Astro Saber III

The Fat Guy · Post by **The Fat Guy** » Tue Oct 02, 2001 6:46 pm

Hello, I just bought a used Astro Saber III. It seems to work just fine, I wanted it for use as an extra ham radio. But, I just keep getting nothing but police traffic on it. I need some suggestions on how to get rid of that in favor of some ham channels. Especially since I don't even need the encrypted ones and here in LA they have so many ham repeaters that this police stuff is taking up all the room. Please help.

Elroy Jetson · Post by **Elroy Jetson** » Tue Oct 02, 2001 7:40 pm

You have GOT to be kidding. This smells like a troll or something.

But, I'll play along.

First, does the radio have LAPD engraved on it anywhere? If it does, turn it in to the police before they come get you and throw you into the funhouse for possession of stolen property.

Second, all you have to do is reprogram the thing. If you made it to this board, you probaly can figure out how that's accomplished.

My troll detector is still going off...

Elroy

Dale Earnhardt · Post by **Dale Earnhardt** » Tue Oct 02, 2001 8:33 pm

THIS SOUNDS REALLY FISHY,

I think, he thinks that the astro saber is a field programmable like most ham radios.

But take Elroy advice, if its an LAPD, return it back, if not, well, try to get somebody to reprogram for you, and just to let you know, i probaly can help alittle, I live in Rosemead

Doc · Post by **Doc** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 5:46 am

On 2001-10-02 22:46, The Fat Guy wrote:
Hello, I just bought a used Astro Saber III. It seems to work just fine, I wanted it for use as an extra ham radio. But, I just keep getting nothing but police traffic on it. I need some suggestions on how to get rid of that in favor of some ham channels. Especially since I don't even need the encrypted ones and here in LA they have so many ham repeaters that this police stuff is taking up all the room. Please help.

if you are serious, send me your email and we can discuss this furthur...

penstar · Post by **penstar** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 9:36 am

I smell a Moto Pig in the house.

Elroy Jetson · Post by **Elroy Jetson** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 10:47 am

Unlikely. Cop, maybe, but not a Moto cop.
Stolen property isn't in Motorola's line of work or investigation. That's for police.

First law of metaphysics:
"Nothing unreal exists." --Kiri Kin-Tha

Elroy

Dale Earnhardt · Post by **Dale Earnhardt** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 12:56 pm

Typical for some people, when they think its a cop, and what just comes right out of there mouth when they hear that, PIGS!!!

get over it, there are name for them, so USE IT. Geeez. Have some respect for law enforcement

The Fat Guy · Post by **The Fat Guy** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 3:16 pm

Well, I didn't mean to create such an uproar. I guess I should just trade this thing in for something that I can understand a little better. I was looking at a truck tracker scanner when I found this, so maybe I will just return this and go with that idea instead. Besides, at $650, it wasn't such a good deal for what I wanted. Thanks for your help anyway.

Elroy Jetson · Post by **Elroy Jetson** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 5:06 pm

650 is an EXCELLENT price provided it's not stolen.

That radio is FAR superior to any ham radio trash HT on the market. If you start using it it will take about two minutes to be sure of that.

I refer you to the programming primer here at http://www.batlabs.com for the basics of programming that radio. And no, it is not keyboard programmable. You will need to acquire the programming hardware and software but once you have it and have programmed it, that radio will be your favorite toy in no time.

Spend time browsing the files at batlabs, though. There's a lot to those radios that you should know to get the most out of them.

