-
To anyone looking to acquire commercial radio programming software:
Please do not make requests for copies of radio programming software which is sold (or was sold) by the manufacturer for any monetary value. All requests will be deleted and a forum infraction issued. Making a request such as this is attempting to engage in software piracy and this forum cannot be involved or associated with this activity. The same goes for any private transaction via Private Message. Even if you attempt to engage in this activity in PM's we will still enforce the forum rules. Your PM's are not private and the administration has the right to read them if there's a hint to criminal activity.
If you are having trouble legally obtaining software please state so. We do not want any hurt feelings when your vague post is mistaken for a free request. It is YOUR responsibility to properly word your request.
To obtain Motorola software see the Sticky in the Motorola forum.
The various other vendors often permit their dealers to sell the software online (i.e., Kenwood). Please use Google or some other search engine to find a dealer that sells the software. Typically each series or individual radio requires its own software package. Often the Kenwood software is less than $100 so don't be a cheapskate; just purchase it.
For M/A Com/Harris/GE, etc: there are two software packages that program all current and past radios. One package is for conventional programming and the other for trunked programming. The trunked package is in upwards of $2,500. The conventional package is more reasonable though is still several hundred dollars. The benefit is you do not need multiple versions for each radio (unlike Motorola).
This is a large and very visible forum. We cannot jeopardize the ability to provide the RadioReference services by allowing this activity to occur. Please respect this.
Programming a Minitor Pager on the Cheap - DIY Style Write Up
- Thread starter K5RYA
- Start date
- Status
Good afternoon,
I have reviewed this and I must say GREAT WORK, I now have a couple of questions..... I am in an area that is low band, at least for now; inside my apartment coverage is spotty. I have an external antenna setup on my amp charger and this weekend I added a connector to the basic charger to be able to add an external antenna at some point (its still a work in progress.) what I am trying to figure out is if anyone has used their charger base to make a programming base and if so, how did you add the "springs" or metal (copper?) "Fingers" to access the proper pins? Was there any significant redesigning of the board or the existing wide finger (this is the one that would be in position 3 if you look at the above diagram, between GND and RX)
I don’t yet want to butcher my charger, without having at least one as a backup. I have located some of the needed parts, but still working on the rest.
This is a great thread, I’m glad to see that I am not the only one that has beaten their head against the wall over these pagers. My department doesn’t supply them, we need to get our own and having the flexibility to program them is wonderful!
Thanks!!
I have reviewed this and I must say GREAT WORK, I now have a couple of questions..... I am in an area that is low band, at least for now; inside my apartment coverage is spotty. I have an external antenna setup on my amp charger and this weekend I added a connector to the basic charger to be able to add an external antenna at some point (its still a work in progress.) what I am trying to figure out is if anyone has used their charger base to make a programming base and if so, how did you add the "springs" or metal (copper?) "Fingers" to access the proper pins? Was there any significant redesigning of the board or the existing wide finger (this is the one that would be in position 3 if you look at the above diagram, between GND and RX)
I don’t yet want to butcher my charger, without having at least one as a backup. I have located some of the needed parts, but still working on the rest.
This is a great thread, I’m glad to see that I am not the only one that has beaten their head against the wall over these pagers. My department doesn’t supply them, we need to get our own and having the flexibility to program them is wonderful!
Thanks!!
ok so all i did was take a phone jack, 6 wires, plugged my kenwood mobile cable in and took the ground, tx, and rx wires and put them on the correct places, funny thing is i can read and write to my minitor 3 using dos software, but cant do anything with windows software, keeps say data communications error. so i tried to read my minitor 5, same message. but i can load up my dos software and read and write to my min 3, only thing is i dont know how to use my dos software, very confusing software
the software said com 1 and 1200 as the speed, thats what i changed the com port to and still nothing
whitesox4life
Member
i am getting ready to use an old Minitor III charging dock and convert it to a programming dock...do I need to provide power to the pager thru the base during programming?
no you will use the power off the batteries in the pager.
ffighter530
Member
Having trouble
I built this programmer and have tried numerous times to get it to work on multiple computers. Made sure COM was set to 1200 and made sure there was continuity between the pins and their corresponding connections on the radio shack programmer. Has anyone had any luck with this? Help please!
I built this programmer and have tried numerous times to get it to work on multiple computers. Made sure COM was set to 1200 and made sure there was continuity between the pins and their corresponding connections on the radio shack programmer. Has anyone had any luck with this? Help please!
I've tried it several times also with no luck. My USB adapter has a port monitoring function, I can see the PPS program transmit '72' to the pager, and I can see the pager respond with '72', but I still get that comm. error. Tried on several computers, some with a real serial port. Same cable, same pager, same PPS program, so why can some get it to work and others can't? Could the pager have a program lockout function, like a switch inside?
sp0tz
Member
DIY Minitor V Programming Cable
Thanks to this thread i was able to build a functional Motorola Minitor V Programming "Kit", using the Radio Shack "USB Scanner Programming Cable". I ran into some problems early on with trying to use a TRS Jack which was the first mentioned method. I went to the local Radio Shack and picked up one of the DIY project enclosures along with the TRS jack. I wired together the project, held it to my Minitor V, read the codeplug from the radio... alas nothing happened.
