HT1000 programming woes

[mikewazowski]

Back in those days, Motorola went to great lengths to protect their products from non-Motorola parts and components being used with their products especially with the programming of their radios.

Actually they didn't. Most cables were easily home brewed and they published the schematics of the RIB so knockoffs were available everywhere.

These days with 1 wire chips, things have become a little more difficult but you typically can buy knockoffs on Amazon.

 

[steve9570]

How true !!

 

[nokones]

Me personally, I'm not a throw-a-way kind of guy, thats for CCR stuff. I know there is a point when have to cut your losses. I think you can't learn anything when if it doesn't turn on and you just immediately throw it away. Something can always be learned from trouble shooting defective/inoperable equipment, at least look and identify and see if there is a solution to fix it.

 

[ElroyJetson]

For me the cutoff point for any portable radio is when you can no longer obtain OEM batteries for it. When you can not order a Motorola battery for a Motorola radio, and only aftermarket batteries can be found. That is the point at which the radio should finally leave professional/commercial service. Fine if you want to use it for personal/ham/hobby use after that point, if you want to work that hard.

 

[nokones]

By most government procurement rules and regulations it is law that they shall procure equipment and supplies through the competitive bid process. This also includes writing the bid specs that meets operational requirements and not make the specs that essentially causes a sole source situation for a product or service, with some exceptions to the rule and it is justified.

That means government agencies bound by these regulations can not sole source Motorola batteries to Motorola Solution. If Motorola batteries were the only battery that meets the requirement and non-Motorola vendors can obtain that battery, the process still has to be competitively bid if justified.

We all know that after-market batteries are available for the current Motorola model radios thus must be competively bid.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I'm also going to vote on the issue with the radio if you can program HT1000's with that setup.

I regularly program HT1000's on a Core 2 Dell PC that was manufactured in 2012 and used as a Stargate Console position. It netboots (over PXE) DOS 7.1 which was taken from the Windows 98 boot floppy. No issues. I also use a CF-19 Toughbook with a USB thumbdrive with the same version of DOS. No issues on multi-core machines from the 2010 era...your issue is either the radio or the radio interface.

 

[knockoffham]

The original poster is having a problem with a Visar. His/her problem could be with the connector connection. The visors have kind of a weird method of keeping the programming cable connector tight against the radio connector. I'm not saying that this may be the cause but at least a contributing factor.

The poster also stated that he is using a ribless adapter. I don't recall that Motorola ever had a ribless adapter and these radios are compatible with ribless adapters. Maybe the vintage of the codeplug in question is of the vintage that only wants to see the RSS operate truly in a DOS environment without windows in the background. This could also be a contributing factor.

In order to identify the true problem in this matter, the programmer need to run th RSS in a true DOS environment without windows in the background with real genuine Motorola serial computer cable to RIB and a true Motorola cable from the RIB to the radio and a genuine Motorola RIB in order to accurately pin-point the problem to the radio. Just because the non-Motorola stuff worked with other radios in the past doesn't mean anything in this case.

Back in those days, Motorola went to great lengths to protect their products from non-Motorola parts and components being used with their products especially with the programming of their radios.

The cable for the Visar is some cheap eBay special ribless adaptor. But if I connect up an actual RIB with any other radio on the end, it should at least attempt to communicate and say model not supported. But it doesn’t. So the adapter could be suspect, but so could the software. I tried a bunch of different radios, RIB, various priceless adaptors, and the RSS just acts like my computer doesn’t even have a serial port.

I guess I wasn’t clear but it was a true DOS environment, not through Windows. I just don’t have DOS on the hard disk so I use a Windows 98 setup disc and then select “start in DOS without CD support.”

 

[knockoffham]

I

I'm also going to vote on the issue with the radio if you can program HT1000's with that setup.

I regularly program HT1000's on a Core 2 Dell PC that was manufactured in 2012 and used as a Stargate Console position. It netboots (over PXE) DOS 7.1 which was taken from the Windows 98 boot floppy. No issues. I also use a CF-19 Toughbook with a USB thumbdrive with the same version of DOS. No issues on multi-core machines from the 2010 era...your issue is either the radio or the radio interface.

It makes zero attempt to do anything with the serial port. I’ve even put a multimeter on the serial port with nothing connected and nothing, regardless of radio or adaptor. I have a computer from circa 2006 that’s a bit newer obviously but I guess if it works for you I’ll put DOS on that and try it.

