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Magic button to erase a codeplug?
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:15 am
by hamptonbeach
I have an Astro Spectra and and Astro Saber. Looking very carefully through the Windows CPS, I can't see anyway to erase all settings with a single keystroke.
I could see this being very useful if
a. You just purchased a radio with all the programming left intact.
b. You wanted to sell your radio and remove all programming.
c. You royally screw up and want to wipe it and start from scratch.
If you have a radio with 100+ personalities, scan lists, phones list etc - it would be very tedious to replace/delete it all with spurious info.
Am I missing something? Almost all ham radios have a "cpu reset" feature - I can't believe these radios don't.
Re: Magic button to erase a codeplug?
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 10:58 am
by alex
hamptonbeach wrote:Am I missing something? Almost all ham radios have a "cpu reset" feature - I can't believe these radios don't.
Next to reinitializing the board - not that I'm aware of.
Motorola's answer to making them inoperable is a drill bit or steamroller.
-Alex
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:51 am
by hamptonbeach
What state is the radio left in after you reinitialize the board?
How is it done?
I'm not looking for a way to make the radio inoperable, but to place it in an unprogrammed state as if it were new ...
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:55 am
by alex
You can't reinitilize the board - Only the depot/factory/engineering/those cool people with software that we'll never see, or want to possess have this ability.
-Alex
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:07 pm
by hamptonbeach
So you mean to tell me that let say I buy a radio and there is some 200 personalities, secure options, signaling options, scan lists, phone lists and a 1/2 dozen zones etc.
I only need the radio programmed with 5 or 6 personalites and a single zone -
I have to manully delete the zones, personalites and other crap one by one??? What moron designed the CPS ???
Since I have to use different CPS for my spectra than for the saber, and I want both radios programmed the same for look and feel (I'm using the HHCH on the spectra), I can't find any easy way to export/import or copy/paste the data from one to the other.
Is that another Motorola "feature" ???
Reset?
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:10 pm
by Tom in D.C.
You can't do this to a programmable radio of the commercial type - - usually.
On a Saber, you write a simple new program, like with one zone which has one channel, then you set all the programmable items to factory defaults, then you dump the new program into the radio, with no scan lists, no PL, no DPL, no nuthin'.
Someone once sent me a Saber 3 which was more or less set up this way and, believe me, I'd rather they had left the radio with all the operating stuff intact. You don't realize how much work it is to write a usable code plug for a radio such as this until you have to write one from scratch.
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:14 pm
by hamptonbeach
Duh - just overwrite the old plug with a new one with no data - gets the job done - thanks, don't know why I was so tunnel-visioned ...
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:21 pm
by alex
You can't do that... The software will probably complain about a serial number mismatch - unless you try cloning it in.
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:34 pm
by CTAMontrose
you are looking at it from the perspective of the HOBBYIST.. fact is how many agencies or businesses would regularly have this problem to justify adding that feature?
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:00 pm
by RKG
I've actually had to do this a couple of times with radios using MTSX metaphor RSS, and it isn't that hard to do. The trick is to do things in the right order:
1. Delete all scan lists except the first (can't be deleted).
2. Depopulate the first scan list except the first channel, which should be Z1 C1.
3. Delete all zones except Z1 and depopulate Z1 channels except for Ch. 1, which should be P1.
4. Delete all personalities except for P1, which I set at 450.0000 MHz simplex CSQ.
5. Write to the radio.
So long as you do it in that order, deleting stuff is just a series of repetitive keystrokes, and the whole job can be done in 5 minutes.
Trunked radios are actually easier. After deleting and depopulating the scan lists and zones, just use the utility to delete trunked personalities, and that will take the talkgroups with them.
here we go again...
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:01 pm
by Tom in D.C.
...the word is HOBBYIST, not hobbiest, for God's sake.
Yecccch!
Edit: Correction duly noted. Thanks. Now I feel better.
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:03 pm
by CTAMontrose
hahhaa... nevur sayd eye wuz a gud speler
Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:35 pm
by ExKa|iBuR
Well, while you're at it, save your "blanked" codeplug to a disk, that way if you ever need to do it again, you can just clone that codeplug back into your radio, or another one of the same model. Works for me.
-Mike