Minitor V Troubles

[theclinton]

I recently purchased a Motorola Minitor V programming kit. This kit is one with the advanced software that enables the engineering data. My pager is a two channel stored voice model on 33-36.995 MHz range. I was experimenting and decided to go into the engineer data and change the band to 159-167. This seemed to work fine until I went to test the pager. It did not recieve any signal. I changed the band back to 33-36 range and it still does not recieve any signal. So my question is - Can my pager be fixed, or is permentaly destroyed? Are these units just set up for a specific band, or can they be programmed to a different band through the engineering data? Or does a band change require a modification in the circut board? Anyhow, I am out of a pager and want to know if it is possible to fix it by myself or will it need shop repaired?

Thanks so much for any answers (and I know I can't spell)!!

 

[Luis_R]

Did it work prior to you modifying it?

 

[theclinton]

Yes, I have had the pager since last october.I bought it off of ebay. It was in excellent working order right up to the time that I placed it in the programmer.

 

[Luis_R]

Did you change anything else besides the bandsplit? When you read it does it show the correct info.? Do you have the original codeplug and have you tried loading it back into the pager? It can probably be fixed by your local repair shop or sent to Moto. They are pretty reasonable with their flat rate repair on pagers. But they will probably frown upon you for modify it and reject the repair.

 

[theclinton]

What I can't figure out is, the codeplug and everything works fine. The tones program into it perfectly, it powers up, vibrates, squelches when you push the reset switch, it just won't recieve any audio. It is almost like a scanner without an antenna. The only other thing I can thing of is a thing called "SP" I can remember if I changed that or not, but a message came on the screen saying that, in order to change this "SP" I need to modify the circut board. I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not.

 

[SCPD]

I am familiar with the engineering mode, i was not aware that you could change the freq split of the actual pager like that? I know you can change from 1 to 2 freqs, but not just jump splits.

 

[mojo3120]

I am familiar with the engineering mode, i was not aware that you could change the freq split of the actual pager like that? I know you can change from 1 to 2 freqs, but not just jump splits.

You can change the band split in engineering mode but you also have to change the RF board inside the pager. This is the Min 3/4 RF board --> http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4097/4926905345_c5ed9da61e_z.jpg (lowband on bottom, vhf high on top). Each bandsplit uses a different RF board.

There's a reason why it's called "Engineering mode" and not "End User mode"

Change it back to low band, and it should work fine. I think the pager gives you an error when powering on if you change the SP, so it sounds like you didn't change it.

 

[ramal121]

Not much of a Min V geek and no experience with the wiz bang software, but would you think maybe by changing the bandsplit it would default all the tuning data? Major ouch!

 

[mojo3120]

Not much of a Min V geek and no experience with the wiz bang software, but would you think maybe by changing the bandsplit it would default all the tuning data? Major ouch!

This part of the software was never meant to be accessed by the end user. Not really any need to make it user friendly or anything for the Moto techs/engineers. I'm sure it was written with the assumption that anyone using it knows exactly what they're doing.


theclinton - Send me your codeplug and I'll take a look at it for you. (Read the pager, then click file, save as)

 

[quickcall6]

This part of the software was never meant to be accessed by the end user. Not really any need to make it user friendly or anything for the Moto techs/engineers. I'm sure it was written with the assumption that anyone using it knows exactly what they're doing.


theclinton - Send me your codeplug and I'll take a look at it for you. (Read the pager, then click file, save as)

Mojo were you able to figure out what went wrong here? That was good info about needing to modify the RF board in order to change the band split...I'd always wondered how people pulled that off.

 

[SCPD]

Mojo were you able to figure out what went wrong here? That was good info about needing to modify the RF board in order to change the band split...I'd always wondered how people pulled that off.

I would be scared to do it myself. Don't feel like frying a $400 piece of equipment. Is the pager working yet?