Really old school question - STX portables

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

great radio back in the day. STX821 was the NPSPAC version. You could get a Securenet option that worked well. The radios were chunky but performed. The 800 rebanding mandate killed them. But conventional operation , including simplex, still good to go.

 

[MTS2000des]

My 821 had every system in the state. It was one of the easier subscribers to program. We also had many in service on our now long defunct Smartnet .89x system until rebanding. All were replaced with XTS2500RBs except those that were squirreled away in desk drawers and cabinets.
We had no inventory control in those days. When I got here 10 years ago, implemented MCM CommShop 360, so we know who the hoarders are.

 

[redbeard]

You guys are old enough to have had a little more fun than I did. By the time I learned what trunking was in the mid-90s, our county was installing it's first Smartnet system and handing out Spectras and MTS2Ks to all the depts. I recall playing with the new mobiles in my VFD's trucks before the system was turned on and finding the old Motorola talkaround channel and chatting with some city cops who were as nosy as I was and fooling with their new radios as well. It would be a long time before I used anything but a scanner to listen with; Hamvention flea market didn't look like it was sponsored by Motorola like it does today.

 

[ecps92]

Pretty sure I loaded my last one with 16 personalities with 15 TG's* each, all on the same system.

The 16th slot on each personality was the "ATG", so if I remember correctly I could listen to a total of 20 TG's at a time (the 15 I assigned that ATG plus the 5 in the scanlist). It took a lot of thinking to monitor stuff in those days. And this was all on a Type 2 system.

or program 16 as a Type I (if you knew the math) and it would scan all the TG's within that Block

 

[MTS2000des]

You guys are old enough to have had a little more fun than I did. By the time I learned what trunking was in the mid-90s, our county was installing it's first Smartnet system and handing out Spectras and MTS2Ks to all the depts. I recall playing with the new mobiles in my VFD's trucks before the system was turned on and finding the old Motorola talkaround channel and chatting with some city cops who were as nosy as I was and fooling with their new radios as well. It would be a long time before I used anything but a scanner to listen with; Hamvention flea market didn't look like it was sponsored by Motorola like it does today.

My employer has had Motorola trunking since 1987, we actually had two separate Smartnet I systems, one for the north end and one for the south, and in 1992, Motorola merged the two into one 9 site simulcast analog system. When I got here 10 years ago, that system was still on the air, though it was in "hospice care" with MSF5000 and Quantars, an MTC3600 controller, and a room full of equipment (that CEB room is now our 911 directors office!), and it was a daily battle keeping it alive.

The first radios were all STXs, and mobiles were a mix of Syntor X9000s and Spectras. Until the late 2000s, most SUs were still those original radios. Jedis started showing up 1997-2003 but STXs would not die and my predecessors kept a rolling stock of parts including DES-XL modules (yes, we had 5 of our 14 channels secure capable), housings and those controller boards, display modules, etc. All of that went into the trash when I got here and wish I would have saved it looking back just for historical purposes but I was under a mandate to "clean up" a pig sty and being the new guy wasn't about to put up any resistance.

 

[KevinC]

or program 16 as a Type I (if you knew the math) and it would scan all the TG's within that Block

Know the math? Pretty sure I’m the guy that figured out the Type 1 to Tyoe 2 conversion. I still have my cheat sheets with every Type 2 TG and it’s Type 1 fleet/subfleet companion.

 

[dispatchgeek]

My employer has had Motorola trunking since 1987, we actually had two separate Smartnet I systems, one for the north end and one for the south, and in 1992, Motorola merged the two into one 9 site simulcast analog system. When I got here 10 years ago, that system was still on the air, though it was in "hospice care" with MSF5000 and Quantars, an MTC3600 controller, and a room full of equipment (that CEB room is now our 911 directors office!), and it was a daily battle keeping it alive.

