way to get something of an education about P25 is
to do searches on this board.

To read the specs of your radios do this:
1. Make sure battery is charged and usable.
2. Turn on radio.
3. After test sequence finishes, push the bottom side
button located near the front of the radio five times in
succession. Be prepared to write down what you see.
The data appears rather quickly and you will need few
tries to get it all.
4. When RF Test appears you're done, so shut off the
radio and run the sequence again and copy down what
you've missed, then do it again until you get all of the
stuff. Chief among the data will be the radio's flashcode,
in the form of 000000-000000-0 which can be either letters
or numbers in any of the 13 locations.

You can only run this test/display sequence on AS2 and
AS3 radios; on an AS1 you must read the radio to get the data.

After you've spent time searching here, you will have a good
understanding of flashcodes and what they mean, as well as
the numbers for the other data in the radio. Some is in the
firmware and some is in the flashcode.

In particular, look in the section of this Board having to do with
digital and P25 subjects, including the "sticky" messages at the
top of the section. This will take you quite a while but when
you're done reading you will know a lot about the subject.

Regards,

Hi

Thanks again Tom for the very good advice.
I will do the search and check what flash code is on the radio .


Thanks again for the good informative explination.

Regards
Brad

I have done the test and have :

Mfg Code(FLASH PORT ): 0000010000009

Power-up test: AP_R03.33.00
DSP N05.01.04
EMC 2.012
KG1-DES
KG2-NONE
H04RDH9PW7AN
465AZ_____

I am hoping I am going to be so lucky to have an alalog and digital P25 ready radio here.

Which software ver. should be recommended as a stable program for starters ??

Holding thumbs--any coments.
Regards
Brad

bradlington wrote:I have done the test and have :

Mfg Code(FLASH PORT ): 0000010000009

Power-up test: AP_R03.33.00
DSP N05.01.04
EMC 2.012
KG1-DES
KG2-NONE
H04RDH9PW7AN
465AZ_____

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like VSLEP DSP. VSLEP is NOT astro, but it is digital (if that makes sense). If no one around you has APCO25, you won't have a problem with the 2 radios talking to each other in VSLEP until you can get it fixed. Also, the flashcode is for Conventional-only operation, which leads me to believe it's VSLEP. If this is the case you'll need it reflashed to the latest firmware/DSP (7.71/8.03 respectively IIRC). I don't know how difficult it would be to ship those radios in/out of South Africa, although I'm sure someone here can help you out.

Hi

Thank you for the reply.

I am hoping that I have some form of digital in order to experiment with the mode.

I have done some searching but am unable to find a comprehensive breakdown of the variety of different information relating to these radios.

I am hoping to read from the radio during the course of the next 24 hrs as boith batteries are down .

What I did find was MDC1200 PTT burst so to start it is conventional but am hoping to find more interesting things to play with.
I am also hoping with these radios is to have voting RSSi as I have a number of uhf HAM repeaters all linked and it would be good to use this.

Kind regards

Brad

That's V-S-E-L-P, not VSLEP!!!!


The flashcode given is the most basic code possible, just conventional operation and nothing else. It's "Astro Ready", as Motorola describes it.

That flashcode is what a radio will often have in it if it was sent to the depot for service and its previous flashcode was either restricted and
the person who sent the radio in isn't an official associated with the system that flashcode is assigned to, or the previous flashcode was not
known due to the controller being non-functional and the radio's owner isn't an official associated with a system that the radio is intended to
be used with.


Uh...is there any engraving on the radio, by chance?


There ARE ways to do some feature upgrades. Look in the "model specific information" section of Batlabs, and you will learn
how to do a few things if you have the right tools handy. Most importantly, you'd need a "donor" radio with a nice set of features
that will work with your radio's firmware revisions. But it would be better to first arrange to get your radio's firmware updated,
which some people here can do for you. (But don't ask me...I can't.)

Elroy

Elroy Jetson wrote:That's V-S-E-L-P, not VSLEP!!!!

Sorry Elroy! I'm just so used to people calling it that around here...

Dyslexics of the world, untie!

Did you hear about the agnostic, insomniac dyslexic?

He was awake all night wondering if there really IS a Dog.


Elroy

Elroy Jetson wrote:Did you hear about the agnostic, insomniac dyslexic?

He was awake all night wondering if there really IS a Dog.

story of my life...