MTS2000 VHF Issue

[KE9GK]

OK..Have a sorta weird issue...

Purchased an MTS2000 portable some years ago and it never worked....therefore it sat in a drawer collecting dust for several years because I was simply too lazy to fix it. (Deaf as a post and maybe .0001 Watts output)

***** Fast forward several years to last week *****

I finally found it again and put it on the ol' service monitor and Tuner program and found it was deafer than a post (4.23 uv) and was putting out 0.01 Watts. I attempted to adjust the unit in tuner....without any progress...only to discover it was a dead RF board. So....found some spare Jedi stuff here and I replaced the RF board and put it on the monitor again. Same issue! I put the donor RF board back into its original (known good) radio...and went to power that one back up...only to find the other controller fried the donor RF board and my functional radio was now acting the same way the dead one did. Needless to say this displeased me..and I had to find yet another board to fix my good radio...and another to play with.

So...before I go frying another RF board...I am going to replace the controller with another one I have in the parts bin here.

My question is....do you think I am safe pulling the S-Record out of the bad board and dumping it into the donor board as the failure was entirely hardware related.....or....do you think that I should be shopping for a completely different S-Record as that was the cause of the controller zapping the RF board into oblivion? Thoughts?

[motorola_otaku]

Well, for starters your recipient controller had better have firmware older than 05.42 or you're going to end up toolproofed.

You might be better off finding a closed-architecture controller and down-converting it to a MT2000. Any controller from a model 2 or 3 MTX8000/9000 would work and all you'd need on top of that would be a donor codeplug with all the bells and whistles.

[AEC]

Check your XCVR main board for a number that appears like this: 5511Y32C.
This is the number you need to program the proper VCO crossover frequencies for TX and RX when you align the board.

[Karfield]

If I read your post correctly I would put your problem as the radio casting, also call rear cover. The 5105892U06 for VHF radios of all types seems to have issues developing the problem that you stated check your antenna contact for charring especially with the "black" VHV antennas not so much with the "yellow" or "red". Also, before risking any other parts take a look at your S101, public safety switch on side of the board. Push that in and out or take a look at the plunger with a magnifying glass and see if the tabs are bent or simply not touching the outside pads.

Both, TX and RX failures are rare in Jedi radios it'll generally be one or the other. In the event you do get a problem like that it'll almost always be one of the two failures I pointed out above.