Apollo ALA-28 programming

[buckyswider]

Hi there, standard disclaimer about not knowing where to post this, etc.

Anyhow, I've been using Apollo pagers (both voice and alphanumeric) for quite a while now. The programming has always been a little hit or miss (to be fair, it was that way with motorola units too!) every since the elimination of serial and parallel ports and USB adapters attempting to emulate those.

Now I have a problem with my ALA-28 alpha programming. I have the four cradle programmer which was OK in the past. But now I can't get it to work on any PCs. I've tried like 6 different windows images. I had one where it seemed to work once, but the pagers didn't receive (I think they may be bricked).

One of the primary problems I have (and Apollo support is extremely unresponsive) is I'm not sure which USB-to-Serial driver I'm supposed to be using. Their software download page says "For 2016 and newer models please use the appropriate USB driver included in the programming file. Use of the incorrect driver could result in damage to the unit. If you have any questions, please contact support.". What I can't figure out: is that 2016 "unit" referring to a pager or the programming cradle? So I ended up trying both variations (which is why I suspect I may have bricked a couple pagers).

Anyhow, now even with a fresh Win10 install, I keep getting "The programmed board is not responding" when starting up the software. I'm at my wits end! One thing I've considered is maybe my hardware is now defective? I'm not sure how I figure that out. I wish I was able to buy one and then return it if I encountered the same issue. I don't want to spend $300 and then find it's that it is in actuality a software issue. I have 6 new pagers I need to program!!

Anybody have any ideas? Thanks!!

 

[jeepsandradios]

You may try in another section and not the Motorola thread.

On the topic I still have the Appollo programming base (holds 4 pagers) and still run the software in W7. I have not had the need to try it in other versions as I rarely use the pager anymore. When our county went to UHF we purchased Motorola Pagers.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Based on looking at the photo of the programming cradle I'd say it's a passive device only used to make the connection to the pager port.
I've read later windows versions 'update' serial port drivers which can screw up USB to serial adapters.
I've had to revert to old drivers to make some equipment work.

This is from my general communications tech book in 2015.

The Prolific chip set is very common in serial to USB
adapters. Recently, counterfeit chips have been
found in some adapters. These chips do not function
properly and show up as error code 10 in device manager.

Have you tried lower baud rates and changing start/stop bits and parity settings?

 

[cavmedic]

Try placing the pager in the cradle first and when the pager goes into programming mode, then fire up the software. My ala-29 is super picky when programming. It will only connect to the software in that particular order.
Other than labeling the cap codes and slots, can you not program via the front panel?

 

[buckyswider]

Thanks all. I think I finally figured this out (sort of) yesterday. And before I go into that, yes CAV, I probably could do everything by hand- but I have this cradle I paid three hundred bucks for- plus I've set a precedent to personalizing every pager (so if someone leaves one laying around they can easily figure out who it belongs to).

And speedway, yep, you're on the right track there. It seems like I wasn't fully understanding the implications of having multiple devices with Prolific usb-to-serial chips installed on my PC. Each of the four PCs I was attempting this on had their own little intricacies in that area and other Prolific drivers installed. It seems (well, *seemed*) like installing the Apollo provided drivers didn't negate any of the other Prolific drivers that were already installed.

So here's what I can figure out so far. I had a little cheap tablet PC that I had only used for web traffic that I pulled out and fired up to try with the cradle. I installed the latest Apollo software along with the driver (which, according to their docs, should work with "units" made since 2015) and...it worked! Was able to program up a few pagers. Came back the next day after the tablet was shut down and..."the programmed board is not responding". : So I watched the device manager while I plugged the cradle in, and under "ports", it picked up a driver that said "pl2303hxa phased out since 2012 version 3.8.31.0". WTF? This worked yesterday! So I right clicked, "remove"d the device and selected "and its software". Rebooted, and it worked again- picking up a different driver (whose source I had no idea of).

Went back to one of my other PCs and tried to re-create. After a bunch of iterations of removing all the drivers that it picked up, I finally installed an older Prolific driver I found on the web (from 2009) and that worked! (Of course, I'm sure when I try to use my newer devices that require USB-to-serial they probably won't work, but that's a topic for another forum).

Diving in to the prolific utilities, I have gleaned that the Prolific chipset in my cradle is "PL2303 XA / HXA". Which seems like it is a VERY old chipset in the Prolific line. Which leads me back full circle: I have asked Apollo support point blank at least a half dozen times: "What is the "unit" that you refer to in the message about drivers? Is it the cradle or the pager"? At this point, I'm fairly certain it's the *cradle". And when I had installed their older driver from the support page, other Prolific drivers already installed conflicted with that and prevented it from working.

The tl;dr is that I've got a cradle with an older Prolific chipset which only works with an older driver. So if you've got any devices with a new prolific chipset, you'll have to do a Driver Dance each time you switch, or dedicate one PC to working with the less-important device.

Aye Karumba. That was so much harder than it needed to be. Apollo support is nonexistent.

 

[cavmedic]

I understand the customization options. I only ever had one non response from their tech and that was asking for a service manual for an ala 25, as I wanted to do a discriminator tap on it. The info that was listed on discriminator.nl was an older unit than the one I had and not the same layout.

 

[speedway_navigator]

I tried uploading the 2 prolific drivers I had but the system won't take them. Glad you got it worked out.

 

[buckyswider]

One thing I should mention is that I had another problem that I serendipitously fixed during all this: I have had the same template that I've just loaded in for probably 15 years now, and new pagers weren't working on those rare occasions when I was able to connect to the cradle. Under the "frequency" pulldown there is another setting for 150-160MHz (going off memory here; that might be a little off). Anyhow, the second one is the same frequency range with "ROHS" behind it. So the newer pagers need that frequency selected instead of the one without it. I knew something was up when I tried to program some pagers and I got a message something like "The pager is ROHS. Are you sure you want to proceed?". I had no idea what they were trying to tell me so I clicked "yes". There is no documentation or support articles that I could find around this- I just happened to click the pulldown and see it. So if you have a pager you've programmed and it's not working, try the "alternate" frequency range selection.