• To anyone looking to acquire commercial radio programming software:

    Please do not make requests for copies of radio programming software which is sold (or was sold) by the manufacturer for any monetary value. All requests will be deleted and a forum infraction issued. Making a request such as this is attempting to engage in software piracy and this forum cannot be involved or associated with this activity. The same goes for any private transaction via Private Message. Even if you attempt to engage in this activity in PM's we will still enforce the forum rules. Your PM's are not private and the administration has the right to read them if there's a hint to criminal activity.

    If you are having trouble legally obtaining software please state so. We do not want any hurt feelings when your vague post is mistaken for a free request. It is YOUR responsibility to properly word your request.

    To obtain Motorola software see the Sticky in the Motorola forum.

    The various other vendors often permit their dealers to sell the software online (i.e., Kenwood). Please use Google or some other search engine to find a dealer that sells the software. Typically each series or individual radio requires its own software package. Often the Kenwood software is less than $100 so don't be a cheapskate; just purchase it.

    For M/A Com/Harris/GE, etc: there are two software packages that program all current and past radios. One package is for conventional programming and the other for trunked programming. The trunked package is in upwards of $2,500. The conventional package is more reasonable though is still several hundred dollars. The benefit is you do not need multiple versions for each radio (unlike Motorola).

    This is a large and very visible forum. We cannot jeopardize the ability to provide the RadioReference services by allowing this activity to occur. Please respect this.

RIB's keep dying

Status
Not open for further replies.

a1ewfwh

Newbie
Joined
Nov 24, 2018
Messages
2
Hello everyone. First post here, and I hope I'm in the right place.

I have acquired a bunch of 110w VHF W7 Astro Spectras. I have had the same aftermarket RIB and cables for years, never a problem. I had regular Spectras and MT1000s before the astros. Never had an issue. Once I obtained these W7 Astros, I programmed a couple. Not a problem. I then acquired a handful of newer 2.5mhz spacing capable trunk units. I wanted to update to the narrow spaced radios. I hooked on, programmed my first. Excellent. Went to rehook to change the scan list and I couldn't. I would get a couple flashes from the data light and it would say communication error on the CPS. I hadn't been the nicest to my cable from the RIB to the trunk units, so I bought another cable. No change. So I dug out my old DOS laptop and tried to hook to one of my OLD Spectra's with the same cabling and RIB. No go. The RIB always had something loose in it, so I figured it had finally crossed on the circuit board and shorted something and toasted my RIB. I bought another aftermarket RIB. Plug and play. Read and wrote 4 radios, two 2.5s and a couple non narrows, went to read another one of the 2.5s from the stack and I have another dead RIB. Two in a month, failed the same way. Any ideas why my RIB keeps locking up/dying? Is there a way to test parts of the RIBs or reset them per se?

Thanks in advance!!

Ricky

Info as follows:

CPS: R05.03.00 using a COM port, aftermarket RIB with new cabling, Windows XP

Radios: W7 VHF T04KLH9W7AN-UCM 5000010018008
 

cmdrwill

Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2005
Messages
3,984
Location
So Cali
The 'Motorola RIB' radio interface box has always had problems due to the poor implementation of the RS232 standards to the Spectra bus. Piss poor design. The knock offs are no better.

"A modification you may be interested in for the RIB. There have been reports of problems using the RIB on different computers. One of the problems is the lack of negative voltage swing on the Busy out and RX (data out) lines back to the computer. You might want to try and change the value of R14 to 1.5k and R11 to 1K.

Some research has been done with the original RIB, and some modifications have been make to some of the values to make the circuit more compatible with RS232. The modified schematic can be found here". http://batlabs.com/images/rib_mod.jpg

I will note that we are on our 29th version of the original Motorola factory RIB we got in the 80's.
And we have repaired and modified hundreds of RIB's.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top