• 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 Quantar

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jun 11, 2014
Messages
41
Location
Palmerton, PA
Good Morning everyone,

My dad W3NTT recently passed away and left me with a brand new Quantar repeater for ham radio. I myself am K3ALG. So I am sitting here programming it and I want it to activate on "tone" only and not 'tsql" I have changed pretty much all the settings and still cant get it to work.

Aside from that, do these do any sort of courtesy tone?

Thanks guys in advance.
 

K4EET

Chaplain
Joined
Feb 18, 2015
Messages
2,124
Location
Severn, Maryland, USA
Aaron,

Seeing that nobody has responded to you yet, I thought that I would say something. I am an ex-Motorola engineer from the 1980s and used to work with Quantars albeit with a manual in hand and the plant to back me up when needed.

But first let me offer my sincere condolences as a minister for the recent loss of your father. You and your family will be in my prayers. With your father's passing, have you considered applying for his Amateur Radio callsign to keep it alive? I thought that I would mention that in case you were not aware that you could do that. At the same time you notify the FCC of your father's passing, you could also apply for his callsign, if desired. His callsign, W3NTT, is a great callsign for morse code since NTT is dah-dit/dah/dah (very short and quick to send). But enough on that...

As for the Quantar, if you plan on setting it up as a repeater in your hometown or even at your house, it will need to be frequency coordinated by the Area Repeater Coordination Council (Home | ARCC) if it is activated on ham frequencies. If you activate it on business band frequencies, well that will depend on what service you license it under as to what all and who all will be involved with the process of bringing it online.

Finally, you say that you "still can't get it to work." What exactly do you mean by that? With respect to asking about tones, it is also not clear to me exactly what you are wanting to do. One thing I might mention, if you are not familiar with the programming software for Quantars, all kinds of things can go wrong where you could potentially cause unintentional interference to other radio users. So please be extremely careful in what you do. Likewise, duplexers are not easy to tune and I don't know what type of test equipment you may have to insure that everything is functioning correctly. And the laundry list goes on and on... LOL!

If I may ask, how did your father happen to come upon a "brand new Quantar repeater for ham radio"? Was he by any chance associated with a Motorola Service Shop (MSS)? Us Motorola guys seem to be everywhere! LOL!

73 my friend, Dave K4EET
 

mikewazowski

Forums Manager/Global DB Admin
Staff member
Forums Manager
Joined
Jun 26, 2001
Messages
13,457
Location
Oot and Aboot
No courtesy tone. If you want one, you'll have to add it externally.

For PL only operation, I have under Configuration/Channel Information:

Analog RX Activation - Carrier and PL/DPL
Analog Rptr Activation - Carrier and PL/DPL
Analog Rptr Hold-In-Carrier and PL/DPL
 

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,224
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
A Quantar can indeed to courtesy beeps, a friend set up a USCG repeater with it and he mentioned some of the So Cal forestry Quantars are set up with courtesy beeps. The cute thing to do is have a two tone beep where it goes high to low for analog and low to high when in P25 mode. My friend says it was a bit of a pain to figure out and you must have a late version EPIC card.

No courtesy tone. If you want one, you'll have to add it externally.

For PL only operation, I have under Configuration/Channel Information:

Analog RX Activation - Carrier and PL/DPL
Analog Rptr Activation - Carrier and PL/DPL
Analog Rptr Hold-In-Carrier and PL/DPL
 

Teotwaki

Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
402
Location
SoCal
Thanks. My guess would be some wildcard programming.


Sorry for the long delay in responding. I had to hunt for a text version of the last codeplug which was updated in 2015 to activate the battery revert feature. I originally built the codeplug in 2011 and have forgotten a lot about how I made the Epic card jump through some hoops. I think that the 4 wire card was also required to make the tones work. At the moment I don't have a new version of the Quantar s/w that's compatible with Windows 7. The last of my old XP machines died so at the moment I am stuck without the Quantar RSS. I may have to go to PRC guy's house to use his laptop and RSS to look at the actual code plug file and jog my memory about creating the tones.

Here is the text version of the code plug file but it looks incomplete to me as I am not seeing the timing parameters I needed to generate the tones.

