Minitor Motorola Minitor V Programming

[K2NEC]

Hi all,

I recently got a minitor 5 from a friend to use for my first aid squad. I have all the frequency information and the tones and everything so I decided I would take it upon myself to program it since we don't have a guy that programs them for our squad. I bought a programming base from ebay (Legit motorola programming base RLN6360) and THIS programming cable. It's supposed to work and it seems others have no problem with it. Today I got the cable and I got the right driver and whatnot. My computer recognizes the cable and the driver. Good! But when I go to read the pager it says communication failed. Before you ask, Yes I put the pager in programming mode, Yes I made sure the right comm port was set. I even tried to change the baud rate because I read that might help. I tried changing the USB delay time too with no luck. I tried this on my Win 7 32x desktop and my Win XP laptop with no luck. I verified that the programming base is getting power to the pins. Is the pager supposed to light up or anything when it is being read/programmed? Anyone have any tips or ideas what might be wrong or why it's not working?
On a side note, the connector on the back of the programming base is an RJ45 but the cable is a smaller RJ11. It fits and it seems like it makes good contact but like I said, others have said they have no problems with the cable which makes me think it's not the cable at fault.
EDIT: Didn't work on my windows 10 laptop either.

 

[ten13]

I, myself, am new in this M. V programming, and one of the mistakes I've made is not putting the pager into programming mode correctly, which you say you have done. Another problem that pops up is the incorrect comm port, requiring a few tries to get it right (and sometimes a change in the Device Manager).

The most obvious issue you bring up is the cable. RJ45 and the RJ11 may "fit" right, but are wired differently. Get the right cable and try again.

 

[dbdunfor]

Hi all,

I recently got a minitor 5 from a friend to use for my first aid squad. I have all the frequency information and the tones and everything so I decided I would take it upon myself to program it since we don't have a guy that programs them for our squad. I bought a programming base from ebay (Legit motorola programming base RLN6360) and THIS programming cable. It's supposed to work and it seems others have no problem with it. Today I got the cable and I got the right driver and whatnot. My computer recognizes the cable and the driver. Good! But when I go to read the pager it says communication failed. Before you ask, Yes I put the pager in programming mode, Yes I made sure the right comm port was set. I even tried to change the baud rate because I read that might help. I tried changing the USB delay time too with no luck. I tried this on my Win 7 32x desktop and my Win XP laptop with no luck. I verified that the programming base is getting power to the pins. Is the pager supposed to light up or anything when it is being read/programmed? Anyone have any tips or ideas what might be wrong or why it's not working?
On a side note, the connector on the back of the programming base is an RJ45 but the cable is a smaller RJ11. It fits and it seems like it makes good contact but like I said, others have said they have no problems with the cable which makes me think it's not the cable at fault.
EDIT: Didn't work on my windows 10 laptop either.

On mine, after I put the pager into programming mode and put it in the base, the programming base's red light comes on steady. Then when you read or write, the light flickers. If the pins are dirty on the pager or if they are not making good contact, I get the communication fail error. And that usually happens a lot. I have to wiggle the pager or hold it in cradle sometimes and that usually takes care of it.

I have the same cradle but mine is connected by a 9 pin serial cable through another interface box.

 

[K2NEC]

Yes I put the pager on C and power on while holding the button down and it acknowledges and goes into program mode. I have verified the comm port that I am using with Device Manager and they match. The cable that I bought claims to work and by other peoples responses on ebay I'd say they have worked. I have already sent the seller a message to try and find out what their side of the story is.
I have tried to wiggle the pager and even press it into the base while it reads and no luck(pins also don't seem dirty). It just comes up with the "Serial Communication-Pager Read FAILED!" Error. But it doesn't just come up with the error. It seems like it is loading because the progress bar moves across and when it comes to the end it says failed. I found that when I unplug the programming cable from the cradle I get the same effect.
My programming base does not have any light on it and I was hoping the pager would make some sort of acknowledgement.
For what it's worth I am powering the pager base with the power cable from the charging base. This shouldn't be a problem. I'm just trying to cover everything here.

 

[buddrousa]

Did you get the right comport picked on the computer

 

[RBMTS]

My guess would be a bad ribless cable. It's not the first time these cheap programming cables have been reported as not working. I'm assuming that you are using the actual driver that came with the cable and not using whatever Windows selects for you??? There is always a remote possibility that the pager codeplug could be hosed. I doubt it but still a possibility. Do you possibly have access to a different pager to try?

 

[K2NEC]

Did you get the right comport picked on the computer

Yes I triple checked that

I also messaged the seller and he said the cable might be defective. He will send me a new cable with an RJ45 on it as well. In the meantime, any other ideas?

