Moto RSS and Virtual PC

[dasnps]

Does anyone know of a way to program a Motorola radio on a Mac using Virtual PC?

I am trying to program a MT2000 using a Ribless cable, through a serial to USB adapter. It is hooked up to a Powerbook G4 and I am running Virtual PC 7 with Windows 2000. I am using Motorola MTSX RSS version 6.

Any help that anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

[fordcobra04]

Someone correct me if im wrong, but RSS requires DOS operating system...

 

[davidbond21]

From what I've read, it has to be pure DOS, and not a DOS Window. The RSS programs were designed in the good ol' days when a 486 processor was lightning quick and as such, the software was designed on these machines and today's computers are too fast, your G4 included, and will not run them correctly. You have to have an actual DOS machine on an x86 to program radios with the RSS. I got my info from here:
http://www.repeater-builder.com/maxtrac/maxtrac-index.html
This page was specifically about the GM 300 Radius, but I think the same may apply to yours.

 

[chrismol1]

do what I did
go on ebay and get urself a $50 pentium laptop thats real old like a musty apple and hook it up with DOS
or craigslist for old computers
hopefully more motorola commercial radios will come out and newer operating systems could handle them

At the moment, all of the guys here's motorolas could use some updating to the times, we need newer LMR products, the XTS series is growing but we need something fresh

 

[dasnps]

I will look into a cheap older PC to use for that. Any suggestions on a model?

 

[pappy1]

Get a windows based laptop that has a slow serial port [ if the port is fast the software will not work] and install msdos 6.22. That is what the manual says to use.

Edit: Use nothing higher than a 486 machine, may have to use a port slowdown software on some 486's.A 386 will be better.

 

[poltergeisty]

Read about this as well. Interesting that slower is better. I guess it all on how the software was made.

As far as pure DOS goes.. you could install pure DOS in Virtualbox on your Mac. http://www.virtualbox.org/

Note: Being the dork that I am, I tried installing Virtualbox on my XP system that has VMWare and it didn't work out. Don't worry about it if you don't have VMWare installed. Maybe I'll install Virtulbox in one of my VMWare machines. :lol:

This is the only Mac I need. http://nothickmanuals.info/doku.php?id=minivmac :lol:

 

[dasnps]

I've ordered a cheap older PC and now I am just waiting for it to come in to try it out. Now I am having another issue with the radio. It came with a Speaker Mic, but when it is connected, I am getting no audio and when I key up the mic to transmit, it doesn't work. Everything works fine on the radio, but it functions like the speaker mic isn't even there. I tried cleaning the gold plates on the radio, but it has had no effect. I compared the pins on the mic that I have to pictures of one online, and mine looks like it is missing one, but I am not sure. The pictures have two rows of four, but mine has a row of three and a row of four, but I don't know if that is the issue. If anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate it.

 

[Grog]

Which radio and which speaker mic?

 

[ab3ai]

If you do a google search on "Barts boot disk" it should bring you to a site that explanes how to make a bootable cdrom that boots to dos. I've used mine on my 1.4GHz P4, on P3s and others with no problem. I don't have the link on hand. I also found how to make a bootable flash drive that works as well.
Hope that helps.

 

[ab3ai]

If you do a google search on "Barts boot disk" it should bring you to a site that explanes how to make a bootable cdrom that boots to dos. I've used mine on my 1.4GHz P4, on P3s and others with no problem. I don't have the link on hand. I also found how to make a bootable flash drive that works as well.
Hope that helps.

 

[dasnps]

The radio i am using is the Motorola MT2000 UHF model, with full keypad and display. I am using the standard Speaker Mic for that model of radio.

 

[Astro25]

Yes, it can (and has been) done on a Mac. I don't think you'd want to go any slower than around HT/JT/Visar RSS though.

CPS I know for a fact will work just fine however.