The first radios were all STXs, and mobiles were a mix of Syntor X9000s and Spectras. Until the late 2000s, most SUs were still those original radios. Jedis started showing up 1997-2003 but STXs would not die and my predecessors kept a rolling stock of parts including DES-XL modules (yes, we had 5 of our 14 channels secure capable), housings and those controller boards, display modules, etc. All of that went into the trash when I got here and wish I would have saved it looking back just for historical purposes but I was under a mandate to "clean up" a pig sty and being the new guy wasn't about to put up any resistance.

I agree with @redbeard , I think the people before me had just a little bit more fun. I am glad I came in just early enough as a snot nosed fresh out of high school kid who got to sit at a big "buttons and lights" Zetron console and be some of the last to dispatch off of punch cards. I've long since moved off the dispatch floor, but I wish I would have gotten to wrench on the cool stuff. So much of what I do today feels almost like "IT plus."

 

[MTS2000des]

I don't miss the days of CEB troubleshooting, USCIs, MGEGs, and all the old stuff like doing mod comps on the MSFs. Astro 25 just hums along, everything works or it doesn't, and it tells you what to do when it's not happy. We had button/LEDs until 2003. It took people with actual competence and skill sets to both implement and maintain.

The biggest headache were the old Efratom rubidium frequency standards. I don't miss those either.

 

[Echo4Thirty]

I don't miss the days of CEB troubleshooting, USCIs, MGEGs, and all the old stuff like doing mod comps on the MSFs. Astro 25 just hums along, everything works or it doesn't, and it tells you what to do when it's not happy. We had button/LEDs until 2003. It took people with actual competence and skill sets to both implement and maintain.

The biggest headache were the old Efratom rubidium frequency standards. I don't miss those either.

Dont forget to Mupple your COIM...

 

[KevinC]

Know the math? Pretty sure I’m the guy that figured out the Type 1 to Tyoe 2 conversion. I still have my cheat sheets with every Type 2 TG and it’s Type 1 fleet/subfleet companion.

Small snippet of the conversion chart.

 

[wa8pyr]

Know the math? Pretty sure I’m the guy that figured out the Type 1 to Tyoe 2 conversion. I still have my cheat sheets with every Type 2 TG and it’s Type 1 fleet/subfleet companion.

I used that formula to program up an old 800 MHz Visar for RX only....

 

[KevinC]

I used that formula to program up an old 800 MHz Visar for RX only....

You're welcome!

 

[KevinC]

If you notice, the sheet I posted has no even TG's. That's because almost no systems used evens due to only the odd TG's were available for Priority Monitor.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

My employer has had Motorola trunking since 1987, we actually had two separate Smartnet I systems, one for the north end and one for the south, and in 1992, Motorola merged the two into one 9 site simulcast analog system. When I got here 10 years ago, that system was still on the air, though it was in "hospice care" with MSF5000 and Quantars, an MTC3600 controller, and a room full of equipment (that CEB room is now our 911 directors office!), and it was a daily battle keeping it alive.

The first radios were all STXs, and mobiles were a mix of Syntor X9000s and Spectras. Until the late 2000s, most SUs were still those original radios. Jedis started showing up 1997-2003 but STXs would not die and my predecessors kept a rolling stock of parts including DES-XL modules (yes, we had 5 of our 14 channels secure capable), housings and those controller boards, display modules, etc. All of that went into the trash when I got here and wish I would have saved it looking back just for historical purposes but I was under a mandate to "clean up" a pig sty and being the new guy wasn't about to put up any resistance.

Unless you busted a knob off, the STX would keep on going. The weak point was the battery plate. The screws on the bottom of the housing would loosen up a bit and the TX would become noisy. A quick twist with a screwdriver and it was on its way back to service.

They did have some RX audio quality problems that were due to some lousy engineering decisions. Crossover distortion due to weak bias (slightly lower battery current on RX) on the audio PA stage and a lousy squeaky 50 cent speaker that was chosen for SPL and not for audio fidelity. Both fixable in the field if you knew the secret sauce.

 

[MTS2000des]

We had what our officers called "court mikes" which Moto called "trumpet" mikes. Remember those? They had internal antennas for 800MHz and a top mounted speaker element.