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Radius programming for repeater use.

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darrelhillman

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San Juan, PR
Hi friends. This is my first thread here in Radio Reference. I thank you all for the opportunity. I am combining 2 Radius M120 as a repeater with an interface cable, for GMRS frequencies. The question is if I want the repeater to Rx in 467.650 and Tx in 462.650 with PL codes, how do I program the Tx frequency of the Rx radio and the Rx frequency of the Tx mobile radio??? Does the Rx mobile is simplex and the Tx radio the 5MHz shift? Please reply if you can understand what I am asking. Thanks in advance.

Darrel
 

WB0VHB

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Messages
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Location
Mt. Union, Iowa
Hi friends. This is my first thread here in Radio Reference. I thank you all for the opportunity. I am combining 2 Radius M120 as a repeater with an interface cable, for GMRS frequencies. The question is if I want the repeater to Rx in 467.650 and Tx in 462.650 with PL codes, how do I program the Tx frequency of the Rx radio and the Rx frequency of the Tx mobile radio??? Does the Rx mobile is simplex and the Tx radio the 5MHz shift? Please reply if you can understand what I am asking. Thanks in advance.

Darrel

You have the correct frequencies listed for programming the repeaters radios. For the repeater transmitter, it's receive frequency can be the same as the transmit or any frequency you want. The repeater controller should not be wired to even expect anything coming from the repeater transmitter's receiver.

The repeater receiver can have it's transmit frequency set to blank or receive only. I think if you enter the letter B in the transmit frequency space, it will enter the word blank for you. It's been awhile since seeing M120 programming software.

Your mobile will be programmed to transmit on 467.650 and receive on 462.650.

Hope that answers your question.
 

darrelhillman

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Thank you WB0VHB. In my case the controller is a simple cable that connect the 2 mobiles through the 16 pin accessory plug. That means that the Tx freq. of the Rx radio is blank and the Rx of the Tx radio is also blank? I have a repeater put together by a tech. using an SP50 as receiver and a Maxtrac 50 as Tx, but haven't read the codeplug of both radios. My plan is assemble one with 2- M120. A tech. told me that this radio (M120) have a tendency get out of frequency with time. I hope that with my very seldom use this doesn't happen.
Thank you for your reply, Darrel
 

WB0VHB

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Thank you WB0VHB. In my case the controller is a simple cable that connect the 2 mobiles through the 16 pin accessory plug. That means that the Tx freq. of the Rx radio is blank and the Rx of the Tx radio is also blank? I have a repeater put together by a tech. using an SP50 as receiver and a Maxtrac 50 as Tx, but haven't read the codeplug of both radios. My plan is assemble one with 2- M120. A tech. told me that this radio (M120) have a tendency get out of frequency with time. I hope that with my very seldom use this doesn't happen.
Thank you for your reply, Darrel

I'm not sure I would use a SP50 as a repeater receiver. It might be very suseptable to desense from the transmitter. Two M120 mobiles radios would be a better choice.

Yes, TX freq of the RX radio can be blank or the same frequency as the RX. The RX radio should not have a wire in Pin 3 (PTT) so it wouldn't matter if there was a TX frequency programmed or not.

You will not be able to blank the RX frequency of the TX radio. Some frequency will need to be entered. Your TX radio should only have Pins 3, 7 and most likely Pin 2 connected. To save yourself a little annoyance, you could make sure Pins 15 and 16 of the transmitter radio are not jumpered. That will mute the TX radio speaker so that if some stray signal were received, it wouldn't confuse you.

The reason M120s get off frequency is generally because of poor connection between the two printed circuit boards inside the radio. These boards are connected through a header pin that joins the two boards on both sides of the metal chassis.

All it takes is to remove the screws holding each board in place to remove the boards. Clean the exposed pins with contact cleaner or rubbing alcohol and re-assemble. Make sure the circuit board screws and all fairly tight and snug. Also make sure the silver RF covers are fitting securely.

Good luck with your repeater!

Randy
 

darrelhillman

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Messages
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Location
San Juan, PR
Thank you Randy for the information. I hope you are around when I start putting all this together. The 2nd M120 arrive either today or on monday. I saw a RICK like controller on e-Bay, will that let you know how is your transmission received by the repeater? I use a DRC-200 repeater at home, and it does just that. You can hear a tail to identified if there is some interference with your transmission in your area. I don't need anything to sophisticated but that feature is good to have, so that you can find a spot to improve your transmission from a Handheld.

Thank you for the great information you have shared, I'll keep you all posted.

