Anyone have experience repairing MTS2000s?

[W6VVM]

I’ve done a bit of searching but haven’t found anything similar to my scenario so here goes.

I bought a UHF R2 MTS2000 off eBay. Chalk it up to nostalgia. While ebay is loaded with 800 MHz units, this was the only 450-520 one I’ve seen on there in months of watching. It was said to be functional but I’m finding otherwise. It does pass self test and I can read/write from CPS, but I get no Tx or Rx audio. I can Tx and open another radio’s squelch on the same channel, but no voice will come through. The MTS will Rx (Rx light will flash) but again, no voice.

I grabbed three 800 MHz units on eBay for cheap, thinking I’d swap the front panel. That didn’t fix it and now that I’m looking, it appears the connector on the controller board is damaged. I’m wondering if that’s my problem. I don’t think I can just take a controller board from the 800 units without doing some programming that goes outside of CPS.

Here are a couple pictures in case anyone else recognizes something problematic. I’ll take any advice at all. At the end of the day, it was for fun…I hadn’t touched an MTS2000 since I was a kid. If it turns out to be unsolvable it will still look nice on the shelf, though the $30 800 MHz units could have done that 😂

 

[W6VVM]

Just to add:

I test with an RSM and no luck. I also checked the jumper going between the transceiver board and the controller board to make sure it was properly seated.

 

[MTS2000des]

Swapping controller boards means using software that isn't generally available to the public, is archaic, and if the radio's firmware is above 5.41, will brick with an unrecoverable toolproof (FL 01/93) error. These are 30 year old radios and honestly not worth the time being you can find them in working order for much less than trying to repair one. The damaged ZIF connector breaking like that is common. Replacing it requires a hot air station and some soldering skill. Parts could be scavenged from a donor radio.

Batlabs has pretty much all relevant info on these radios. I cut my teeth in my career as a bench tech working on these and other MSI Jedi series radios (MTX8000/9000, MT2000, HT1000, Visar, etc). All of them share common RF components, controller boards were classified into masked ROM (HT1000/MT2000/MTX/Visar) and FlashPort (MTS2000). The first MTS2000 controllers only had 256K of Flash, the later ones 512K. Yes K as in Kilobytes not megabytes. The HT1000/Visar only had 640 bytes of memory for codeplug storage.

These were on the cutting edge in 1992 when released to the world. Radios assembled with no screws or discrete wiring. They also had their fair share of problems (microphonics on TX, batches of bad displays, RF noise on RX, tabs breaking on chassis, loose antenna connectors) to name a few.

 

[W6VVM]

Thanks MTS. Yes the age of the radio is not lost on me. I totally understand that aspect. This was simply a tinker endeavor for fun. I’ve got a rework station but typically have only used it on silicon chips not these plastic ZIF connectors. I’m thinking I’ll melt the connector if I don’t have things perfect. I’ll give it a shot next weekend just to see. Nothing to lose. Thanks again.

 

[MTS2000des]

I usually covered the plastic part with either Capton tape or metal foil tape as a shield when soldering them and it usually kept it from melting.
The very early Jedi's had a rigid jumper flex soldered between the controller and RF board, and had a rigid plastic carrier that reinforced it. MSI had a retrofit kit to install the newer connectors and I remember replacing many of them in the summer of 1994.

I still have a JT1000 VHF (there are a ton on Ebay right now that all came from the EPA), an MTS2000 VHF with a whoreflash, and a NIB HT1000 DN with DTMF in the clamshell. Great memories of my life just out of high school as a young buck radio tech.

 

[N4KVE]

I usually covered the plastic part with either Capton tape or metal foil tape as a shield when soldering them and it usually kept it from melting.
The very early Jedi's had a rigid jumper flex soldered between the controller and RF board, and had a rigid plastic carrier that reinforced it. MSI had a retrofit kit to install the newer connectors and I remember replacing many of them in the summer of 1994.

I still have a JT1000 VHF (there are a ton on Ebay right now that all came from the EPA), an MTS2000 VHF with a whoreflash, and a NIB HT1000 DN with DTMF in the clamshell. Great memories of my life just out of high school as a young buck radio tech.

And I still have the mint UHF MTS2000 I bought from you 1/2010 when I was visiting my brother in Alpharetta. Still works perfectly. LOL.

 

[MTS2000des]

And I still have the mint UHF MTS2000 I bought from you 1/2010 when I was visiting my brother in Alpharetta. Still works perfectly. LOL.

I am glad to know it's living it's life in the best part of Florida brother!

 

[W6VVM]

I usually covered the plastic part with either Capton tape or metal foil tape as a shield when soldering them and it usually kept it from melting.
The very early Jedi's had a rigid jumper flex soldered between the controller and RF board, and had a rigid plastic carrier that reinforced it. MSI had a retrofit kit to install the newer connectors and I remember replacing many of them in the summer of 1994.

I still have a JT1000 VHF (there are a ton on Ebay right now that all came from the EPA), an MTS2000 VHF with a whoreflash, and a NIB HT1000 DN with DTMF in the clamshell. Great memories of my life just out of high school as a young buck radio tech.

Thanks for the advice on shielding the ZIF connector.

I saw those clamshell HT1000 DTMF units on eBay a couple months ago and was tempted, but I don't have a machine capable of running RSS so the radio would have just sat there.

 

[MTS2000des]

Believe it or not, HT1000 RSS will run on a modern machine, booted to a real MS-DOS boot source, provided machine has a "real" serial port. I program HT1000s on a Panasonic CF-53 which has an older i5 CPU booted to DOS via a CD-ROM all day long.

 

[brndnstffrd]

Believe it or not, HT1000 RSS will run on a modern machine, booted to a real MS-DOS boot source, provided machine has a "real" serial port. I program HT1000s on a Panasonic CF-53 which has an older i5 CPU booted to DOS via a CD-ROM all day long.

While not as modern, I use a CF-30 with a DOS bootable flashdrive made with Rufus. Works great.