Here are some tips once you find RSS and a programming cable. Despite what everyone says, you will likely not kill your radio with a computer that is too fast. My side gig is currently programming ancient Motorola stuff that everyone else refuses to touch. I have successfully programmed many old Motorola radios, mostly with a 25 year old Pentium III desktop but many with new faster stuff as well, with DOS, Windows 2000 for CPS packages that refuse to run in Windows 11, and Windows 7-11. CPU speed does not actually matter for most RSS packages. I regularly program in DOS based RSS on relatively fast modern machines, in real DOS or DOSbox. I have programmed Motorola’s earliest PC-programmable radios (that use RSS) and have never once had to use anything older than that Pentium III. Just a few days ago I programmed a few HT-600s on my PC I built 6 months ago with DOSbox and a PCIE serial card, running at full 6 GHz CPU speed and default settings.
Here are the things that you absolutely need:
- for Windows-based CPS, compatibility mode may not work. Sometimes you just need a 32 bit machine.
- MMDVM, Windows’ built-in DOS virtual machine does not work for DOS RSS. Issues in serial port support. But DOSbox does work!
- use a real serial port and a RIB. A knockoff RIB should work just fine. I have used both a fake and real RIB and neither give me issues. USB serial adapters cause all kinds of problems.
- if your RIB’s data light is blinking, but programming fails, the issue is in your RIB to radio cable- it is likely wired wrong
- if the RIB data light is not blinking when reading the radio fails, your software or hardware is configured wrong
- sometimes changing nothing and trying again just works
- too fast of a CPU speed will not kill your radio. If you can read from it safely, you can write to it safely. What will corrupt it is unplugging the programming cable midway through writing, so try not to do too janky of a solution with your programming cable
- when it just won’t work no matter what, trying a new PC or making a new programming cable from scratch will help
- check your grounding and fiddle with RIB voltage when communication is intermittent
If you’re located anywhere near me (mid-Michigan) I may be able to help out, but I do have 3 jobs and am a part time student currently so I don’t have the most free time.
