Batboard

At last the time has come to disembowel 150 or so Spectra RR radio's. While taking the MLM out of one I noticed that the RF chassis was painted Orange as oppose to the usual brown or in most cases not painted at all. I am trying to determine which dates which color was used. Any ideas? I know it is trivial, but I see that there is a lot of interest for ODD Motorola products, and this could be one.

At the price of used RR Spectras on eBay, why are you destroying them?

Exact dates? I have no idea

but the nonpainted ones I've come across were old 1991 units.

everything else including Astro units were all brown.

Are the board numbers the same? Specifically the MLM?

com501 wrote:Are the board numbers the same? Specifically the MLM?

No, they aren't the same. The MLM on every Railroad Spectra I've seen is like R1.14 or something REALLY low, very limited capabilities.

The only orange spectras I ever remember seeing were some old ex-Fedex units, but it was years ago so I don't remember if it was just the outside that was orange, or what.

com501 wrote:Are the board numbers the same? Specifically the MLM?

The MLM is different, I have one floating around here somewhere....

You are right about the MLM version, these are v.1.3. The unpainted chassis is from 1992, I will look for code dates on the rest. The brown ones I find are from 1999 to 2002. As far as selling the Spectra's our agency destroys ALL our old equipment, they don't want to bother with selling or auctioning off the equipment. The last series of portables, HT1000's and MT2000's all went out with holes drilled in the middle of the radio. BTW these Spectra radio's are only good for parts since the MLM and CB are only functional with an AAR control head without major modification and replacement of the MLM.

I remember selling a Spectra with an orange chassis a few years back. It was an 800mhz A7. It was indeed an ex-Fedex radio. I'll see if I can find a picture of it.

RADIOMAN2002 wrote:You are right about the MLM version, these are v.1.3. The unpainted chassis is from 1992, I will look for code dates on the rest. The brown ones I find are from 1999 to 2002. As far as selling the Spectra's our agency destroys ALL our old equipment, they don't want to bother with selling or auctioning off the equipment. The last series of portables, HT1000's and MT2000's all went out with holes drilled in the middle of the radio. BTW these Spectra radio's are only good for parts since the MLM and CB are only functional with an AAR control head without major modification and replacement of the MLM.

what a shame to destroy some good radios!!!

This is an old thread but I will throw in my "2 cents" anyway (or maybe 1 cent in my case )

I work for a Class 1 railroad. I work in the diesel shop fixing locomotives. In our shop, we test and change locomotive radios all the time. Our guys and gals are not radio techs by any means (although I am -but they dont pay me to fix their radios so I don't).

We have one radio in each shop that is the "test" radio. If a locomotive comes in with radio problems, the guys and gals check the "test" radio out from the tool room. If this fixes the locomotive, the original radio is deemed bad and is replaced. If it does not, then the antenna system is repaired. In either case, the "test" radio is returned to the tool room. The "test" radio is painted bright orange so that it will not be left in the locomotive or otherwise get misplaced.

This is a rather crude approach, but it "works" when the people on the front line are not knowledgeable in two-way radio.

These Spectra's are painted orange on the inside. The actual chassis that would normally be used for a low/mid power mobile. They obviously were painted at the factory this way, as is the ones not painted at all.

OK... Didn't realize that from the original post...

Let us all know if you ever get to the bottom of this.

Walking_Catfish