BASE STATION PRODUCTS Codeplug Report
02/11/2015, 07:24:05 PM

STATION CONFIGURATION

SYSTEM TYPE CONVENTIONAL
SERIAL NUMBER
STATION NAME
HARDWARE PLATFORM QUANTAR
RX FREQUENCY BAND 1 VHF_R1 132-154
RX FREQUENCY BAND 2 NONE
PA/EXCITER FREQ. BAND VHF_R1 132-154
PA POWER RATING 125 Watts
WIRELINE 4-WIRE
WILDCARD DISABLED
POWER SUPPLY AC HIGH
BATTERY TYPE LEAD_ACID_LIN
STATION TYPE ASTRO CAI CAPABLE
INTELLIREPEATER FREQ NONE
FREQUENCY REFERENCE INTERNAL - STANDARD
SIMULCAST DISABLED
MULTI-CODED SQUELCH DISABLED
MRTI INTERFACE DISABLED
SITE NUMBER 1
SCANNING RECEIVER DISABLED
MAIN/STANDBY DISABLED

WIRELINE CONFIGURATION

WIRELINE OPERATION 4 WIRE FULL DUPLEX
CONSOLE PRIORITY(6809) DISABLED
REMOTE CONTROL TYPE ASTRO
TRC INPUT LINE 1
OUTBND ANALOG LNK TIMER 120 sec
COMPARATOR NONE
FALL BACK IN-CABINET DISABLED
FALL BACK TIME 0 msec
STATUS TONE DISABLED
STATUS TONE FREQ 2175 Hz
WIRELINE SQUELCH DISABLED
SQUELCH THRESHOLD - 50 dBm
SQUELCH HYSTERESIS 1 dB
RX SECURENET/ASTRO TO WL DISABLED
EQUALIZATION DISABLED

TRC: HLGT FREQUENCY 2175 Hz
AUTO LINE CTRL DISABLED
TX NOTCH FILT DISABLED
RX NOTCH FILT DISABLED
LLGT UNDETECT 150 msec
ASTRO: WL INTERFACE V.24 HYBRID
ANALOG LNK CHK DISABLED
DIGITAL LNK CHK DISABLED
EXT XMIT CLOCK DISABLED
MODEM RX LEVEL 0 To -28 dBm
MODEM TX LEVEL -14 dBm
RT/RT CONFIG DISABLED

ACCESS CODE TABLE INFORMATION

ACCESS TABLE # 1
RX SQUELCH TYPE
RX PL/DPL CODE
TX SQUELCH TYPE
TX PL/DPL CODE
ASTRO Carrier Squelch NORMAL
RX ASTRO ACCESS CODE
TX ASTRO ACCESS CODE
Transmit Using Last NAC DISABLED
Expiration Time 5

CHANNEL INFORMATION

CHANNEL NUMBER 1
RX1 FREQUENCY
RX2 FREQUENCY 0.000000
TX FREQUENCY
TX IDLE FREQ.
MODULATION TYPE ANALOG/ASTRO CAI
TX RATED DEVIATION 5.000
RECEIVE CHANNEL BW NARROW 12.5
CALL SIGN
CALLSIGN OVER WL DISABLED
ACCESS CODE TABLE 1
CARRIER SQL TRANSITION NORMAL
ANALOG RX ACTIVATION SC=Carrier and PL/DPL
ANALOG RPTR ACTIVATION SC=Carrier and PL/DPL
ANALOG RPTR HOLDIN SC=Carrier and PL/DPL
ANALOG RPTR ACCESS NONE
TX POWER OUT 125
TX POWER OUT/BATTERY 62
WIRELINE TOT 120
LOCAL TOT 0
RPTR TOT 60
MRTI TOT 0
ALARM OVER AIR ENABLED
ALARM TONE OVER WL ENABLED
PRE-EMPHASIS ENABLED
DE-EMPHASIS ENABLED
HI-PASS FILTER ENABLED
RPTR DOD 2
RPTR AUDIO HOLD-OFF 0
COMPANDER DISABLED
NOISE CANCELLER DISABLED
MRTI OPERATION DISABLED
RCV SIGNAL INVERSION DISABLED
PTT PRIORITY W>R>M>D>L
ANALOG RPTR BOOST ENABLED

RF CONFIGURATION

REPEATER OPERATION REPEATER
MAX DEVIATION 92 %
LOW SPEED DEVIATION 17.0 %
ANTENNA RELAY DISABLED
ANTENNA RELAY DELAY 30 msec
CALL SIGN INTERVAL 30 min
STRTP LAST ACTIVE CHAN DISABLED
STARTUP CHANNEL 1
ASTRO FADE TOLERANCE 3 FRAMES
ASTRO RDLAP: REPEAT DISABLED
WIRELINE DOD 0 sec
ASTRO SIMUL TX FILTER NARROW PULSE
ANALOG SIMUL REV BUR INTERNAL
SECURENET: DET FADE 80 msec
FADE EOM TIMER 80 msec
FAST KEY-UP DISABLED

SCAN LIST CONFIGURATION

SCAN ON AT RESET DISABLED SCAN DELAY 3000 msec.
PRIORITY CHANNEL NONE PRIORITY SCAN DELAY 3000 msec.
FLOATING PRIORITY OFF SCAN SAMPLE TIME 30 msec.
CHANNEL MARKING OFF PRI RECHECK TIME 500 msec.
RX QUALIFY TIME 250 msec.
RESUME SCAN TIMER 2000 msec.