Darrel
 

darrelhillman

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San Juan, PR
M120 arrived today. I noticed that the radio does have a 16 pin accessory connector but there is no pin configuration choice when I go to the Radio Wide configuration of the RSS. I am using GM300 Version R01.00.00 and it also says Europe in the first screen. Will the problem be the software??? Please reply. Thank you. Darrel
 

WB0VHB

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M120 arrived today. I noticed that the radio does have a 16 pin accessory connector but there is no pin configuration choice when I go to the Radio Wide configuration of the RSS. I am using GM300 Version R01.00.00 and it also says Europe in the first screen. Will the problem be the software??? Please reply. Thank you. Darrel

You have a low tier 8 channel mobile. I think only the 16 channel full signaling GM300s had programmable pins. But it should still work as a repeater since the required pins are programmed by default to do what you want. Software won't fix this problem.

Is this radio going to be your receiver or transmitter?

This web page will tell you what the pins do.

The Definitive Guide to the 16 pin MaxTrac series Option Connector
 

darrelhillman

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San Juan, PR
Thank you WB0VHB

Yes I just noticed that only the expanded logic board can be reprogrammed for pin configuration. My doubt was that the article was written for this type of radio (32 channels), and I frankly don't see the use of having a repeater with 16 channels, specially if there is a duplexer involved that is tied to a very particular frequency.

I will start the cable interconnect in the near future, for 2- M120. The one that arrived I will use it as the TX radio. SN ends in 3xxx, while the Rx radio has a SN that ends with a 7xxx. I think the duplexer that I have is tuned for 462.65000 and 467.65000, so that will be the frequency I will program. I will attach a 3 inch 12V fan to the Tx radio large heat sink. Should I make the fan extract air through the heat sink, or push outside air to the heatsink??? Should the Tx radio go at the bottom of the 3 sections- Rx, Tx and duplexer, (no need of power supply because the boat is already 12V wired), or at the mid section???

Thank you again for confirming my thoughts about the masked logic board not being RSS programmable.

Darrel
 

kayn1n32008

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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

One more point, set your power output to about 50% of rated, even with a fan. If not you WILL smoke the PA
 

darrelhillman

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Thank you. Is it possible to control the power through the software, other that low power, 5 watts. I really don't remember the choices of the power output, or is this something I have to modify in the hardware??? Please reply, thank you again.

Darrel
 

RKG

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I'm late to the party, but what do you intend to do about a duplexer?

If this is an in-band repeater, and you try to run it on two antennas (one for transmit and one for receive), you will almost certainly end up with the transmitter desensing the receiver. A duplexer allows both the transmitter and the receiver to be connected to a single antenna and effectively isolates one from the other.
 

WB0VHB

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Thank you. Is it possible to control the power through the software, other that low power, 5 watts. I really don't remember the choices of the power output, or is this something I have to modify in the hardware??? Please reply, thank you again.

Darrel

You probably don't want to turn the power down that low. There have been reports the output power will not regulate itself very well at that low power. Generally reduce the power by half the normal rating of the radio. This is done via software and there are not any internal controls on the radio for power output.

The output is done in the service radio and PA adjustment menus. Those aren't the exact menu names but should get you close.
 

ramal121

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Any Motorola radio (including the M-120 and GM-300) utilizing a class "C" amplifier should not be turned down beyond 20% of the rated power. Doing so will risk the PA twisting off and making a mess of the nearby spectrum. GR repeaters were designed for short communications, not long winded ham QSOs. Your best bet is to get as much air flow across the PA and hope the final takes it!
 

cmdrwill

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Any Motorola radio (including the M-120 and GM-300) utilizing a class "C" amplifier should not be turned down beyond 20% of the rated power. Doing so will risk the PA twisting off and making a mess of the nearby spectrum. GR repeaters were designed for short communications, not long winded ham QSOs. Your best bet is to get as much air flow across the PA and hope the final takes it!

Actually these radio transmitters must not be reduced below 50% of RATED power.
No less than 60% below rated is much safer, as the transmitter draws close to the same current at the 1/2 power point. So the excess current is wasted as overheating in the final stage causing transistor failure and spurious RF output that causes interference over a wide spectrum of frequencies.

There is a point in a class C RF amplifier that the input current does not decrease when RF power is reduced. You should never exceed this point.
 

darrelhillman

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Location
San Juan, PR
Thank you both. I had use a repeater at home and the conversations with my family are short. Short sentences from both sides, few times a day. This one will be in a boat for safety purposes such as "We are going in" before diving, "we are out", location and so on. I can monitor the heat sink temperature with an HVAC thermometer and decide if I need more cooling. I have programmed a TOT of 90 secs. But I can go down to 60.

Thank you both for the input.

Darrel
 
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