Feature String Issue

[edmscan]

I have a friend who bought an Orion off of Ebay (that looks like a bunch of parts to make up a radio). Well thats where the problem starts.

There is no sticker with the serial and model number on the radio. The radio has no feature string in the radio .. and thus with no model number and Macom has no way to tell him what the feature string of the radio is. We have the ESN from the radio from the Maintenance Utility. What else do we need to do to rectify this mess ?

How can I find out the model number etc of the radio ?

We have the dsp files and biz files for the radio. But without the feature string .. there is nothing he can do it looks like.

Any help would be appreciated.

[edmscan]

Well the person who sold him the radio still denies that he did anything wrong.

Here is the email that my friend received.

***********************************

<Name Removed>

First, the radio was working with options 1-10 installed when shipped. Your claim that the radio did not have 1-10 installed in it when it arrived at your location is false.

I don't have a problem with the history on the radio. It was purchased with a business check, and I have the person's business card, and several witnesses to the sale. IF the radio is stolen or otherwise a problem with the ownership exists, at such time that MACOM contacts me and says that they have the radio or that law enforcement contacts me and says they have it, as in it has been taken from you, I will replace it at my expense.

His name is: Gary L. Peterson .. and I personally would recommend that you use caution when buying from him. Sorry .. I dont have his E-Bay id or his callsign handy, but I will get that and add it.

I guess if my friend is out his 300$ .. then maybe we can shame Mr Peterson into doing the right thing.

*********************

So really .. unless it is a stolen radio, he is saying that he doesnt care less.

[rescue161]

Playing the Devil's Advocate here, but a lot of people tend to mess M/A-Com radios up a lot more than with Motorola radios due to their misunderstanding of of the programming platform. For some reason, a lot of folks try to program them with Radio Maintenance, which will definitely screw them up. Was the radio sold As-Is?

Getting back to the topic, you're pretty much SOL unless you can come up with a valid frequency/ESN combo.

[edmscan]

I do understand where you are coming from .. and there was no feature information in the radio. I know about the importance of retaining all the information about the radio for safe keeping and have all my Orions and LPE's information just for such a thing. But the radio in question didnt have any information at all ... just the ESN info, which as you indicated isnt enough to make Macom happy.

Short of changing the ESN on the Logic board .. there isnt any hope in programming that radio. And as far as i know .. you cannot change the ESN.

[ElroyJetson]

The ESN is a Dallas/Maxim DS2401 Electronic Serial Number. It is laser-programmed and can not be changed. You CAN remove that ESN chip and put another one in from another radio
that has a known feature string, and transfer that feature string into the recipient radio.

M/A-Com's ESN records are known to be incomplete. It's likely that if you go through
proper channels and are willing to pay a fee, M/A-Com will provide a usable feature
encryption string for use on that radio.

It might be helpful to take a photo of the ESN chip area on the board, If the ESN appears
to be original and has never had the solder disturbed or reworked, and submit that as
evidence that M/A-Com's records are simply incomplete. If the board looks like it hasn't
been hacked, it will only help your case.

Incidentally, for conventional operation only, you don't NEED any feature string. The
radio will run just fine with an invalid string, if you only need conventional operation.


Elroy

[edmscan]

Thank you ... i will see how this turns out. Guess a lesson to be learned about being careful on buying stuff on Ebay.

[edmscan]

It is looking like this was maybe human error on the part of the purchaser .. or just something gone wrong. I think we will never know .. and looks like I may be able to get the feature string from a backup so things will maybe turn out ok after all. Thanks ..