BPR40's Stuttering

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vhacmowilmob
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What radios do you own?: Sabers and Maxtracs

BPR40's Stuttering

Post by vhacmowilmob »

We have a problem with our BPR40's at my apartment building. They stutter when one of us with a saber/maxtrac/desktrac is transmitting through the repeater, but they are OK talking to each other through the repeater.

We just got rid of our ancient Standard RP70U, and I built a repeater out of a couple of maxtracs with an IOM2 repeater controller kit.

My question is, if the BPR40s got programmed for narrowband instead of wideband, would this happen? (I've never dealt with this issue before...)

I sent a BPR40 off to repair, as one of our idiot maintainance men broke one, and I asked that the programming be checked on it for this reason, and was told "narrowband shouldn't be an issue", but the ham in me says if you beat on a narrow filter with a wide signal, something weird is going to happen.

I did convince management that we need to convert everything to narrowband, but they aren't going to do it until summer, and we can't wait that long with no radios...
Al
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Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by Al »

Well, sure, when you start banging the sides of a 12.5 Khz filter with a deviated signal that's +/- 20-25 Khz there's going to be no energy within the filter part of the time when the deviation's outside the filter 'window'. As a temporary fix you could reduce the tx deviation on your wideband portables/mobiles until you can get it and your old repeater replaced.
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Bill_G
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Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by Bill_G »

If it's a WB/NB problem, talk softly into one of the other models to see if the BPR's stop stuttering.
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Bill_G
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Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by Bill_G »

Al wrote:Well, sure, when you start banging the sides of a 12.5 Khz filter with a deviated signal that's +/- 20-25 Khz there's going to be no energy within the filter part of the time when the deviation's outside the filter 'window'. As a temporary fix you could reduce the tx deviation on your wideband portables/mobiles until you can get it and your old repeater replaced.
Along the same line, he could reduce dev at the rptr and fix it for all radios.
vhacmowilmob
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What radios do you own?: Sabers and Maxtracs

Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by vhacmowilmob »

I think I'll drop the deviation on the repeater's transmitter, as I can do that easier than screwing with the deviation on 8 sabers and 2 desktracs...

I'll take it in to the hospital where I have an R2600 and adjust it.
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d119
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Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by d119 »

Sweet Jesus this is some backwoods engineering...

Reprogram your BPR's for the proper deviation! Make the system the way it's supposed to be!
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Bill_G
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Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by Bill_G »

Well, he hasn't proven it's the deviation causing the problem yet. We just gave him some ideas, and bingo, wadayaknow, he's got a service monitor. But, apparently no RSS.
vhacmowilmob
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What radios do you own?: Sabers and Maxtracs

Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by vhacmowilmob »

I don't have CPS for the BPR's, as they are not my normal radio, and we only have 4 of them... not worth spending $300 when we don't change their programming (unless they don't work...:-) )

I'm going to try a few things (soft speech, etc.) on Monday morning, and hope the radio I sent off to be fixed comes back programmed correctly and I won't have to change the deviation on the repeater... but it gives me an option JIC.
vhacmowilmob
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Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:34 am
What radios do you own?: Sabers and Maxtracs

Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by vhacmowilmob »

First thing I'm going to try is turning down the volume on the repeater controller... should have the same result without dicking with deviation on the radio itself...
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maxkelley_kc2spy
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Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by maxkelley_kc2spy »

If you turn down the deviation on the repeater, then yes, the other saber/maxtracs/desktracs will sound better on your BPR40s, but you will probably barely be able to hear the BPR40s on the wideband radios... I'd say try turning down the deviation on one of the wideband radios first to see if it stops cutting out of the repeater's receiver.
Max Kelley KC2SPY
http://www.maxkelley.com
MT2000 VHF & UHF A7, Visar UHF, ASII UHF, Maratrac UHF, Astro Spectra UHF, MCS2KIII 900, XTS2.5K-Q
vhacmowilmob
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Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:34 am
What radios do you own?: Sabers and Maxtracs

Re: BPR40's Stuttering

Post by vhacmowilmob »

OK, I injected a tone into the repeater receiver and looked at the transmitter output with the SM. I was getting 4.92khz of deviation with a 0db tone. I turned down the volume on the controller (just a simple trimmer) until I got 2.48khz. Everything seems to be working fine, and I didn't notice having to turn the saber or desktrac up any louder than normal (If I did, it's so little that I don't notice it...)

Of course this is just a band-aid until the BPR40s are reprogrammed next week (and they and the repeater get replaced next year)

Thanks for the tips, guys!
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