Elroy

Spectra God · Post by **Spectra God** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 5:11 pm

Wow, what a deal, either it's stolen or this clown is a troll, and, $650 for a ham is a lot for their hobby, generally speaking of course, 20 years of Dayton hamfest has shown me most would rather go the way of building it themselves than to come off $650. When you consider I paid twice that for each of my V's and 8's, it does tend to make you wonder, WTFO.

penstar · Post by **penstar** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 5:31 pm

On 2001-10-03 16:56, Dale Earnhardt wrote:
Typical for some people, when they think its a cop, and what just comes right out of there mouth when they hear that, PIGS!!!

get over it, there are name for them, so USE IT. Geeez. Have some respect for law enforcement

Lighten up, Dale. PIG was a pun referring to his name: The Fat Guy and yes, the fact that he might be 'investigating'. Thought it was kind of funny myself. Contrary to what many people think, we in law enforcement are not so easily offended by such words; we're usually referred to much worst on the street.

Doc · Post by **Doc** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 5:44 pm

On 2001-10-03 21:06, Elroy Jetson wrote:
650 is an EXCELLENT price provided it's not stolen.

That radio is FAR superior to any ham radio trash HT on the market. If you start using it it will take about two minutes to be sure of that.

Ham radio trash HT is hardly the case...
I refer you to the programming primer here at http://www.batlabs.com for the basics of programming that radio. And no, it is not keyboard programmable. You will need to acquire the programming hardware and software but once you have it and have programmed it, that radio will be your favorite toy in no time.

Spend time browsing the files at batlabs, though. There's a lot to those radios that you should know to get the most out of them.

Elroy

650 cheap? someone recently paid 200 dollars for an xts3500 uhf from a pawn shop.....

Elroy Jetson · Post by **Elroy Jetson** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 6:33 pm

An XTS3500 in a pawn shop would only make me think ONE thing at this time: STOLEN!!!

It's FAR too new to be showing up on the legitimate used radio market, and anyone who'd buy one would know better than to pawn it if they needed the money because they could get SO much more for it. Put that sucker up on ebay with a three day quickie auction and it'll pass 500 bucks in the first day.

There's maybe a one in a hundred chance that pawn shop radio was clean. I'd give it 99 out of a hundred that it was stolen whether the theft had been reported or not.

As they say, if a deal's too good to be true, it probably is.

And, yes, when comparing an Astro portable to a ham HT, in every technical sense the ham HT's that I've evaluated basically DID qualify as junk in my opinion. That so-called 'hot' receiver on a ham HT comes at a cost...poor selectivity and virtually no immunity to adjacent channel interference. Meanwhile, my VHF A.S. III hits 20dB quieting at a trivial 0.170 microvolts, which is better than the published spec by far, and comparable to the performance of the ham HT with the hot front end. And it is practically immune to adjacent channel interference, its selectivity appears to be excellent, it's loud and clear, and if I drop it it doesn't smash.

Yes, when comparing 300 dollar ham HT's to 3000 dollar Astro portables, the ham HT's do in fact appear to be junk. You get what you pay for.

Elroy

Doc · Post by **Doc** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 8:31 pm

On 2001-10-03 22:33, Elroy Jetson wrote:
An XTS3500 in a pawn shop would only make me think ONE thing at this time: STOLEN!!!

It's FAR too new to be showing up on the legitimate used radio market, and anyone who'd buy one would know better than to pawn it if they needed the money because they could get SO much more for it. Put that sucker up on ebay with a three day quickie auction and it'll pass 500 bucks in the first day.

There's maybe a one in a hundred chance that pawn shop radio was clean. I'd give it 99 out of a hundred that it was stolen whether the theft had been reported or not.

As they say, if a deal's too good to be true, it probably is.

And, yes, when comparing an Astro portable to a ham HT, in every technical sense the ham HT's that I've evaluated basically DID qualify as junk in my opinion. That so-called 'hot' receiver on a ham HT comes at a cost...poor selectivity and virtually no immunity to adjacent channel interference. Meanwhile, my VHF A.S. III hits 20dB quieting at a trivial 0.170 microvolts, which is better than the published spec by far, and comparable to the performance of the ham HT with the hot front end. And it is practically immune to adjacent channel interference, its selectivity appears to be excellent, it's loud and clear, and if I drop it it doesn't smash.

