Programming a Minitor Pager on the Cheap - DIY Style Write Up

[Gary12111979]

The software for the Minitor 3 & 4 has to be purchased from Motorola.

Thanks i have found that out when i e-mailed motorola.

 

[hotwired]

Does anyone know which pins are needed when using the 9-Pin serial plug that N2ZPY used for programming the minitor v. I already have the kenwood programming cable so that looks the way for me to go. I like the idea of a phone jack. Cheap and simple.

 

[whitesox4life]

Wirelessly posted (LGE-VX9100/1.0 UP.Browser/6.2.3.2 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

i am now planning on using my programming cable for the 2pin kenwood portables to program the minitors...where can i find the jack that will fit the smaller of the 2 pins on the cable...also, does anyone know the pinout on the kenwood cable?

 

[subywagon]

Awesome thread. Took me a little while to get it right. I was hesitant because of the warnings on the cable to not let windows auto install so I tried working around it, to no avail. Finally, after much frustration I let windows auto install the drivers. 30 seconds and two tries later (had the Tx & Rx switched) Everything was working fine. Minitor V worked fine. IV should be fine too once I get the software. Thanks to all for your posts, advice, hints etc. I have one follow up question though. I may have to try and upgrade the firmware on my Min v. Anyone have ideas how to add the +5V necessary? Can I just wire in a 9V batt? if so what do i do with the neg terminal? wire it to the ground? leave it off? Any help with this would be great!

 

[K5RYA]

subywagon, check out this site. it may have the answers you are looking for. i never upgraded the firmware on my minitor using this method. the only reason i ever started this was simply to change to different audio alerts, cause i was sleeping through the ones my department had set on it. i have since moved and am no longer at that department and don't have a minitor at all anymore. this site has alot more good info on the minitors:

Minitor Programmer (radioetcetera)

 

[NCFire11]

The USB that you plugged it into always has a 3.3 and a 5v lead on it somewhere, it just may need finding but its there somewhere, be it on the scanner programmer or somewhere else.

 

[louis2322]

Just built mine
Total Cost: 47.80 w/a few spare pins
FYI: You cant match tx to tx you must match rx to tx on the V or else you will get the connection error, if someone hasnt figured it out by now

 

[NCFire11]

TX on the usb device to RX on the pager, RX on the usb to TX on the pager.

What did you make your spare pins out of? I made some out of very small nails, but im looking for something better.

 

[K5RYA]

i simply took apart a connector i found at a electronics store.

 

[mt1000ff]

Kenwood cable

Here are the pics of the adapter base that I made. Crude but it works. The programming cable is for my Kenwood radios so I just needed to match the pins up.

Kevin

I know this is an old thread but I just found it. Kevin, what leads did you connect to which pins on the Minitor 3. I need to update my pager and add some features.
Thanks
Tim

 

[camsdad]

Wow! what a deal. Found my local RS had a 20-047 cable on the clearance shelf. The salesman stated that he was happy to see this cable go. I built one of these programmers up following your instructions for less than 30 bucks.
Just reprogrammed both a Minitor III and IV using the Windows Minitor IV software.
Rock on!

 

[tjacks34]

So i made a programmer two different ways one with the radio shack programming cable $35 and one with a usb to ttl cable off ebay $7 I would recommend the usb off ebay way cheaper and looks alot cleaner. I used a an old charger and removed the circuit board and replaced with a sheet of hard flat plastic i left the regular pins and springs just moved them to where they needed to be. I then got some copper tape and placed on plastic board and then soldered the usb wire directly to that. Works great and looks great. So total cost for me $7 if you dont have an extra charger thats another $30 but i would recommend getting the charger its much easier.

heres the usb to ttl cable
2 x PL2303 USB/TTL/RS232 Serial Port Converter Adapter - eBay (item 220692873524 end time Dec-05-10 20:00:01 PST)

 

[Dygear]

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles...iles/MINITOR V software 1.7.2.zip?localeId=33 the original software link page changed.

I just wanted to say thank you for the link, and thanks to the OP for the guide. I think I'll give this a go.

 

[Dygear]

Minitor Programmer (radioetcetera)

That's also a pretty awesome guide there. As I don't own the pager tho (It's my departments), I can't do that.

[To the mod that's reading this message, I posted another message before that was moderated also because it was under the 3 posts point. If you could merge these two posts, I would appreciate it. You can also delete this note. (Yes, I'm a real person and not a spam bot.)]

 

[KC2RQO]

Programming cable

This is a great thread and it is greatly appreciated. My only problem is that I can't seem to find the Radio Shack cable anywhere. Do you know if they have stopped making them? Is there any place I can buy them or if there is any replacement that would work in place of theirs etc?
73

 

[tjacks34]

to kc2rqo
heres a cheaper alternative instead of the radio shack cable. its called a usb to ttl converter heres the site i get them from
2 x PL2303 USB/TTL/RS232 Convert Serial Cable Connector [TTLcable] - $11.99 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce

 

[KC2RQO]

Alright that looks good, thanks for the help, much appreciated.

 

[K5RYA]

Glad to see this thread is still helping others.

KC2RQO - it would appear from other posts in this thread that this cable is becoming harder to come by. Strange, since RS should offer it both in-store and online because even their latest model scanners still use it. But as tjacks34 noted, you don't particularly need this cable, any TTL-Serial or TTL-USB(Serial) will work just fine.

 

[krokus]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.973 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Don't forget that the RS USB programming cable is actually from GRE, and is available directly from them, and their dealers.

 

[gunz2000]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9300/5.0.0.846 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/107)

I have a Maxton RPC-M300 programming cable with a built in RIB, one of the lines off of it is a 1/8 stereo jack, would that work to interface to the computer ?
Thanks