CHANNEL SCAN TX SLAVE CHANNEL SCAN TX SLAVE
1 DISABLED DISABLED



--------------------------------------


This also - WILDCARD VERSION 00 01
 

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,224
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
I just noticed on one of the CPS screens, looks like Motorola made a mistake and misspelled squelch as "squelsh". Otherwise I have used the repeater in question with Teotwaki's programming and it has a courtesy beep and its different between analog and P25.
 

N4DES

Retired 0598 Czar ÆS Ø
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
2,386
Location
South FL
I emailed the codeplug to PRCGuy and he took some screenshots for me to share here. There may be better ways to accomplish the goal but this config has been in operation about 9 years without a hiccup.






View attachment 91659

Those are some awesome screenshots, but is this an amateur radio CP? If so why is the call sign interval set to 30 minutes and not 10 minutes?
 

Teotwaki

Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
402
Location
SoCal
Those are some awesome screenshots, but is this an amateur radio CP? If so why is the call sign interval set to 30 minutes and not 10 minutes?

Hi N4DES,

Amateur and commercial equipment adhere to FCC rules. Federal Government equipment is regulated by the NTIA.

I can't claim to have ever read the NTIA manual, I just set the interval to what the Comms folks specified at the time.


Jim
 

N4DES

Retired 0598 Czar ÆS Ø
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
2,386
Location
South FL
Hi N4DES,

Amateur and commercial equipment adhere to FCC rules. Federal Government equipment is regulated by the NTIA.

I can't claim to have ever read the NTIA manual, I just set the interval to what the Comms folks specified at the time.


Jim

Well that's why I asked the question as to where the CP came from. If you programmed it for NTIA then just follow their guidance.
 

Teotwaki

Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
402
Location
SoCal
Well that's why I asked the question as to where the CP came from. If you programmed it for NTIA then just follow their guidance.

PRCGuy and I went to a fair amount of effort to share some good technical information from a Federal Government repeater.

Early on, in the fourth post in this thread it was clearly stated that this code plug information was for a Federal repeater; yet you still asked the ID question based on your incorrect assumption this was for Amateur radio. Before you advise me about following NTIA guidance I suggest you learn to read and understand the thread topic before posing incorrect questions or offering unqualified advice.
 

msingewald

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
May 28, 2003
Messages
312
Location
Norwalk, CT
This was a big help in my project. I was using a Northcomm ECM to get courtesy tones and some control over channels and TX Inhibit, but I had some trouble with the repeater transmit dropping for a split second after it played the courtesy tone.

So I ditched some of the tables needed for the ECM and I am using this method for the tones. However, I also needed a "gated" PL to only transmit PL when the receiver was active with a valid signal. Ended up putting that function and the tones into the same table and it works perfectly. I had to add a second table to get the correct hangtime since the transmit seems to drop immediately after playing the tones with your method. I want a 3 second hangtime after the tones.

Now I can still change channels and inhibit the transmitter by sending DTMF to the ECM.

I can share my tables if anyone is interested.



I emailed the codeplug to PRCGuy and he took some screenshots for me to share here. There may be better ways to accomplish the goal but this config has been in operation about 9 years without a hiccup.

View attachment 91654
View attachment 91656

View attachment 91658

View attachment 91659
View attachment 91661
View attachment 91662
View attachment 91663
THis
 

vagrant

ker-muhj-uhn
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 19, 2005
Messages
3,149
Location
California
@msingewald You might as well share the file as it is relevant. Threads will become locked after a while of non use and someone may click in from a web search later and wish you had shared it.
 

wa8pyr

Technischer Guru
Staff member
Lead Database Admin
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
6,982
Location
Ohio
Maybe that's why they discontinued the whole Quantar line? LOL!

View attachment 91673

It's an Easter egg. Your next challenge will be to find the hidden scene from Castle Wolfenstein. :D

But on another note, this thread has been enormously helpful; I just bought a UHF Quantar to use as my UHF ham repeater (the MSF5000 will become the spare).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top