 

[knockoffham]

This may be too blunt/truthful for the room but tell your customer that he's wasting his time and yours on trying to keep 30+ year old radios alive. I'd just tell him that I can't and won't support them anymore because it has obviously become inconvenient and difficult to do so. And then move on.

Life is too short to spend it doing radio archaeology.

Yeah, for this radio I just told him “sorry, but I can’t get this one figured out.” And told him I’ll still do used stuff but it will save him more money if he starts trying to find things made within the last 25 years for me to service. He just said he really likes the Visar form factor so I recommended some similar used Motorolas and similar new models that aren’t quite new Motorola price bracket. It’s a large farming operation and farmers like their old stuff. But yeah I just told him that a few minutes ago and returned the Visar with an “unprogrammed” label.

 

[nokones]

I be more than happy to give it a try to see if I can. Also, the Visars were about $30-35 each on eBay not too long ago. I bought several of the UHFs for that price.

 

[MTS2000des]

There is nothing wrong with using old radios especially for amateur use. I'd much rather hams use old, QUALITY equipment and to the work and LEARN about this legacy stuff versus going on Chinazon and buying some turdy Bowelturd that has low muddy audio and roger beeps and crappy receivers and don't last. Something to be said about the Jedi/VISARs being 3 decades old and still alive. How many Bowelturds will line landfills if humans are still on Earth 30 years from now?

I've never had a problem with HT1000 RSS from 1998 running on even a "modern" Panasonic CF-53 with a real serial port, booted to MS-DOS, but I have a genuine Motorola RIB and genuine Motorola cable. Many aftermarket RIBs don't send the correct voltages and don't always play nice with vintage PCs. It's the combo of software and hardware that is a challenge with these older radios.

Visars were finicky radios when new. This was with OEM cables and RIB. The RIBLESS stuff on Amazon/Ebay is a crap shoot.

 

[knockoffham]

I'm also going to vote on the issue with the radio if you can program HT1000's with that setup.

I regularly program HT1000's on a Core 2 Dell PC that was manufactured in 2012 and used as a Stargate Console position. It netboots (over PXE) DOS 7.1 which was taken from the Windows 98 boot floppy. No issues. I also use a CF-19 Toughbook with a USB thumbdrive with the same version of DOS. No issues on multi-core machines from the 2010 era...your issue is either the radio or the radio interface.

Oops I guess I wasn’t clear but surprisingly I haven’t had anyone bring me an HT1000, this is my first experience with HT1000 RSS. My only experience with it was these 2 Visars and the first one took several attempts to program, after that the program said “F you” to having any serial port communication. The old HTs I usually program are the Radius P110, etc.

 

[N5XPM]

This may be too blunt/truthful for the room but tell your customer that he's wasting his time and yours on trying to keep 30+ year old radios alive. I'd just tell him that I can't and won't support them anymore because it has obviously become inconvenient and difficult to do so. And then move on.

Life is too short to spend it doing radio archaeology.

We used to use the phrase “Beyond Economic Repair” for these situations. You could hundreds of dollars repairing it then have something else break in a few months and a grumpy customer wanting their money back. Sometimes aligning what a customer wants with what they need is tricky.

 

[N5XPM]

Oops I guess I wasn’t clear but surprisingly I haven’t had anyone bring me an HT1000, this is my first experience with HT1000 RSS. My only experience with it was these 2 Visars and the first one took several attempts to program, after that the program said “F you” to having any serial port communication. The old HTs I usually program are the Radius P110, etc.

i found the HT 1000 software and with Windows 3.1 software for the 1225 series radios to be the most finicky Motorola RSS series I have used.

 

[knockoffham]

We used to use the phrase “Beyond Economic Repair” for these situations. You could hundreds of dollars repairing it then have something else break in a few months and a grumpy customer wanting their money back. Sometimes aligning what a customer wants with what they need is tricky.

Yeah, well before this guy went into farming he was a sheriff and also was an officer and some sort of radio manager at a large city PD. He is just happy to have someone willing to attempt working on this old stuff, since I guess it gives him nostalgia? He's happy as long as I make an attempt, and doesn't mind a radio here or there having to be finally removed from service. But yeah, generally there's definitely a reason few people support this old stuff.

