Motorola MaraTrac Help

[trumpetman12]

Yes yes, I've got another question about a dinosaur of a radio...this time MaraTracs. Anyone know why one would start up in scan mode? The Scan button is flashing, Monitor is on, and the channels (all 99 of them), are scanning through with the Busy light on (scanning won't stop when I press the button, key up, or press any buttons for that matter). I'm not sure what the difference is this time, I successfully wired up the same one a while back and was able to hear NCSHP but I'm not having any luck this time around. Everything is wired up the same, checked connections, orange, red, & green are powered, ground is grounded....I've run outta ideas. Any input would help!

Thanks folks!

[wx4cbh]

This sounds like a control logic problem symptom. When it happens, it's usually due to shorted/damaged control connections rather than a component failure, but fortunately it's not seen frequently. First, you'll have to determine if the problem is in the drawer end or in the head or cable. Do you have another control head and cable to try on the unit, or another drawer to try on the already installed cables? The internal board interconnections in the drawer can have a stray wire strand or conductive debris in the connectors causing the problem. Disassembly and close inspection of the interconnects is the only way to find that problem. I have a couple of working spare low and high bands if you need a substitute to test and I'm only about an hour and a half away. PM me for further if you need to.

[Jim202]

Yes yes, I've got another question about a dinosaur of a radio...this time MaraTracs. Anyone know why one would start up in scan mode? The Scan button is flashing, Monitor is on, and the channels (all 99 of them), are scanning through with the Busy light on (scanning won't stop when I press the button, key up, or press any buttons for that matter). I'm not sure what the difference is this time, I successfully wired up the same one a while back and was able to hear NCSHP but I'm not having any luck this time around. Everything is wired up the same, checked connections, orange, red, & green are powered, ground is grounded....I've run outta ideas. Any input would help!

Thanks folks!

Been a while since I had to play with that series radio, but I think the mic clip needs to be grounded and the mic hung up to make the scan function normally.

Jim

[wx4cbh]

Yeah, what he said, but depending on the HUB selection in the RSS, it will either "stop scan" or "carrier squelch scan" with the mic off hook.