Batboard

So I decided to build this crossbanded repeater for my ski patrol team. It was one of those spur of the moment decisions that I am now regretting because I have hit bumps in every part of the road of this little project. Anyways, I have a few issues that I am hoping someone can help me solve.

Background: The patrol frequencies are all UHF, but I have some VHF radios that I want to use, so my solution is a crossband repeater. I bought 1 UHF M1225 and 1 VHF M1225. I also bought a "Duplex Repeater Interface" from eBay (here is the link if you want to check it out: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=005) So my thinking is that I should be able to program both radios and plug in the cable, correct? Well, it doesn't work like that.

Problems:
1) How do I make this whole repeater unit work? I assume I bought the wrong cable because I plugged in the cable to the radios and nothing happened.

2) So then I figured, well since it is not working let me try to switch around the cables. Well this created more problems... The UHF unit then shut off however the VHF unit transmitted "a buz". Then I unplugged the cable and now I am not able to get the UHF unit on again. But then it gets weird. I play around with the cable some more, and as long as the cable is plugged into both units the UHF unit turns on. The cable gets unplugged, the UHF unit shuts off. The same thing happens when I plug in a standard Cat5 cable to both units. The VHF unit appears to work great. The UHF unit only works if tethered to the VHF unit. So what happened here? Did I blow something up?

3) I just want this whole thing to work. Is there another cable out there that I can just plug in and now it works? I have read something about a R.I.C.K. Will this work for what I need it to do? Or is there something else out there? Does anyone else use this same set up or a similar setup? What are all my options.

Side note: For that 16 pin cable off eBay... They said I need to open pins 3 and 8 on the M1225. How is this done? I can't find this in the programming software.

So as you all can see, this project has not been going very well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Sam S.

<ADDED INFORMATION>
The drama gets even better....

I was messing around with that 16 pin cable by plugging it into both units and now my VHF unit will not work. So how do I get the units to turn on?

Well for one thing, before you did anything, both radios should have powered up and worked without anything plugged into the accessory jack.

Also, I don't think that the pins on the M1225 are programmable. You're stuck with what they're set at, you can look it up on batlabs, if it's not there, the GM300 8channel accessory pinout is probably the next closest thing.

The cable thing you speak of should be very simple in nature. All it does it take the COR from the RX radio and uses it to key the TX radio, then flat unmuted audio, perhaps through some filtering (?) into the mic input on the back of the TX radio and vice versa.

If power to your radios is all messed up, it's probably a very bad thing. If they don't power up normally when nothing is connected but they did before, you screwed something up. If there's a jumper going from pin 15 to 16 on either end of that cross-band cable, you'll want to get rid of that because the internal speaker is always wire up, if there's another jumper on there near the middle, that's unnecessary as well for the M1225.

I'm sure that someone with more first-hand experience with what you're talking about will chime in. Obviously you'd have been better off getting the GM300 type the repeater cable was meant for. Either way, TX duty cycle on either the GM300 or m1225 is low, so I hope there isn't much TXing going on on the channels you want to use. Be sure to also have a fan blowing on the fins to keep them cool.

-Josh=

Actually, I think you'd want to have the fan taking air away from the fins. I tried this experiment with a few M1225's that I've owned. That's the last radio I'd choose for repeater/cont. duty myself, but if you can keep it cool it should be OK...

Just to clarify, both radios did power on originally. It was when I started playing with the 16 pin cable things got messed up.

There may be (indeed, certainly are) other solutions, but one that I know works would involve bagging the 1225s and replacing them with CDM1250s, and bagging the eBay cable and replacing it with a NIDA KR200 interface box. Works perfectly.

And as i recall that paticular repeater cable was repeater one way only .
Meaning the rx radio recieves to make tx radio tx as in a normal repeater.
You cant do v to u and u back to v to make both radio types able to chat back an forth between the bands.
You need a Biderection cross band module.
There is a very good seller on ebay that does indeed have the bidirectional module for sale and it is plug and play other than you adjust the audio output on them .
But then again there is Wills modules to consider ( Batlabs member)
If you want the ebay sellers auction PM me and ill look him up for you.
Obviously radios do need to be working to start with.

Satelite

Reading the actual ebay item posting, it clearly states that it is designed to be a "bi-directional" repeater system, implying that it will work both ways. (notice emphasis) - Not one way as Satelite posted.

