Standard Communications Corporation

[KB3ZWI]

Good Evening Everyone,

I'm posting in regards to a Standard Communications Corporation GX3200V(AA) that I acquired from Ebay

(eBay item number: 221312403587) and I was wondering what the experience was with these rigs. The Store I purchased it from stated that there has been a lot of success in programming these radios for Amateur Radio frequencies (from what I was able to find on the FCC website, these are programmed for the 150Mhz range so I would presume the 2 Meter band would be all these radios could do).

Now, I did contact the company (comline.com.sg) if any documentation or anything was available and they responded saying these require an external box to program that is no longer available.

I would just like to get a conversation going about these little radios to see if anybody else had any experience with them.

Thanks and 73,

Kevin DE KB3ZWI

 

[SteveC0625]

disregard....

 

[MTS2000des]

these radios date to the early 1990s.
unless you get a low split version (136-155), the 150-174 split (most common) require some retuning of the front end pre-selector for good (.3uv) sensitivity on the 2m band.

they require an old SLOW MS-DOS based computer such as a 386 or 486 with a working serial port to run the programming software.

the programming software is long gone as is any support from Standard (now Vertex Standard) though you may be able to find it on the net if you know where to look. Again, you can forget about trying to run it on any modern Windows XP/7/8 PC. This stuff was written when the fastest PC was a Pentium 90.

the programming interface is available from RFguys for around $40:
RFguys.com - Vertex Standard PPS/C Programming Cable GX-1500 GX-1510 GX-3200 GX-4800 GX-5800 GX-5810

these radios are relics, they were not particularly great in their day, I worked at a shop that was a Standard dealer in the mid 1990s and we didn't sell too many of them, mainly because of their pricing structure. They had problems with the PA decks failing intermittently.

Lookout for "time bomb" tantalum and electrolytic capacitors in these radios. My advice is put it on the bench and make sure it is working to spec on whatever it is programmed to now before investing the time and money in a programming cable and the hassle of cobbling together an ancient computer.

if the radio has other problems like bad caps, it may be better destined for the scrap pile.

 

[KB3ZWI]

these radios date to the early 1990s.
unless you get a low split version (136-155), the 150-174 split (most common) require some retuning of the front end pre-selector for good (.3uv) sensitivity on the 2m band.

they require an old SLOW MS-DOS based computer such as a 386 or 486 with a working serial port to run the programming software.

the programming software is long gone as is any support from Standard (now Vertex Standard) though you may be able to find it on the net if you know where to look. Again, you can forget about trying to run it on any modern Windows XP/7/8 PC. This stuff was written when the fastest PC was a Pentium 90.

the programming interface is available from RFguys for around $40:
RFguys.com - Vertex Standard PPS/C Programming Cable GX-1500 GX-1510 GX-3200 GX-4800 GX-5800 GX-5810

these radios are relics, they were not particularly great in their day, I worked at a shop that was a Standard dealer in the mid 1990s and we didn't sell too many of them, mainly because of their pricing structure. They had problems with the PA decks failing intermittently.

Lookout for "time bomb" tantalum and electrolytic capacitors in these radios. My advice is put it on the bench and make sure it is working to spec on whatever it is programmed to now before investing the time and money in a programming cable and the hassle of cobbling together an ancient computer.

if the radio has other problems like bad caps, it may be better destined for the scrap pile.

Thank you so much for the response MTS2000des, I really appreciate it. I will definitely get it on the bench and take a look at it. In the meantime, I sent an email to AMERadio because they have the software on their site for about $25.00( GX3200 ) so we'll see if by chance it is still available.

Thanks again.

 

[KB3ZWI]

I got a response from Edward from AMERadio.com and he stated that the software is in fact still available as a download. The cost is $26.00.

So I will take a look at the rig and see what I have.