Batboard

There are a fair number of Sabers that come across eBay (sadly, not as many as in years past) but many of them are sold by seemingly uninformed sellers...

The Saber I/II/III page on Batlabs states that the radio's sub-bandsplit can only be determined by reading the codeplug. What about setting the sub-band? Can it be adjusted by RSS by legitimate means (that is, would a Moto shop be able to change the sub-band)?

Thanks,

tex

The band split on the saber is controlled by the RSS but the radio is only capable of a certain area of the band, 1 or 2 mhz out of the spec's usually works, but anything else and you need to change modlules in the radio for the new band and set it with Lab software. From time to time there are modules on ebay but mostly in the 403-430 band area.

The Saber will be whatever Bandsplit it is told to be through the RSS programming(Personality.) However, that does not mean the radio will operate in that particular Split. Most likely as USPSS said you may squeeze an extra 1-2 MHz at the edge of the original radios coverage but that is about it.

The radio hardware modules (PA,VCO,etc) need to match the Band Split programmed by the RSS.

So if you take it to a Motorola Shop they could insure it's programming matched the Hardware Modules in the Saber. As for changing this you will need the different hardware modules to go along with the different frequency range (Band-Split) that you want to switch to. There are tricks around this in the VHF models.

Most sellers on e-Bay figure the Model # is all you need but you really should have a peek inside the casing to verify the hardware does indeed match the P/N Label and RSS programming.

Most of the times you just don't know what you will get on e-Bay until you receive it and look at it for yourself. It's sort of amusing to see the UHF Sabers being sold with VHF antennas on them.

I ended up buying what I thought was a high split VHF saber 1, and fount out it only went as high as 150Mhz. Well, looks like I have a new 2m HT now.

You can make them go out of band but they really don't like it much. I tried, and there is a hum in with the audio. I had to set it back.