After looking at the seller of the item, i became immediately suspect. They are not of the land of "Tall Corn" as it says on their listing, most of their items ship directly from china. I've had defective parts from them in the past, and i have NEVER bought anything from them for a mission critical install. Most of the stuff i get from the Kawa folks is usually for play, or for reverse engineering so i can find out what is going on.

I would have someone look at those radios, and look for some internal damage. Something is not right.

I should have guessed that when it didn't work right off the bat. So here is my game plan.... I am going to get the radios fixed... I think. But I need a cable to setup this crossband repeater. Any suggestions?

Get your m1225 radios fixed, sell them, and buy more UHF portables.

witthoft wrote:Get your m1225 radios fixed, sell them, and buy more UHF portables.

But what would be the fun in that?

RKG wrote:There may be (indeed, certainly are) other solutions, but one that I know works would involve bagging the 1225s and replacing them with CDM1250s, and bagging the eBay cable and replacing it with a NIDA KR200 interface box. Works perfectly.

So where can I get this NIDA KR200? I did a google search with no luck.

I OWN THESE CABLES AND HAD THE EXACT PROBLEM YOU HAD.
STEP 1: PROGRAM COR ACTIVE LOW ON THE M1225 YOU WANT AS YOUR RECIEVER
STEP 2: THE PIN OUTS ON THE M1225 ARE UPSIDE DOWN COMPARED TO THE MAXTRAC.M1225
REASON FOR WHAT HAPPENED YOU PUT THE 16 PIN CONNECTORS IN UPSIDE DOWN. THIS ISN'T YOUR FAULT CAUSE YOU CAN TURN THEM ANY WAY AND THEY WILL PLUG IN. YOU SHORTED OUT THE 3AMP PICO FUSE IN THE RADIO THATS USED FOR THE IGNITION.

SO REPLACE FUSE AND INSTALL CABLE THE OPOSITE WAY YOU INSTALLED THEM ORIGINALLY. I BELIEVE WITH THE M1225 THE BLUE AUDIO RESISTOR POT ON THE BOARD NEEDS TO FACE UP. ILL CHECK TOMORROW REPLY BACK.

PS I just realized I did this in all caps Im sorry Im not re doing it if someone has a problem with I don't care grow up.

Also sense you want to do cross band you need to problem both radio with active cor low

Hello:
Ooops = I stand corected .
The bigphish is corect - I too just reread it carefully and at the begining it did sound like one way only but if i had read further i would have seen the biderectional mentined.
Also looking closer at the picture it did show the tx/rx on both ends which indicates bi.
My bad but i agree you probably need the radios repaired which sounds pretty straight forward repair and if you need them repaired you can PM me and mail them here if you need further help.
Ive repaired the M1225 series here for members on the bd with them being very satisfied.
Ill be pming you with the info you requsted as a backup plan if you should need it.
Satelite

dungonmyshoe wrote:

RKG wrote:There may be (indeed, certainly are) other solutions, but one that I know works would involve bagging the 1225s and replacing them with CDM1250s, and bagging the eBay cable and replacing it with a NIDA KR200 interface box. Works perfectly.

So where can I get this NIDA KR200? I did a google search with no luck.

http://www.krnida.com/RC220.htm

Any luck with that repeater?

Every one has given me great suggestions and here is my plan of action. Right now the radios are dead. I blew a fuse or something so I need to get them fixed. I have a friend that might be able to fix them. Hopefully I will see him this weekend when I go to work. If these do get fixed then I am going to buy another cable that someone recommended. When all this happens I will let everyone know the status of what happened. I would like to thank everyone for their input so far and if anyone has any more suggestions please feel free to leave them.

Hi,

What usually happens to people with the M1225 is they plug in the cable upside down (since it is inverted on M1225 vs. GM300 and it blows the pico fuse. I can fix them for you for $10 each. Next, you need to look at SiteCAST http://www.criticalrf.com This will plug and play crossband your M1225's into a repeater and give access to your radio system by authorized users from the outside using PC's and Smartphones like radios via the internet as a bonus feature. All the other ways are very 1940.

Steve

Not wanting to sound like a wannabe cop or anything(especially with my first post) but before you go on the air, make sure you get legal. Which includes a controller that IDs properly. You may think that, out somewhere on some mountaintop, no one will hear you. Well, radio doesn't always work that way.

It's like what I tell my son. He says "it's only illegal if you get caught". I correct him with "it's always illegal, you only get in trouble if you get caught".