Batboard

Post hurricane Ike, my FD's MTR2000 repeater started beeping during transmitting, which was found by our tech to have a bad amp. Up until this point the signal was a little weak, with strong audio, but when dispatched toned & talked, the audio and signal was strong at the control station as well. Now comes the problem. Radio tech pulls out the repeater and puts a temporary unit in with two cdm750s attached together by a RICK. I wasn't too happy with this as our repeater is 100 watts, and the one we are renting is two mobiles @ 40 watts, but our department is low volume (until the last two weeks). Now... upon testing the repeater with my mobile and handheld radios the signal and audio was good, but... when the dispatcher tried a tone test from the console, the signal was strong, but audio very low. Radio tech checked out the control station (25 watt cm200 with tone remote from the console) he could find nothing wrong. There were no adjustments made to the console, tone remote or any other equipment other than the repeater change out. Also compounding the problem, when toned from console, handheld or mobile radio, all the Minitor V pagers will open at the tone, but will not catch the audio. I wanted to believe that maybe it is a coincidence that the contol station began having problems immediately after the MTR2000 was taken out for repairs, but I put the radio out of my truck in its place, and still have the problem. Radio tech says that the MTR will most likely be out of service for a month, so I've got to make something work until then.

Any ideas.... Anyone.....

Thanks in advance

Bundy125

1. Have you considered another radio shop?

2. If you go back and read what you have said in your post, I would be pointing the finger
at the temp repeater that has been installed.

3. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to run a service monitor to measure the deviation
levels on the 2 radios. Sounds like maybe the Ric or the transmitter has an issue.

4. Maybe a different radio tech would be able to locate this simple problem. See # 1.

Jim

bundy125 wrote:Post hurricane Ike, my FD's MTR2000 repeater started beeping during transmitting, which was found by our tech to have a bad amp. Up until this point the signal was a little weak, with strong audio, but when dispatched toned & talked, the audio and signal was strong at the control station as well. Now comes the problem. Radio tech pulls out the repeater and puts a temporary unit in with two cdm750s attached together by a RICK. I wasn't too happy with this as our repeater is 100 watts, and the one we are renting is two mobiles @ 40 watts, but our department is low volume (until the last two weeks). Now... upon testing the repeater with my mobile and handheld radios the signal and audio was good, but... when the dispatcher tried a tone test from the console, the signal was strong, but audio very low. Radio tech checked out the control station (25 watt cm200 with tone remote from the console) he could find nothing wrong. There were no adjustments made to the console, tone remote or any other equipment other than the repeater change out. Also compounding the problem, when toned from console, handheld or mobile radio, all the Minitor V pagers will open at the tone, but will not catch the audio. I wanted to believe that maybe it is a coincidence that the contol station began having problems immediately after the MTR2000 was taken out for repairs, but I put the radio out of my truck in its place, and still have the problem. Radio tech says that the MTR will most likely be out of service for a month, so I've got to make something work until then.

Any ideas.... Anyone.....

Thanks in advance

Bundy125

I would check to make certain that the mobiles in the repeater set up don't have any disimilar or improper settings. Look at AGC, channel bandwidth (25 & 12.5), compading, expansion. I never liked the CDM in the rick set-up as I was personally never able to get the audio just right. This is compared to using maxtracs or gm300's, but in the 12.5 world that doesn't fly anymore.

The only realy variable in this situation is the repeater, so you need to take a closer look at it.

Rob

I agree with Jim200

1. Have you considered another radio shop?

Does the shop working on the problem own a service monitor? Do they know how to use it?

Start at the console. Look at the link TX radio output on test tones. Do a test at 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz. Tones should be flat and at 60 to 70% system deviation. Voice should average 60-70% system deviation (with peaks to max deviation).

Next do a repeat deviation duplex check with the service monitor on the temp. repeater. Again check at 500, 1000 and 200 Hz. Check that you can acheive max system deviation (mobiles will rarly do this without realignment).

Then do the same console tone tests and check the repeater deviation output.

The problem should be very easy to nail down.

Hello everyone,

First and foremost... thanks for your replies. Your insight is very much appreciated, and hopefully we'll make some progress now that the holidays are over.

Again thanks,

Bundy125

Bundy125,

I would follow the rest and make this an email to you people in charge. There is no reason at all for an MTR2000 to be down for a month. This sounds like again a case of a computer techie playing radio know nothing and putting the heat off on a long downtime.

These kinds of people make my blood boil. This example of ( IAINTGOTCLUE RADIO REPAIR ) is what is going wrong with 2 way radio communication in general in this country.

Off of my box,

Sounds like the person, on top of not knowing what to do, set up the repeater and did not think to test 300 to 3k of audio throught the unit before installing this rental.

I would not pay a dime more for a rental and would let this be known to your persons in charge. Your getting the raw deal if your a public safety agency.

CoM

Oh, one other,

If this is the performance they gave you with an RF alarm, I hope they didn't control the install of the antenna system for this repeater. I would believe they did not install that properly either. There is going to be a large bill probably $1k to $3k tied up in this repair and this may not fix your problem if the antenna system is bad, which will cause the repair to soon fail as well.

I am willing to believe the person doing this work currently is not going to find an antenna problem if he had the directions printed all over the site.

Probably couldn't pour piss out a boot with the instructions on the heel. as the old saying goes,

Wish you the best, if you need references to a better shop write back and someone on here I'm sure can get you to a competent person within a short amount of time.

CoM

Ok,

I just re read your initial post, and this came to lite.

The MTR200 has or had a tempermental SWR circuit. For example, the length of cable between the txport and lightning protection can cause a false trouble beep when nothing is wrong. I don't know the exact cause but when we removed the cable and swept and tested it, everything was ok. We tried several diffent length jumpers with varying results, all checked ok but some caused trouble alarms, the shorter the cable no alarm...

Futhermore, during a storm was your lightning portection damaged?? Could be a 60$ fix

I would like to add a broken record reply-

Wouldn't be surprised to find out the radio shop did not bump up the external mic audio adjustment in the tx radio programming as the CDR manual recommends, nor did they adjust the pot inside the R*I*C*K (R23 ??? if I recall correctly). It's also not too difficult to make sure 3Kc of mod in= 3Kc out (or 1.5 in/1.5 out).

Just an update (and again, thanks for everyone's comments). The repeater went out to Motorola, they replaced the PA, but when it came back the beep was still there. The tech went a little deeper and found that there was a power loss after a few seconds of continuous transmitting. He swapped the repeater out with another MTR 2000 and there were no audio issues this time. The repeater should be back in about a week this time, so hopefully everything will be back to normal. Again thanks for all the help.

Bundy125