I ended up with a parted out desktrac for a couple of bucks.
I have the transceiver and front plate. It all looks like new. The old guy said he "got this here radio and took out some of that signalling stuff then put the rest in this box" . I about S*** It must have been brand new. There's a freq. list on the bottom of the transceiver with 163.4375 etc... (corps of engineers?) maybe.
Anyway, It's obviously a vhf maxtrac. The radio (internal transceiver) looks complete less the plastic covers.
The front panel has the 88 style double numeric maxtrac display with the conventional controls. There is a base/repeater button too. The front has the two ribbon cables that plug in on the front of the maxtrac body. I did that. I saw a bigger black wire with a spade plug (looks like a ground and tests as such). There is a 16 pin acc. plug (I put that on the back of the radio). I found a white plug off the speaker (put that on the plug on the radio's board).
Now.....there is a large 25 pin DB25 connector with a ribbon cable hanging off the front panel display board. (female DB 25). Where the hell does this go?
I put power to the plug on the back of the maxtrac style radio. The display lit up and flashed 1with the mon light lit. I could change channels too but that's it. The power light does not come on, the repeater/base switch doesn't function and the TX button doesn't do anything. I put a mic in the mic jack and it doesn't do anything either.
I was able to read the radio with maxtrac rss and it had the large 320 code block. It said it was set up with moden paging
???So how much am I missing here?
What does the DB 25 thing do?
How can I get the rest of the front panel to work?
Can I put a regular face and convers on the radio to made it a regular maxtrac after separating it from the desctrac front?
Anyone have the rest of the stuff to make it complete? (desktrac)
This is what it looks like...
mancow
