Quantar COS

[Tim]

Hi folks,

On my older revision SCM and WL cards, I merely had to tie one leg of a relay to ground, and
when the receiver opened, the relay would close, and I had a COS signal. (See Repeater-builder
info).

I have just upgraded to v 14 firmware, with an appropriate WL card that is recognized by
the SCM, and that function no longer appears to be 'built-in'.

Is this something that I now have to do with a wildcard function? (I'm not familiar with how
it works, just know that I can make 'outputs 1... do things with certain inputs').

thanks,

Tim

[Bill_G]

It's called RDSTAT. You'll have to pull out the manual for the backplane to find the pin. I do not recall off the top of my head if you need to program the function in the wildcard. Seems to me it is available all the time on the 25pr connector, the MRTI port, and the trunking controller port.

[Tim]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, RDSTAT is Aux 7.

My main issue was that it seemed that the function worked without wildcard intervention on the older SCM/WL. But with the new, it doesn't. Was wondering why.

Tim

[Tim]

Hi Bill,

After I turned on the wildcard option, and went to the wildcard
tables page, I see that one of the pre-done tables is to do just
what I want.

However, it doesn't do it. Is there somewhere I need to turn on
that table? (I even reversed the logic so the relay would be on
normally, and it didn't happen).

thanks,

Tim

[xmo]

If there was no wildcard programming in your codeplug - and all you did was define the wildcard table - it won't work.

You must also go to the wildcard outputs page and either define the output you wish to use - or simply set the output configuration to default.

[Tim]

Thanks XMO,

I figured when I pressed 'F4' for the default functions in
the table, then all outputs/inputs would be set.

I'll check the outputs & make sure the defaults are in
place.

thanks,

Tim

[Tim]

Went to both the input and output screens and selected
the 'defaults'.

Re-programmed, and still no joy.

[d119]

Just for grins and giggles, turn on the "Phone Patch" option in the main screen of the Quantar RSS. I've found certain rear connection pins don't do anything unless that option is enabled, and it may be a firmware-related thing that requires that option to be turned on.

Give it a whack and let us know.

Additionally, I've never had to use a relay to get COR off of a Quantar, it's just there on the RDSTAT pin to drive the controller.

[Tim]

Hi d119,

It is turned on.

I thought that the rdstat pin drove the relay. (figure if the relay isn't working, the pin isn't being driven either)

[Tim]

Maybe we should look at this as a compatibility issue.

Here's the cards & firmware that I'm running:

TTN4094 SCM with 20.14.029
CLN6955 WL with 20.14.003

Are there any issues with the FW/Revisions shown?

I also note that the AUX LED (bottom Green one) is
continually blinking. Was wondering what this is.

I'm getting really close to using the receiver activity LED
as the source for the COS signal!

Thanks,

Tim

[d119]

If the AUX LED is the one on the bottom of the "top row" of LED's and is green, that is indicating the station is in digital or mixed mode operation and there is no v.24 data link connected to it (DIU/AstroTac/Null/etc.). It may do the same thing if there is no analog link present on the back of it to the same equipment (DIU/etc.)

As for your COS problem, I don't get it. Where'd you get the SCM? Maybe thats why it was replaced.

I'm not very savvy on the firmware revs so that may indeed be your issue.

Note that depending on what the station originally was, and how old it is determines what the physical silk-screening on the control module faceplate says. Later Quantar stations have the AUX LED labeled "V.24". The DataTAC DSS III has it labeled "Aux", early Quantars do as well. Some other things are different also depending on what the station was optioned for. If it doesn't have the v.24 daughtercard on the wireline board, it won't have openings for the "Port1" and "Port2" v.24 RJ-45 type connections on the front of the faceplace where the wireline card lives. Just a little useless info for you.

The DataTAC DSS III faceplates have some really funky business on them where the button silk-screens are. "Kernel Load", etc. as well as some strange LED descriptions as I previously mentioned. I digress.

Keep hammering on it, you'll get it going without having to do any modifications to the SCM. You could use the LED if you want to, but that's ugly in my opinion. I like keeping things stock.

Now that I think about it, I believe I had to do some wildcard programming to get the RDSTAT line to work properly. Do you have a manual for the station? In the manual is some example default programming for the wildcard tables, and one of them deals with COS. You don't have to have a wildcard in the station to make the features work, just tell it it has one and proceed to the programming. Again, check the manual, there are examples in it that will allow you to do just what you want.

