Batboard

I woke up this morning to find my old Astro Spectra powering up with a Fail 01/92 error.

Took a recent s-record dump that I had on hand and shoved it back in.

Radio would seem to be working fine but I've still got a problem.

I cannot read the radio with Astro9.05 or the latest and greatest CPS for Astro Mobiles. The process fails during the codeplug unpack.

Yes, I was running Astro9.05 from a straight DOS prompt (no Windows).

The CPS gave me the most information about the error:

"No user function provided to convert block type to block ID for block with type 32. Unpack failed"

If I dump in a smaller s-record from a different radio, I can read and write without any problems so it seems to be a problem with my larger codeplug size.

Unfortunately, I haven't located an old codeplug archive so I haven't tried dumping that in yet.

Radio details are:

VHF high-split W7 dashmount
R11.71.06.00/N08.03.05
EMC Version 3.43 with des-ofb and des-xl hybrid (tried removing it but it didn't make any difference)
1meg vocon
599308-145E00-8 Flashcode

This radio has worked flawlessly for years so I'm at a loss here. Could there be a problem with the upper memory in my codeplug chip that's causing the corruption when read?

Any ideas?

I'm off to look for a recent codeplug archive for the radio to see if I can at least program it.

Well in this case I guess an s-record dump =/ a codeplug archive.

I found a recent codeplug archive, dumped it in with Astro9.05 and read it back out without any problems.

I would have thought the s-record would have worked as well but I guess I should have used the codeplug.

Problem is, it's getting harder to keep an old computer lying around just for the old DOS stuff.

Every year I buy another craptop at Dayton and hope it lasts through the year. I try to keep an archive of all my old codeplugs just in case something like this ever happens but sometimes it takes a while to remember where I've put it.

Luckily it didn't take too long to find.

All's well that ends well.

I would say there was a corruption in the S-record of some type. Was it ever saved on a floppy? They were notorious for corrupting all types of data. Luckily, as you found out, you can use a regular old codeplug & achieve the same desired results. The only time I've seen it make any difference at all was with toolproofing in the MTS2000...only an actual S-record can revive it...a codeplug cannot, for whatever reason.

wavetar wrote:I would say there was a corruption in the S-record of some type. Was it ever saved on a floppy?

The s-record was read straight off of the laptop.

I'm going to grab a new s-record off of it while it's happy and working just in case I need it in the future.