The AM Forum

I have a low band Motorola Syntor X9000 complete with mic, interconnect cable, speaker and Systems 9000 head. This radio dose a great job on 6 and 10 meters (so I have heard). The guy I got it from says it needs a DOS program for setting up the radio from a PC but I'm not having any luck yet. I'm hoping somebody here can help.

According to the ID this rig started life as a 31-50 MHz, 100 watt radio with a Securenet cable I'm not sure if it will stretch down to 29 MHz and up to 53 MHz without modifications. I'll have to see.

Mike

That is a fine radio but I just don't remember how to program them. Very well built. I seem to remember a RG45 style interface (telphone type)
I worked on a bunch of them in my skroterola days. control heads were the only real problem.

Check out www.batlabs.com

They have tons of info on programming motorolas.

I'm not an aficionado of motorolas but I have seen many references to the older programming software running only on DOS, not an emulation under windows.

Also, Motorola has a reputation for being death on bootleg software. 

Anyhow, good luck and enjoy the great radio.

bill.

You need one of those $10 hamfest special laptops and run DOS 6.02 or something.

Yes, some of the older Motorola programs will NOT run properly under Windows emulating DOS. I think it was the machine was too fast.

I had to keep a seperate DOS machine just for certain radios when I was working. Find an old 286.

It seems there was something called MoSlow that was discussed but I didn't use it. Go to Bat Labs. There's plenty of hams on there. I will second the mention of the big M being very protective of software, even the older stuff. Don't mention copied software on Bat Labs.  

I found Batlabs and have learned allot. Seems I'll need something called a RIB or radio interface box using a fairly standard communications cable from the PC. The RIB programs the eeproms. The cable from the RIB to the radio might be harder to find. It seems you pull the power/control head interface plug from the radio and the PC/communication (eeprom burner) plug goes in between. Seems a siren/PA interface cable can be used so I'll be searching for that.

I'll have to build the RIB myself. Others have engineered a circuit and made boards so this should be easy. I always wanted to try this since installing the high band version in cop cars back in the 80's. I hope it works. Thanks for the help and I look forward to hearing more.

Mike

Good Luck the 9000 is one of their best units unlike the junk they build today

There are plenty of clone RIB boxes on eBay for not too much money if you don't want to bother building one. RLN4008 and clone versions. The programming cable tends to be expensive unless you make one.  The radio will not function as long as the programming cable is connected.

The RSS is DOS based and the problem is that the timing loops of the 1980's software are too slow to be used on the serial port of a newer computer.  There are various work-around schemes people try for this and some claim success.  Mo-Slo has mixed reviews.   I haven't tried them as I still have 286 era laptops and desktops.

The software is in two parts -- RDProg and CHProg.  CHProg does the head and practically any version will work.  RDProg does the radio and you will need the special ham version, V.5-something in order to enter ham frequencies.  The software is frankly rather clunky and the commands are anything but obvious.

The radio should function from 29-54 MHz although I have found that the VCO can fail to lock up at the bottom end in cold weather on some radios. It just depends upon the component tolerances at manufacture.

Good Stuff Geoff. Especially the eBay idea for the RIB. If I can find a working 286 laptop with Dos and Windows 9X in decent shape I'll pick up a RIB on line. As you said the cable from the RIB to radio will be the hard part. I will probably have to make one. Finding the Siren/PA cable should be easier than finding an actual program cable. BatLab has the pin out.

I just finished testing the Syntor. The receiver is in perfect shape, .45 micro volts sensitivity for 20 DB quieting. The transmitter still puts out 115 watts and is very clean. I have a dirty contact in the hand mic that needs some juice.

Thanks for the help. Thanks to the admin for allowing this since it isn't AM related.

Mike

You should be able to do better than 0.45 microvolts sensitivity, in fact better than 0.3.  It's possible the Extender (noise blanker) is tuned too close to the frequency you tested it at.  I would not recommend trying to align the receiver itself as they are broad-band tuned with a network analyzer and sweep generator at the factory and should never need to be touched.  But the blanker is a simple AM receiver and can be moved around, if that's the issue.  

I usually turn the power down to about 90 Watts.  Saves wear and tear on the finals and the car's electrical system.

If you have the standard (later) securenet cable, there should be a keyloader port on the connector which attaches to the radio.  A round receptacle with a rubber cap on it.  Since encryption is useless for ham use, you can use the keyloader port to exit the programming cable.  There was some material about that on the BatLabs discussion forums (I think) but you would have to try to find it in the archives.

.25 uv is a good unit I have seen them do .2 uv. make sure you use good coax to the generator not Rg58.

Actually, it dose much better than I said. At the time I had not figured out how to open the squelch. The Cushman would open the squelch at about .3 and I did the best I could with a measurement. Now with the squelch open I can easily see I'm right about .26 to .28 microvolts. I don't have a sinadder so 20 db quieting is an educated guess.

I picked up a siren/pa cable that I can modify into a programing jumper from the RIB. I just need a slow 386 PC with VGA and IDA.

Mike

Update;

I have been collecting programming information from the web and a few hams with interest in this project. I'm not inventing this technology, many others have done this.

The Motorola siren/pa cable has the right interface plug on it for programming the radio and control head but requires some wiring changes in the interface plug and adding a 25 pin printer plug to the other end to connect to the radio interface box or RIB. That's done and waiting.

I found a local ham that makes his own RIB boxes and had one mailed to me. I also found a NOS 286 PC which is on it's way. Hopefully it will arrive in one piece and still working.

The last adventure is hooking it all up and sending some instructions to the rig. I have made up a 6 and 10 meter scan list with simplex and repeater channels as well as beacons.

I wonder if any of you might have a design for a 6 and 10 meter mobile antenna using a single ball mount.

Mike

One typical but ugly ham method is to use the Hustler HF mobile antenna mast with the 10 Meter resonator.  I understand this works by using the mast as the 6 Meter element and the whole thing for 10.  The loading coil for 10 acts as a trap for the 6 Meter length.

Otherwise, if you don't mind using two antennas, one per band, Motorola's method was to feed them with a coaxial "diplexer" harness, which is basically a set of coaxial cables to cut to a 1/4 wavelength for each band, feeding the opposite antenna, then feeding a "T" connector to a single line to the radio.  I have attached the manual for that method, for anyone who wants it.

Thanks Geoff,

Short of seeing it printed in a Motorola manual I would have rated that method high on the "Hambone" charts. Substitute the RG58 with RG213 and maybe coil the excess cable into Collins transformers and it sounds like a plan. The thought of two ball mounts will take some time to warm up to. I think I have a pair of commercial ball mount assemblies and a pair of stainless steel whips left over from years ago. Before I take a hole saw to the truck I think I'll put the rig through it's paces in the shack just to make sure it won't unlock under extremes.

Looking at the many lists of repeaters and beacons on 6 and 10 it's interesting to see how few transmit PL. Looks like when the bands are in, most of the scan list will be deleted.

Mike

Worse is that few 10 Meter repeaters have CTCSS on their receivers either.  This means that when the band is open it's generally very difficult or impossible to make a contact through a repeater on one of the busy channels such as 29.66, as several repeaters are brought up at once.  Then just to add to the mess are the nitwits who run a 10 Meter output tied to their 2 Meter or UHF machine but no 10 Meter receiver, just polluting the spectrum on 10 Meters.

6 Meters does not have that issue as there are plenty of repeater pairs, unlike the four on 10 Meters, and most are in CTCSS mode.

The antenna diplexer harness was put together for a federal government customer initially, I think US Forest Service.  I am not fond of the dual ball mounts either, but I thought I would share one way of doing it...