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Motorola to END production of CP 200/PR 400 Portable Radios***

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SteveC0625

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Thanks to KevinC for posting the notice. As I said before, I was not doubting the info, but more wondering why /\/\ did not post it to MOL when they sent the notice out the partners, etc.

My EMS squad issues the CP200XLS to all of our EMT's and Medics plus a couple of drivers. We're a low volume squad (less than 300 calls a year), and we've found this radio to be a good value for our people to carry and reliable in our situation. We've had one failure in two years, it was a busted earphone jack. Not bad for $336 each.

I just sent a quote to the Chief for some more of them so I expect we'll be approving at the next Board meeting and ordering them.
 

Avery93

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I'll be kinda sad to see these models go away, particularly the PM and PR400. PM400s are used in most fire apparatus in my county, and we've never had any major problems with them. They're just reliable, dead-simple to operate and inexpensive little radios.

My department also issues PR400s that are used in non-IDLH environments. They have their faults, but for our intended use they are overall the best low-tier portable we have tried. Does anyone know the approximate price difference between the commercial series and the new TRBO series replacements?
 

CSFD390

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The BR40 Is used at the local high school level......in my area. I hate to see the 200/400 line go in general!!!
 

Project25_MASTR

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One of the Moto techs came over to a friends house the other day to try and buy his 5 cp200s…for $20 a piece.

I'm sure when the ht750's are up I'll be getting a visit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

GeorgiaRadios

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Strange CP200 serial number

I heard from a big Moto dealer in Europe they have also received a cancellation memo for the cp200.

I need some help interpreting a serial number on a cp200. Of the 1000's I have dealt with, they begin with 018T followed by the code letters for the year and month. I received one today in a batch of 2013 productions and the serial number was:

018STNA6xx

What the heck does this mean? Was it one that depot reflashed? Thanks
 

KG4INW

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I need some help interpreting a serial number on a cp200. Of the 1000's I have dealt with, they begin with 018T followed by the code letters for the year and month. I received one today in a batch of 2013 productions and the serial number was:

018STNA6xx

What the heck does this mean? Was it one that depot reflashed? Thanks
018 is simply the Accounting Production Code (APC) for the CP200 series, the next letter indicates the factory it was manufactured in (haven't ever seen a list though) followed by the year, month and sequential numbers. On that, when production exceeded 10,000 units (i.e. above 9999) they simply started using leading letters (like A001 and so on and so forth).
 

GeorgiaRadios

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CP200 Serial Numbers

Gotcha on the 018 and then T being the manufacture site and the next being the dates. But in the case of this CP200 that is:

018STNA6xx

T = Year and in my charts its 1993 or 2017? Something is different here. This serial number is both on the sticker and read by the CPS.
 

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ElroyJetson

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DO NOT ASK ME FOR HELP PROGRAMMING YOUR RADIO. NO.
Motorola got a lot of mileage out of that platform but it IS getting rather dated and it's time to move on.

It suffered from one noteworthy design flaw and that is the antenna receptacle mounting system. A bracket soldered to the board is hardly the optimal way to go. It should have been integral to the frame instead.

Torque the antenna too hard and not only will it break the mount away from the PC board, it also often breaks internal traces in the board, and/or breaks component connections, most often resulting in no TX output power, and it's usually a pain to fix OR it can't be fixed at all if the break in the trace occurs in an internal layer. (It's a four layer PC board.)

Motorola of all companies should know not to hard mount antenna receptacles to a PC board. That's an amateur's mistake, and I note, one they haven't made in any of their public safety grade radios for as far back as I can remember.

The chassis should always take the mechanical stresses of the antenna mount. Never the PC board.
 
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Motorola got a lot of mileage out of that platform but it IS getting rather dated and it's time to move on.

It suffered from one noteworthy design flaw and that is the antenna receptacle mounting system. A bracket soldered to the board is hardly the optimal way to go. It should have been integral to the frame instead.

Torque the antenna too hard and not only will it break the mount away from the PC board, it also often breaks internal traces in the board, and/or breaks component connections, most often resulting in no TX output power, and it's usually a pain to fix OR it can't be fixed at all if the break in the trace occurs in an internal layer. (It's a four layer PC board.)

Motorola of all companies should know not to hard mount antenna receptacles to a PC board. That's an amateur's mistake, and I note, one they haven't made in any of their public safety grade radios for as far back as I can remember.

The chassis should always take the mechanical stresses of the antenna mount. Never the PC board.

I agree with you about that. That model has been around for a long time anyway. That is why it has been replaced with the CP200d.
 

ElroyJetson

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DO NOT ASK ME FOR HELP PROGRAMMING YOUR RADIO. NO.
I'm also mystified as to why they still produce the BPR40. A more steaming pile of crap I have never encountered. Seriously? A radio that still has to be tuned using diddle sticks in 2014? A radio with (for some model years) nearly a 100 percent failure rate due to the ceramic filter corrosion issue? (Granted, that's not Moto's fault, that was a supplier problem) A radio that is lucky meet its sensitivity and power output specs (even with good filters) after it's been in the field for a while?

I've changed out so many of those ceramic filters, if I had every one i've changed out they'd probably fill a Skippy peanut butter jar...the large one.

Let's not forget those low quality channel selector switches. They wear out faster than any other type I've ever seen.

The BPR40 is an embarrassment to the good name of Motorola. I would sell a customer ANYTHING else. Even HYT. And to be honest about it, aside from some issues with HYT's programming software locking the computer up so hard that it requires a hardware reset, I have actually found that HYT's radios outperform the competition at the same price point.
 

Project25_MASTR

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ElroyJetson

The Spectra comes to mind...time bomb caps is what we called them. Did the Astro Spectras have the same problem?
 

Kf4mnc

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I'm also mystified as to why they still produce the BPR40. A more steaming pile of crap I have never encountered. Seriously? A radio that still has to be tuned using diddle sticks in 2014? A radio with (for some model years) nearly a 100 percent failure rate due to the ceramic filter corrosion issue? (Granted, that's not Moto's fault, that was a supplier problem) A radio that is lucky meet its sensitivity and power output specs (even with good filters) after it's been in the field for a while?

I've changed out so many of those ceramic filters, if I had every one i've changed out they'd probably fill a Skippy peanut butter jar...the large one.

Let's not forget those low quality channel selector switches. They wear out faster than any other type I've ever seen.

The BPR40 is an embarrassment to the good name of Motorola. I would sell a customer ANYTHING else. Even HYT. And to be honest about it, aside from some issues with HYT's programming software locking the computer up so hard that it requires a hardware reset, I have actually found that HYT's radios outperform the competition at the same price point.

I couldn't agree with you more about the BPR40. A large dealer around me lost their contract with the company I work for because that is all they would push, and they didn't listen to us when we were tired of buying new ones (not worth repairing at a rate of $100). I've since moved to Vertex's line (I know still the mother ship) due to the warranties, outstanding free tech support, and free software. To be fair we have modest needs at best, but the BPR40 is a steaming pile of crap!
 

KG4INW

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Gotcha on the 018 and then T being the manufacture site and the next being the dates. But in the case of this CP200 that is:

018STNA6xx

T = Year and in my charts its 1993 or 2017? Something is different here. This serial number is both on the sticker and read by the CPS.
Oops, I read your post too quickly. That is strange but I have seen typos before.
 

Skypilot007

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ElroyJetson

The Spectra comes to mind...time bomb caps is what we called them. Did the Astro Spectras have the same problem?

One of my Astro Spectras had an issue with the caps. Mine had the bad popping out the speaker just prior to passing audio symptom. Replacing one cap fixed that issue. I them changed the rest of them out.
 
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