Not being easily defeated i decided to try my own method. I'll explain in detail how I did it but first, see my see screenshots below. I had to use my iPhone for the pictures so the quality is not top notch but you can see what was done.
First separate the top half of the USB scanner housing. To do this i had to use a flat head screwdriver and pry between where the top and the bottom half of the enclosure met.
Next I used a 30watt iron to heat and remove each of three leads on the one end of the board. Note: this is the side with the Black(ground), Red(TX), White(RX). After removing each of the three leads you may need to heat then quickly tap the circuit board on a hard surface to get rid of the excess solder remaining in each of the holes. De-soldering wick would work if you have some laying around. I didn't so I just tapped it on the table a couple times.
The next step is to use wire cutters to remove one end off of three Alligator Clips and strip the jacket off the ends about 1/8th of an inch. I chose Red, Black and Green so I could easily remember which lead was which.
Now I soldered the exposed ends of the alligator clips into the three holes on the circuit board. The order as seen below from RIGHT to LEFT. (TX then RX then Ground.)
At this point I made sure to trim off any excess wire poking through the bottom of the circuit board and made sure my soldering was set and clean. I put the board back into the orange plastic housing and snapped it back together.
Lastly I took three pins from the D-Sub connector (seen below) and clipped them onto the ends of the Alligator Clips.
And done... All of about 25 minutes and you can save yourself $200.00.
Last word:
I am using Windows 7 32bit on my Asus Netbook. I ignored the warning on the USB scanner programming package and had win7 automatically install the drivers for me. Also I have modified the PPS software to allow for engineering mode and changed my single channel voice storage Minitor V into a dual channel voice storage. =)
If you are getting transmission errors when you try to read the codeplug then be sure to follow all of the suggestions mentioned before this post. I had to set my USB delay to 5 seconds before it would work for me. Others have said that 4 works for them. It sounds like it all depends on your setup.
Total cost for me $50.15 versus $250.00 retail cost is outlined below. You might save yourself a little cash if you use the Alligator clip method first. But whatever works, right?
USB Scanner Programming Cable - Catalog #: 20-047: $34.99
Project Enclosure (3x2x1") - Catalog #: 270-1801: $2.29
1/8" 3-conductor TRS Jack Catalog #: 274-249: $2.99
9-Position Male Crimp D-Sub Connector - Catalog #: 276-1427: $2.19
14" (35.3cm) Insulated Test/Jumper Leads Catalog#: 278-1156: $7.69
Please don't hesitate to shoot me a private message with any questions. Please read ALL of the posts before this one for troubleshooting. Thank you to everyone else who contributed!
Thanks to this thread i was able to build a functional Motorola Minitor V Programming "Kit", using the Radio Shack "USB Scanner Programming Cable". I ran into some problems early on with trying to use a TRS Jack which was the first mentioned method. I went to the local Radio Shack and picked up one of the DIY project enclosures along with the TRS jack. I wired together the project, held it to my Minitor V, read the codeplug from the radio... alas nothing happened.
Not being easily defeated i decided to try my own method. I'll explain in detail how I did it but first, see my see screenshots below. I had to use my iPhone for the pictures so the quality is not top notch but you can see what was done.
First separate the top half of the USB scanner housing. To do this i had to use a flat head screwdriver and pry between where the top and the bottom half of the enclosure met.
Next I used a 30watt iron to heat and remove each of three leads on the one end of the board. Note: this is the side with the Black(ground), Red(TX), White(RX). After removing each of the three leads you may need to heat then quickly tap the circuit board on a hard surface to get rid of the excess solder remaining in each of the holes. De-soldering wick would work if you have some laying around. I didn't so I just tapped it on the table a couple times.
The next step is to use wire cutters to remove one end off of three Alligator Clips and strip the jacket off the ends about 1/8th of an inch. I chose Red, Black and Green so I could easily remember which lead was which.
Now I soldered the exposed ends of the alligator clips into the three holes on the circuit board. The order as seen below from RIGHT to LEFT. (TX then RX then Ground.)
At this point I made sure to trim off any excess wire poking through the bottom of the circuit board and made sure my soldering was set and clean. I put the board back into the orange plastic housing and snapped it back together.
Lastly I took three pins from the D-Sub connector (seen below) and clipped them onto the ends of the Alligator Clips.
And done... All of about 25 minutes and you can save yourself $200.00.
Last word:
I am using Windows 7 32bit on my Asus Netbook. I ignored the warning on the USB scanner programming package and had win7 automatically install the drivers for me. Also I have modified the PPS software to allow for engineering mode and changed my single channel voice storage Minitor V into a dual channel voice storage. =)
If you are getting transmission errors when you try to read the codeplug then be sure to follow all of the suggestions mentioned before this post. I had to set my USB delay to 5 seconds before it would work for me. Others have said that 4 works for them. It sounds like it all depends on your setup.