 

[knockoffham]

There is nothing wrong with using old radios especially for amateur use. I'd much rather hams use old, QUALITY equipment and to the work and LEARN about this legacy stuff versus going on Chinazon and buying some turdy Bowelturd that has low muddy audio and roger beeps and crappy receivers and don't last. Something to be said about the Jedi/VISARs being 3 decades old and still alive. How many Bowelturds will line landfills if humans are still on Earth 30 years from now?

I've never had a problem with HT1000 RSS from 1998 running on even a "modern" Panasonic CF-53 with a real serial port, booted to MS-DOS, but I have a genuine Motorola RIB and genuine Motorola cable. Many aftermarket RIBs don't send the correct voltages and don't always play nice with vintage PCs. It's the combo of software and hardware that is a challenge with these older radios.

Visars were finicky radios when new. This was with OEM cables and RIB. The RIBLESS stuff on Amazon/Ebay is a crap shoot.

I'm a HAM and I love the old commercial stuff and use a lot of it for fun, and some new commercial stuff I was able to get cheap. These old radios are for a large farm GMRS setup and the farmer likes his old cheap radios. I generally have fun working on them however I have probably developed unhealthy angry thoughts about Motorola's software engineers in the 80s and 90s.

Yeah, really it could be 1000 things. But since the RSS doesn't even make an attempt to open a serial port, I am thinking it is some oddly specific aversion it has to the PC I generally use for old radios. So when I have the time I am going to put DOS on a slightly newer computer and see what happens with the software then. I generally have luck with the RIBless stuff, although occasionally I do have to modify/fix it or use a benchtop power supply and give it a weird voltage.

 

[cmjonesinc]

So I decided to bust out my old laptop and a couple HT1000's I had laying around. I'm using the same computer, software, cable and radios I've always used but for some reason I too am getting the immediate com port error. The connectors are all clean and batteries are charged so I doubt that is the problem. The only thing that changed is I used Rufus to load FreeDos to the usb stick. I see some post elsewhere with serial communication problems on FreeDos. I don't think I used FreeDos previously when programming these radios. I just happened to have it on a flash drive from another project. I wonder if that is part of the problem. I'm sure the dos version I used previously is somewhere on the computer. I'm going to see if that makes a difference.

 

[brndnstffrd]

What I have used before was a program called Rufus to make a DOS bootable flashdrive. It boots into real DOS and runs HT1000 software with no problems. I use it to program HT1000 and Visar radios using my CF-30. Real Serial port, but chinese Ribless cables. The cables are Kawamall brand. I have them for many different models of radio and have never had an issue with any of their cables. One thing I will say is that the cables aren't the universal cables that have a bunch of different plugs on them, they are the dedicated cables for a single type of radio. The one for the Visar is pretty picky about the 9 volt battery, but using a fresh new 9 volt I have no issues.

 

[knockoffham]

So I decided to bust out my old laptop and a couple HT1000's I had laying around. I'm using the same computer, software, cable and radios I've always used but for some reason I too am getting the immediate com port error. The connectors are all clean and batteries are charged so I doubt that is the problem. The only thing that changed is I used Rufus to load FreeDos to the usb stick. I see some post elsewhere with serial communication problems on FreeDos. I don't think I used FreeDos previously when programming these radios. I just happened to have it on a flash drive from another project. I wonder if that is part of the problem. I'm sure the dos version I used previously is somewhere on the computer. I'm going to see if that makes a difference.

What I’ve been using is the copy of DOS included in the Windows 98 setup CD which I think is technically “7.something”. I guess I will try 6.22, I’ve returned the Visar to the client but maybe I’ll pick up an HT1000 for cheap and try. Thanks for trying, that’s very helpful!

 

[knockoffham]

What I have used before was a program called Rufus to make a DOS bootable flashdrive. It boots into real DOS and runs HT1000 software with no problems. I use it to program HT1000 and Visar radios using my CF-30. Real Serial port, but chinese Ribless cables. The cables are Kawamall brand. I have them for many different models of radio and have never had an issue with any of their cables. One thing I will say is that the cables aren't the universal cables that have a bunch of different plugs on them, they are the dedicated cables for a single type of radio. The one for the Visar is pretty picky about the 9 volt battery, but using a fresh new 9 volt I have no issues.

Yeah I have some of the “many radio” ones but the Visar cable is specific to it. I’ve used Rufus a ton, it’s one of my favorite nerd programs. You can even make customized setup discs with it nowadays.