[Tim]

On the AUX LED, I thought that might be the case... I re-programmed it for Analog only, and the LED quit. Thanks for the confirmation.

I've done a bit more research, and found some pinouts for the MARTI connector & how it connects into the SCM. I had thought that the MARTI connections were made through the Wireline card. The only function I was using on the WL card was the COS Relay.

After looking at the MARTI connector, I found a pin called RX Carrier, and with a pullup on it, will go low whenever the transmitter is keyed. So I can use that line to do the COS for the 6m link. The other signal that I thought would give me that function doesn't do anything. (RSTAT)

However, the MRTI RX Audio (pin 7) no longer gives me audio in either analog or Mixed mode, so something's wrong there. I put back in the older SCM card, and I do get the audio I expect. I also don't see the audio on Rx Wideband (22) either on the new SCM, so maybe there's something else wrong here. The RX Audio pin is fed by an opamp preceeded by a low pass filter.

I will try an earlier version of the SCM firmware to see if that will make any difference... perhaps there's an incompatibility betwen my SCM and the newer 20.14.xx firmware.

Thanks!

Tim

[Astro Spectra]

Isn't the RDSTAT pin shared with shomething else that you need to use one of the dip switchs to access? Or is that only on the Astro TAC receiver combined WL power suply board?

[Tim]

Haven't seen any dip switches on either the SCM or Wireline card.

[d119]

That certainly is a possibility. There have been multiple iterations of the Quantar station control module, and I'm guessing there's a hardware/firmware mismatch.

PLEASE keep us posted on this, your experimentation and results just help the rest of us. Thanks!

[W6WAW]

I did some searching on-line and came across a Motorola proposal that included a lot of boilerplate information on Quantars. There are a couple of interesting statements.

"When replacing a EPIC I board to an EPIC II a Wireline II board is required."

On the next page it says.

"When replacing a Wireline I board with a Wireline II, a EPIC II board is required."

Here's the link to the document.

http://www.generalservices.state.nm.us/ ... olaess.pdf

The referenced statements appear on pages 204 and 204. These numbers refer to the pages of the PDF file, and these are not necessary the page numbers of the document itself.

Hence, it would seem that an EPIC I and a wireline II may not be completely compatible.

Of course, this may not explain the issues with the MARTI connector.

[Tim]

Well, I solved one of the problems - no audio from the MRTI port.

The audio for the MRTI port comes off of the digitized audio bus, and feeds into a DAC. It gets buffered by an op-amp, and fed into a digital low pass filter, after which it is buffered again and fed to the MRTI connector.

I had audio going into the LPF, but not coming out. Jumpered around it, and all is well. I had the same problem on a different SCM, but it was the main repeat audio, done much the same way. It's a MAX292 device.

Seems a bit strange to have the same problem on different SCMs. Not sure if there was a problem with the MAX292s, or the design.

Moral of the story... If you don't have audio where you think it should be, might oughta check these guys out.

Still not sure about the wireline issue, but think it mint be an incompatibility issue like Fred said above.

Tim

[Tim]

Astrospectra... I lied. I did see a dip switch on the SCM. It's used in the Flash circuitry.

Sorry I Hadn't seen it before.

Tim

[chartofmaryland]

That's odd,

The wireline function includes RDSTAT standard.

Epic releases may be the main issue

Running 14 firmware on all of my stations and epic II wireline cards

Turn wildcard off to re enable RDSTAT. The RDSTAT does not function in the stations I have with wildcard enabled. I can program a pin to associate with RDSTAT and receive a low on that pin for this function, but no dice on standard none wildcard RDSTAT if wildcard is enabled.

Just what I have found

Also,

Verify wireline configuration as 4 wire versus 8 wire. Unless you are running an intellirepeater which it does not appear in your writeup, then 4 wire will do.

Wildcard to NONE

If all else fails pin 14 or 15 on the MTRI is transmit activity, I have in a pinch used this to simulate COR when the station was in repeater. I needed cor to send audio to a remote device, if this is of course for a controller then no good.

Got away from using the MTRI and only wire things to the 50 pin centronics as that is the home for all controls Quantar.

CoM

[Tim]

Yeah,

I'm pretty sure it's a case of an Epic I SCM trying to talk to a WL2 card.
(doesn't work) A WL1 card isn't recognized with version 14 Firmware
either!

Running version 14 on the Epic I.

Was able to get all of the signals from the MARTI connector, so made
it pretty easy.

Tim