Total cost for me $50.15 versus $250.00 retail cost is outlined below. You might save yourself a little cash if you use the Alligator clip method first. But whatever works, right?
USB Scanner Programming Cable - Catalog #: 20-047: $34.99
Project Enclosure (3x2x1") - Catalog #: 270-1801: $2.29
1/8" 3-conductor TRS Jack Catalog #: 274-249: $2.99
9-Position Male Crimp D-Sub Connector - Catalog #: 276-1427: $2.19
14" (35.3cm) Insulated Test/Jumper Leads Catalog#: 278-1156: $7.69
Please don't hesitate to shoot me a private message with any questions. Please read ALL of the posts before this one for troubleshooting. Thank you to everyone else who contributed!
Nice guide, maybe you can help me a bit.
I purchased a USB>TTL adapter off of ebay, relatively cheap. It has the following leads coming off of it:
3.3V, TX,RX,GND, 5V. So i rigged up a project box enclosure and everything and set the pins out of it. I tested the pins by hooking up the tx and rx to the 3.3v and 5v instead(just to test). It seemingly worked and i got 5v and 3.3v from the pins coming out of the enclosure.
This is for a Minitor IV btw.
So then i hooked up the tx to tx on my pager and rx to rx and of course gnd to gnd.
Then, using the minitor V pps, and Device Monitoring Studio, i went out to test it. I set the pager on the dock in programming mode and hit read codeplug. The device monitoring studio showed no packets coming back from the pager. I know its a Minitor IV but it still should have shown packets coming back to it?
Also is there any way to check continuity between the pager and the USB>TTL adapter?
Thanks
I purchased a USB>TTL adapter off of ebay, relatively cheap. It has the following leads coming off of it:
3.3V, TX,RX,GND, 5V. So i rigged up a project box enclosure and everything and set the pins out of it. I tested the pins by hooking up the tx and rx to the 3.3v and 5v instead(just to test). It seemingly worked and i got 5v and 3.3v from the pins coming out of the enclosure.
This is for a Minitor IV btw.
So then i hooked up the tx to tx on my pager and rx to rx and of course gnd to gnd.
Then, using the minitor V pps, and Device Monitoring Studio, i went out to test it. I set the pager on the dock in programming mode and hit read codeplug. The device monitoring studio showed no packets coming back from the pager. I know its a Minitor IV but it still should have shown packets coming back to it?
Also is there any way to check continuity between the pager and the USB>TTL adapter?
Thanks
sp0tz
Member
The first thing that comes to mind when reading over the problem you are having is the fact that you are trying to use the Minitor V software with a IV pager. I can't post a link to it here, since its "not free" but with a little research im sure you can locate it. Assuming you have continuity with all of your leads and they are connected up with the USB>TTL it should be working.
I finally got mine to work. What I did was reverse the TX/RX pins going to the pager (Minitor V). I know the schematic mentioned in the first post shows the Data TX (the second hole on the pager) wired into pin 11 of the MAX232 chip and Data RX (the first hole on the pager) wired into pin 12 coming from, and mine was wired exactly like that, but when I reversed the TX/RX wires going to the pager, I got it to work. Maybe this might help someone if this is their problem, it's worth trying.
Gary12111979
Member
Minitor Programmer
I'm just wondering if you use usb instead of RS-232 to TTL level converter you would just need TTL-232R - USB-TTL serial converter cable and use the wires to wire up inside the program nesting ?
I'm just wondering if you use usb instead of RS-232 to TTL level converter you would just need TTL-232R - USB-TTL serial converter cable and use the wires to wire up inside the program nesting ?
whitesox4life
Member
So, i wanna get this right before i ruin a perfectly good Minitor V charging dock. I will be installing a stereo 1/8" jack on the rear of dock.
Ground from jack goes to ground on pager.
TX on jack goes to RX on pager.
RX on jack goes to TX on pager.
Am I correct or did the 2nd post above this confuse me?
Ground from jack goes to ground on pager.
TX on jack goes to RX on pager.
RX on jack goes to TX on pager.
Am I correct or did the 2nd post above this confuse me?
Gary12111979
Member
programing sotware for minitor 4
is there any place you can download this at all i see is the 5 on motorolas webpage for free but that is all ?
is there any place you can download this at all i see is the 5 on motorolas webpage for free but that is all ?
The software for the Minitor 3 & 4 has to be purchased from Motorola.
I wired mine up like the various descriptions said, but it would not work until I reversed the TX and RX wires going to the pager. I made my own 'dock', so the description for using the Motorola dock might be different and might not have the same mistake. Worst case, if it doesn't work all you would need to do is reverse the two wires on that 1/8" jack, shouldn't be a huge deal.
- Status
