Batboard

I have a 16 ch UHF HT 1000 that went to the depot before I got it. It has the white ser # decal & is a BN but it went to the depot in 02, long after they quite making BN's. Would it have come back with DN upgrades or would it have been set up as a BN? For my use it really doesn't matter, & I dont have any programing equipment to test it. Just something that crossed my mind today while sitting at the pool. GARY N4KVE

i havn't worked with one in a while but i thought all of the white tag ones were D models?

HLA wrote:i havn't worked with one in a while but i thought all of the white tag ones were D models?

I thought so too but the ser # on the white decal ends with "BN". As I understand they copy the original ser # as it is sent to them. GARY N4KVE

The only 1000's I've seen that were factory tagged with white product labels were the late model DN versions. I have seen some DN models that also were black tagged too, but there are far more of the white ones around. The radio would have most likely come back as a BN totally. If the model plate indicates it is a BN, it is most likely equipped with the BN features (i.e. no 12.5khz, no splinter channels, etc). The white tag on an older radios usually means a trip to the depot has been in its life somewhere.

'02 was far before the "mexirola" b/s, and when there were *real* bench tech's in Rockford and Elgin Depots that gave a crap. If it were to go to the depot now, god knows what would come back.

I would think any HT1000 sent to the depot nowadays would come back with a DN board in it. I am sure Motorola stopped manufacturing the narrowband-only boards long ago.

We have both Black and white label DN's I know the white ones never have been Depot'ed.

The ser# on the white label on the radio in question is 402AUS08## Z W3 which means the original radio was made in 1994. Since they didn't use white labels in 1994 I believe the radio was sent to the depot. The model # on the white label is H01RDC9AA3BN. I don't sit up nights worrying about this stuff, but when I'm laying at the pool my mind has been known to wander. LOL. GARY N4KVE

Can always take a look under the hood and see if it's a DN controller, but my money's on it being a BN. Depot issue may not have
even involved the controller and if they changed it likely would have updated the label.

I must be pretty bored to answer another old post. But hey, here is the skinny on white tags and black tags. When a radio is sent to the depot with a black tag it presents a little different problem for the ATE equipment. (manual entry, bah) So the depot for quite a long time printed out new white tags with bar codes on the. This "new" tag still exists today but generally only gets changed when the casting (back cover) also gets changed. As for the version of the radio in question... More than likely that unit got sent in as a flex board which tends to fail out shortly after having any work done on the controller. So it's quite likely that you got a brand new radio back with new controller (NCN61440) and new RF board (could be one of 2 possibilities depending on your model type). The codelug information including the original model number were blown back into that controller board as if nothing was really changed. It's a VERY rare occurance when someone sends in an AN or BN model number and gets back a DN. This might occur if the radio sent in had no tag and was unreadable do to clock error something like that.

So to really sum up the tags there actually are three tags, Depot (in it's many incarnations all made from Zebra printers), factory black (laser tag made from "unknown" machine) and the Factory White tag (no barcode made from a Zebra printer).

is not the controller firmware hard coded into the ROM on the controller board? so theoretically if it shows up as a newer "4.xx" in RSS, could you not just LAB in a DN codeplug and have a true DN radio, provided that is, the old AN/BN controller was replaced with a newer one?

Yes, The last version of firmware for the HT1000 was 4.05, however 4.07 does exist but there was a VERY limited run of only the micrpP. This was to fix a mixed band scanning issue between 12.5 and 25khz. You guys here might know more than I do the true differences between the BN and DN cause frankly I've never looked into it. Although if you were to just bit bang the B to a D I don't think that would give you all the features it would just change what pops up in RSS. To make a DN you'd have to enable all the DN features which might be easier to bit bang a DN to a BN and then clone that into the radio and then bang it to a DN. Though there are far more bit "adjusting" experts that could answer that better than I.

When I started this thread I wasn't so concerned with the narrow band features that the "DN" radio offered over the "BN". Some of the "BN" radios I've owned had the noisey tx that was addressed with fixes. All the "DN" radios I owned didn't have this problem so I assumed the noise problem was fixed by this time. This radio has no tx noise, so hardware wise is it a "DN" with the physical improvements a "DN" has? The tag has a bar code on the bottom, & the back frame has the newest #'s I've seen. "D2" in the little circle under the ch knob on the back frame. New plastic case, & knobs that don't get slimy after time. GARY N4KVE

D model physical improvements ? Don't know about that, the UHF units I had that were covered by the
microphonics SRN I believe were 'D' rev. radios. In the HT1000 run here's the differences I know about, perhaps someone can chime in with others. A- original release B- more signalling options and more usability of side option buttons, also 8 channel version was cancelled with B release.
C- added advantage option port for plug-in analog scrambling board D- splinter channel (6.25) capable

Let us not forget BN and on is MUCH easier to upgrade to a DTMF cover. (main menu, F4, F3, F2, Cntrl+Shift F7). The higher versions also came with a CH test and RF test. I believe this came out with 2.05. However if you have an AN codeplug (not the BN cloned down to AN) you still will not have the RF test just the CH test.