Yes, when comparing 300 dollar ham HT's to 3000 dollar Astro portables, the ham HT's do in fact appear to be junk. You get what you pay for.

Elroy

A bad comparison. You can NOT compare apples and oranges. Ham HT's have their USE and they are quite sufficient for their intended purpose. Its unfortunate manufacturers are making thewm smaller and smaller and trying to pack a scanner that will do dc to daylight. A VX5 is NOT a bad Ht - it has mil spec and not a bad receiver for Ham.

Unless you want to cause a flame war criticizing Non related Motorola stuff then back off on calling Ham radio HT's junk- the older HT's were like "bricks" todays Hts seem to be getting smaller/lighter as well.

This is a forum for discussing Motorola stuff . Your comments on ham stuff is totally UNNECESSARY.

Dale Earnhardt · Post by **Dale Earnhardt** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 9:12 pm

Sorry about that, lol, just had a bad afternoon with certain things, and didnt wan to hear it form other people like that, am just to jumpy on rare occasion, lol sorry about that.

The Fat Guy · Post by **The Fat Guy** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 9:47 pm

So, maybe I SHOULD keep it then?

Elroy Jetson · Post by **Elroy Jetson** » Thu Oct 04, 2001 7:07 am

If it's a LEGITIMATE radio, yeah. Sure. It is one of the absolute best radios on the market, with a retail price of at least three thousand dollars. It might still bring close to a grand on ebay.

After you get it programmed to your needs, you will probably agree with me that this radio IS in fact a superior radio to the radios being offered to the ham market, although the Astros are single band only and not keypad programmable. You can drop it, you can get it wet, you can hear it in a noisy environment, you won't hear interference from other channels, and it's heavy enough that you'll notice if it's missing, quickly enough that you will turn around and recover it from where you left it before somebody picks it up, usually.

Some people will take issue with me saying that it's a much better radio than any ham HT, but in my experience there's no doubt about it. You get what you pay for and that Astro Saber is the best. It costs ten times more and it's ten times better, at least.
I wouldn't trade mine for a wheelbarrow full of ham radios, all brand new. (Thou Shalt Not Flame. Remember who's moderator here...)

But it is a sophisticated and complex radio and it will take a little study to get the most out of it, particularly when programming it. Its flexibility and versatility doesn't make it the easiest of all radios to program.
It's worth it, though. I've never wanted to use anything else since I got my first one.
(I'm up to three...)

Elroy

The Fat Guy · Post by **The Fat Guy** » Thu Oct 04, 2001 6:21 pm

It is REALLY worth THAT much? Gee, I wonder if I could sell it? Would you guys know anyone who might be interested. In fact, I used to know this guy in Florida who just loved Motorola stuff, he used come over to my place driving this old baby blue cadillac and showing off his Motorolas', I only had a few GE radios that I liked, but he always tried to sell me on Motorolas'.... Oh well, those days are over....I had to move away and get a real job as an WS32....

Fire-Tec · Post by **Fire-Tec** » Thu Oct 04, 2001 6:49 pm

Hi
I am interested in that Astro Saber III.
Please E-Mail with specs
[email protected]

Thanks
Pat

Post by Pj » Fri Oct 05, 2001 7:39 am

Hmmmm, I am smelling a troll again, how about you Elroy?

Elroy Jetson · Post by **Elroy Jetson** » Fri Oct 05, 2001 7:53 am

Troll detector is not functioning due to input overload and smoked power sensing element.

That guy ain't no ordinary troll, he's the ultra-rare NRC management troll, Tennessee subspecies.

Elroy

The Fat Guy · Post by **The Fat Guy** » Fri Oct 05, 2001 10:50 am

GULP!!

The Fat Guy · Post by **The Fat Guy** » Sun Oct 07, 2001 7:21 pm

Test Post...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: The Fat Guy on 2001-10-07 23:22 ]</font>