Back in the field after 12 years, same programing issues.

[23892chris]

I’m finally back into the Motorola radios again after being away for 12 years. I loved this when I was a tech back in the day working on the equipment, setting it up and configuring it for our customers.
I recently started a position as a field Engineer and am amazed on how far the technology has come. I have much to get up to speed on with the MOTOTRBO and the awesome configurations/options.

I’ve notices the same issue we fought with back in 2000 and the shop today is still fighting with it.
We still manage legacy systems and I was disappointed when the shop has at least 7 laptops that have to be used for specific radios. This was the same fire we fought back in 2000:
“This laptop will only work with this radio, but if you have this series, you’ll need to use this laptop and is this laptop over here ever goes down, we don’t know what we are going to do”.

It’s the same today.
Can I get some suggestions, links and what other people have tried to overcome this issue?
My adventures away from the two-way radio business were heavily involved in GPS and electronic design (primarily on interfacing RS232, USB, CAN drivers).
I’m convinced by now there are some very good links and suggestions on how to better manage this issue.
I’m very excited to be here and to research as much as I can. Thanks in advance for all the help, suggestions and links from the vast experience here in this forum.

 

[DisasterGuy]

This is one of my major gripes with Motorola. With that said, you should be able to get away with three computers for just about all RSS and CPS. An old 486 with DOS for old RSS, an XP machine for older CPS and a modern machine for new CPS.

We deal with 95% Harris and have one machine in the shop running Windows 7 with Harris ProGrammer and RPM as well as the APX CPS and then an old Dell laptop dual booting DOS 6.2 and Windows 98 for legacy Motorola programming.

Do make sure that there are backups of all Motorola software because there is zero support for legacy models from Motorola. They will not provide replacement or even sell legacy RSS/CPS.


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[23892chris]

I did some digging on the 486 series and remember they came in two popular flavors from intel:
-SX and-DX
Does anyone know which version has the most reliability with the legacies DOS RSS?
With the XP Machine for run the older CPS, what are the specs on the machine? I’m sure there’s a “golden” machine that certainly works better than others. We have issues even with machines running XP and I know it has to do with the machine itself.
Thanks for all the great information! This has been a HUGE help in getting this under better control. At least it’s a great launching point!

 

[productionguy85]

This is one of my major gripes with Motorola. With that said, you should be able to get away with three computers for just about all RSS and CPS. An old 486 with DOS for old RSS, an XP machine for older CPS and a modern machine for new CPS.

We deal with 95% Harris and have one machine in the shop running Windows 7 with Harris ProGrammer and RPM as well as the APX CPS and then an old Dell laptop dual booting DOS 6.2 and Windows 98 for legacy Motorola programming.

Do make sure that there are backups of all Motorola software because there is zero support for legacy models from Motorola. They will not provide replacement or even sell legacy RSS/CPS.


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Rather then disagree, I will simply add another option. An XP laptop should do the trick for all Motorola radios. It has DOS in it, which I have used on MTS2Ks and MTX9000s. Every CPS I have ever used has all been on the same XP, APX CPS even works on XP. The only obstacle, you may have is 32 or 64 bit. Just my experience and info, I don't claim to be right or know it all...

@Disasterguy I'm sorry you deal with 95% Harris. But at least you deal with Motorola enough to need CPS. LOL

Happy New Years

 

[DisasterGuy]

Have you been able to get old RSS (Desktrac, Maratrac, HT1000) running ok on your XP machine?

As for Harris, what makes it nice is the fact that there are only two programming applications for everything made in the last 15-20 years and one personality can be used (as a general rule) over any of those models. Combine that with global sets and programming anything takes less than two minutes.

I have nothing against Motorola per se. Modern Harris and Motorola products are both top notch. Hell, I have an XTS5000 and XG-100p sitting side by side in vehicle chargers in my work truck and a M7300 sitting next to an M1225 in the console.


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[23892chris]

Thanks everyone for the great insights. Very helpful!

 

[MTS2000des]

Have you been able to get old RSS (Desktrac, Maratrac, HT1000) running ok on your XP machine?




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I use a Toshiba Portege 7200 P3 700MHz, which has a REAL 9 pin serial port and older IDE hard disk.

When I installed XP, I set aside a 120MB partition and formatted it for MS-DOS 6.22.

If I need to run older DOS based RSS, I just boot from a floppy (or CD-ROM) of DOS 6.22, and the only partition DOS can "see" is the small FAT16 120MB hard drive.

It plays very well with HT1000/Visar RSS, Saber analog, MTSX DOS RSS, etc. Works great with all older Kenwood stuff (TK-760/860, etc) as well.
Newer versions of Maxtrac, GTX and GM300 work fine on it.

Under full boot with XP, it has enough horsepower to run more modern CPS for radios like XTS3000/Astro Sabers/Spectra, Pro Series, Commercial Series, all modern Kenwood stuff (including Nexedge), it will run Astro 25 CPS okay but it's a little laggy with large codeplugs.

I run TRBO and APX on a more modern desktop (i5 CPU) but these radios were designed for modern PC hardware.

The key to getting older DOS programs to work is a stable pure DOS with a real serial port and compatible UART.

 

[23892chris]

This keeps getting better and better. We had in the old shop several old machines that still had issues and were picky. I'm thinking back now it probably had to do with the version of DOS, if DOS was run in the Win 95 or XP shell or it was run as straight DOS.

So, I will be looking for a older 486-SX (Not a DX with the math co-processor enabled) and try to stick to the original HD and RAM specs of that machine. Com ports are standard on these old machines

I'll search for an old DOS install so I can partition my HD for pure DOS and XP.

Anyone know what version of bootable DOS and RS232 driver version of the UART on a good running machine you have?

I'm also thinking versions of DOS has something to say about this. We had several of the same machines and still had picky machines. Thinking back, I'm sure it had to do wit the version of DOS, if it was in the DOS shell or bootable DOS.

Thank you all again very much. Best refresher I've had yet.