GP380 (recased 339) resets on TX

[PsyberEMT]

I am now the proud owner of one UHF and one VHF "GP380" (really a recased GP339) from Hong Kong. Both radios are in great cosmetic shape, and the UHF has performed flawlessly. Having a little issue with it's VHF brother, however. It seems every time I transmit on a channel with repeater splits, the radio just resets itself. Doesn't do it on simplex, just on any channel with a repeater split. Any waris pros ever encountered this? Still within my window to return it to HK for another one, just want to make sure I'm not doing something incorrectly here. Its F/W ver 03.08.08. CPS ver 03.10.03.


Thanks in advance!

[JPOPatents]

I don't know if it would fix the problem, but there is a later firmware version 3.12.03 for that radio. There is also a later CPS version.

What exactly do you mean by the radio "resets" itself? It reboots? This sounds like you have gremlins that you will be tracking down for a long time. I suggest returning the radio while you still can and, quite frankly, buying a good used HT1250 for which you can get some local support if needed.

[PsyberEMT]

I mean it turns itself off then immediately back on. How would I go about locating the newest firmware? I doubt motHerola is going to sell it to me since I'm in the US and this is an import radio. 03.10 is the newest F/W I could locate...can't locate a newer F/W...the UHF model I have has 03.08. I would like to make sure there isn't anything else I can do before I go through shipping it back to HK, getting another one, yada yada yada.

Thanks for the help!

[Jim202]

I would go look at your power supply before you go any further. Sounds like the 12 volts is going too low when
you hit the TX and the radio is going into a low voltage reset.

Put a volt meter on the DC line right at the rear of the radio high current wires. Check the fuses for a poor
connection. Make sure the power supply can provide the high current in the TX mode. It should have at least
a 15 to 20 amp supply that the radio is connected to. The radio will probably draw 8 to 10 amps or so in TX.

Jim

I mean it turns itself off then immediately back on. How would I go about locating the newest firmware? I doubt motHerola is going to sell it to me since I'm in the US and this is an import radio. 03.10 is the newest F/W I could locate...can't locate a newer F/W...the UHF model I have has 03.08. I would like to make sure there isn't anything else I can do before I go through shipping it back to HK, getting another one, yada yada yada.

Thanks for the help!

[mike m]

As a test try and change the tx/rx offset of that Motorola Chinese Hand Held to something closer than your present repeater split offset.

If it's programmed with ham frequencies then temporarily program it for an offset of say 50 KHz to 100KHz from the receive frequency and see if this fixes the reset problem and if so then I'll tell you what the real problem is, aside from the fact that 99% of the Chinese sold Motorola products are substandard products.

You may think that for around 160 dollars US your getting a good deal while in fact your sitting on a potential mess, especially for the people who use these radios for dual ham and public safety use.

Ok I'll go off on my tangent about the other Chinese branded Ht's sold on the well known auction site.

Some of the poor hams down in Phoenix who bought this crap now refer to the Chinese hand held radios as Blond radios, they may look nice with their fancy Blue colored LCD displays and multiband capabilities but when they do function it is substandard at the least, and it seems the same goes for most of these GP3XX series radios being sold.

Mike

[N4KVE]

Are these radios genuine "M" products made for a different part of the world, or the genuine product, but a quality control reject, or are they counterfeit look alikes? GARY N4KVE

[PsyberEMT]

The best I can tell, they're genuine M boards (took one apart), recased in what is probably an aftermarket housing. The boards appear to be in good shape. The serial shows that it's a GP339, but the codeplug shows a GP380 (same serial as on the stickers). Honestly not quite sure how they put them together. I've tried all sorts of different splits...now I'm wondering if they're just horribly out of alignment...would that cause the same behaviour? I checked the settings in tuner, and each value is set to the "default" value...so they've likely never been tuned.

[mike m]

The reason I asked you to program for a closer tx rx offset is because it appears that the VCO is unlocking when switching from TX to RX, that's probably a VCO unlocked beep that your experiencing when programmed for repeater splits.

As N4KVE mentions it's either an alignment problem due to mismatched boards in which case the radio may never operate properly.

And since the radio model doesn't match what CPS says I'd bet these radios are a frankenstein mess of thrown together boards from some scrap pile.

Mike

[RADIOMAN2002]

For funky operations I would look at updating the firmware. The radio thinks it's one radio model (the original firmware) and the code plug says something else (the newer codeplug). I have found with over 20 various type of conversions of various Waris model radios that you need to update the firmware to the latest version once you have the model number you want in the radio. That should cure those strange problems.

[PsyberEMT]

Ok, so got both "GP380s" aligned. They were only slightly out of acceptable norms, but they're well within now. The UHF unit performs flawlessly. Upon closer inspection, the batteries are deff not really motorola. They have authentic looking tags / barcodes, but the pegs on the bottom are the give away...they aren't as wide as OEM and as such, the battery has a good bit of horizontal play (not the cause of the reset problem, but still annoying). I am in dialog with the seller to get the radio replaced with a known good one, or a refund. I'll keep the board posted on how that works out. As far as I'm concerned, t'was just a deal that was too good to be true. At least I got one good radio outta the mess.

[PsyberEMT]

So it gets more interesting...I am shipping the radio back to get it replaced, however, my curious nature has me tinkering with the radio until I do ship it out. It would seem that the issue is related to PL tones. Transmit on any channel with CSQ only, no problems. Transmit on a repeater split or simplex channel with PL...BOOM...power cycle. Maybe its possessed? lol

[mike m]

Or it's still a synthesizer issue and the CTCSS level going to the reference oscillator is to high, overdriving the reference oscillator resulting in the synthesizer going out of lock.

The CTCSS and DPL tones are typically injected into the tcxo/reference oscillator and this could be the problem.

Try turning on a digital private line tone, DPL in Motorola language, and see if the same thing happens.

I'll bet that any replacement radio has the same issues, especially if it has a controller board that is not matched nor is the correct one for the RF board.


Mike