Elroy,
I partly agree with you, but then I'm looking at the radios from a maintenance perspective and not a user.
First of all, I can't stand Astro Sabers. Those radios have a few major design faults which give me nothing but grief. The battery plates are weak but even worse the chassis mounted studs are too. When the studs pull out and the chassis shatters it sends debris inside the radio which shorts out the fuse. The chassis' are also plated with a chrome like finish that flakes off and shorts out the logic board or wedges under the BGA chips. Speaking of BGA's they suck. The board flexes and they lose connection, try to reflow them without a twenty thousand dollar machine and it's darn near impossible. I'd better stop.
I do like the snap-tite radios though, they are so much easier to work on. Just pop open the radio, do what you've gotta do and slap it back together. To tune the reference oscillator on an M-RK you have to completely disassemble the radio which means removing no less than 14 screws. Argh! The only problem you have to watch out for is wear on RF shielding connections. That little bit of flexing can cause a buildup of resistive oxides from the worn shields which makes them virtually useless. This was accentuated in the GP300/P110 as those radios also got their DC power ground through their RF shield connections so when they would transmit it would sound like you're in a wind tunnel. Get that kind of distortion on a digital system and nothing goes through.
I disagree with you that the Macom's slowness is due to an underpowered microprocessor. The hillary is a pretty good chip and has worked well from its inception in the LPE and can still handle P25 Trunking. The weak link is the software, specifically the flash code. Macom have stuffed every conceivable operating environment and option into one package. There is absolutely no reason why an 800MHz P25 trunked portable radio needs G-star, VHF/UHF narrow band or a low band noise blanker for a mobile! Fix this little problem for that radio and now an 800MHz P7100 direct FM has no power out on conventional talk-around. (PS don't use J2R17xxx on FM P7100 if you need conventional TA) You spend $3500 dollars for a radio and until flash code R15 the damn thing wouldn't even be able to handle conventional CG. The beauty of Motorola's code is keeping it simple. The flash includes what is needed as the radio is equipped.
|