 

[K2NEC]

My guess would be a bad ribless cable. It's not the first time these cheap programming cables have been reported as not working. I'm assuming that you are using the actual driver that came with the cable and not using whatever Windows selects for you??? There is always a remote possibility that the pager codeplug could be hosed. I doubt it but still a possibility. Do you possibly have access to a different pager to try?

Good timing LOL! Yea like I said he is gonna send me a new cable. I will update when that comes. I doubt it is the codeplug but like you said, entirely possible. The cable came with instructions and a link to the driver for the cable. This driver was used and installed properly. I don't have one on hand but I might have a friend of mine come over so I can try his.

 

[RBMTS]

Beyond that, you are doing everything correctly by assigning the comm port and putting the pager into programming mode and attempting to read it. Hopefully the replacement cable will work.

One other idea - but it's a long shot. If you are running any type of software firewall protection, try disabling it temporarily. It might be blocking communication or program function in some way. M5 PPS has never had a problem with any of the computers or software I've used it on with firewall protection - but you never know.

Too bad you don't know someone with a RIB that you could test the programming cradle and pager with.

 

[K2NEC]

I was told to even try to install the software in admin mode and that didn't work. My Win XP laptop doesn't have much for firewall protection and that didn't work either. I am completely in the dark on programming these things, and the sooner I get it working the better. Our department still use low band pagers and we might be getting a bunch of them from a retired department soon. If I can program them, it will be brownie points for me

 

[K2NEC]

Update:
I got my new cable and it has an RJ45 plug on it. I tried to read the pager again and no luck. I even uninstalled the driver and reinstalled in case that was the issue. I am now wondering if the base is faulty or maybe there is something wrong with the pager. I am meeting with a friend this week that also has a minitor 5 and I will try to read his pager. If it works, then I know the pager is faulty. If it doesn't then it's the base or it could even still be the cable. I am completely stumped and and a little upset that this hasn't worked out the way I wanted it to. Man I was naive when I thought that this was going to be easy haha.

 

[n3obl]

try this keep seating and reseating with every read attempt. mine is finicky to read pagers.

 

[K2NEC]

When I was reading the pager I pushed it down into the base to make sure it was holding good contact. I even took a small pick and made sure the contacts on the pager were clean. They appeared to be.

 

[chrismol1]

spitballing something here I recall wiggling comport settings around in device manager with my minitor V gave me trouble, FIFO buffers, flow controls, etc and such. Its something Ive had to tweak before with Moto softwares using USB cables. I know you already said you changed the usb timer in the software itself. My old computer is broken I cannot get the exact settings used, I used a TTL usb serial which I litterally hold 3 wires(GND,TX,RX) to the pager contacts and read/write holding breaths in between its janky but it works for my application

 

[K2NEC]

spitballing something here I recall wiggling comport settings around in device manager with my minitor V gave me trouble, FIFO buffers, flow controls, etc and such. Its something Ive had to tweak before with Moto softwares using USB cables. I know you already said you changed the usb timer in the software itself. My old computer is broken I cannot get the exact settings used, I used a TTL usb serial which I litterally hold 3 wires(GND,TX,RX) to the pager contacts and read/write holding breaths in between its janky but it works for my application

Ok I tried to change the comm port from 5 to 2 with no luck. I also disabled FIFO and enabled them. I will try to play with the flow controls. Do you happen to still have that cable? I do remember reading the how to make a minitor 5 programming cable thread. But since I already have the base and the cable, I might as well use what I have. For the price I paid for the base and cable I would have had better luck buying one of the pre made ones on ebay
I'll keep playing with settings see if I can come up with something.

 

[chrismol1]

Its a $5 usb to serial TTL UART a CP2102 chip with wires included off ebay. cp2102 driver. I'd try that driver or some other driver besides the first one you got. I'm going to guess theres a usb-serial ttl chip in that cable, there should be the name printed on the chip inside. I wonder if there is an issue with a chip in the base and the cable=too many chips as dumb as that sounds, we know how much moto gear likes pure serial too much stuff in between, timing issues or whatever, im no expert in that field tho

 

[a417]

If that chip is a prolific 2303HXA...

 

[K2NEC]

I had a friend of mine program the minitor 5 for me. The pager read and took the program properly and the pager works. The programming base also works. Turns out the cable is wrong. The pinout was way off no wonder it didn't work. I fixed the pinout and it still doesn't work.
If anyone has a picture of the right cord or would be willing to part with theirs, send me a PM. I'm about to just get rid of this programming stuff it doesn't even seem it's worth it. It's literally easier to program an MTS2000 LOL!

 

[RocketNJ]

Good old eBay. You get what you pay for....

 

[K2NEC]

Yea I guess so. I had no other choice, I couldn't find any cables online(without spending $50), so it was better than nothing. If I can't get anything working, i'll try to get my money back.