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repairing maxtrac's

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nym624

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Oct 21, 2009
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I currently have 2 Motorola maxtrac radios. One is a uhf and the other is an 800mhz. The problem i have is that I only need the UHF radio and unfortunately i'm having problems with it (for instance when i try to turn it on sometimes it doesn't fully turn on and kind of glows around the keys) However, i have this 800 maxtrac that i'm never going to use and is just collecting dust (i also think the board's got blanked prior to my receiving it) in either event, is it possible to mix and match the parts of these radios, at all, to help solve my problem?

any ideas/wisdom is much appreciated (i didn't see anything that would answer this question on here or on batlabs so i thought i'd take a stab at asking)

Thanks a lot,
NYM
 
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kb0nly

Guest
WRONG... DPapay..

While the RF board is different the logic board is usable for ANY band of Maxtrac. The front panels will swap with any Maxtrac, except the 900Mhz unit does have some minor differences and the mic jack/volume control pcb is different. But the rest is the same.

An 800Mhz trunking radio front, especially a full feature one with the five buttons and two digit channel display, are quite useful for upgrading other two channel radios to 8, 16, 32 channel units. The escutcheon can be changed so the buttons are labeled correctly, takes only a few minutes.

I parts build a lot of Maxtrac's in the course of a year.
 
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kb0nly

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I'm one of the Maxtrac gurus that wrote some of the articles on the RBTIP website. If you want to email or PM me and i will help out!

Also check this out...

Motorola MaxTrac / Radius / GM300 Index Page

Sounds to me like a faulty logic board. Is it a five pin or 16 pin radio? The accessory/speaker jack on the back of the radio.

What is the 800Mhz radio?

It's easy to make a good working and even more fully featured radio from what you have. I take 16 pin 800Mhz radios all the time and blank their logic board, drop in new firmware, and then pop it into a 5 pin VHF or UHF radio as a 32ch full feature upgrade.
 
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zz0468

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It's easy to make a good working and even more fully featured radio from what you have. I take 16 pin 800Mhz radios all the time and blank their logic board, drop in new firmware, and then pop it into a 5 pin VHF or UHF radio as a 32ch full feature upgrade.

I've done the same... Example, a 900 Maxtrac with two talk groups groups and no conventional turned into a 16 channel conventional. So, some mix-and-match of parts can be done.
 

nym624

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i personally believe that it is a problem with the input board on the back of the radio. reason being is because i dropped the logic board from the UHF into the 800 and had no problems. However, the problem stays when I have the 800 logic in the UHF. So i think it is a problem with power coming from that back board. The one on the UHF board is HLE1687A and the one on the 800 is the HLF4097A Is it possible to simply un-sodder the RF IN and RCVR cables from the UHF & 800 and switch the boards and re-sodder?
 

nym624

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Oct 21, 2009
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okay, so i fixed the radio, now im working on the upgrade process. I did everything according to your site kb0nly. However, im now getting a tone when i turn the radio on (10 seconds or less i think) and then the first channel isn't programmed the way it should be but the 2nd channel is (i was only testing it, i'll try further) but any ideas?
 

wv8mat

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i have a uhf maxtrac and a old low band 39mhz i think and my uhf rx fine but wont tx, can i take parts from the low band to make my uhf tx????? thanks
 

nym624

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imma air on the side of no. Reason being is because the RF board isn't interchangeable between band splits.
 
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kb0nly

Guest
okay, so i fixed the radio, now im working on the upgrade process. I did everything according to your site kb0nly. However, im now getting a tone when i turn the radio on (10 seconds or less i think) and then the first channel isn't programmed the way it should be but the 2nd channel is (i was only testing it, i'll try further) but any ideas?

Go to the radio wide and the acessories, disable the emergency input, that causes a tone at power on. But its only a couple seconds or so.

Also reprogram your channels because errors in programmed data can also cause the tone.
 
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kb0nly

Guest
i have a uhf maxtrac and a old low band 39mhz i think and my uhf rx fine but wont tx, can i take parts from the low band to make my uhf tx????? thanks

Nope... RF Board and PA are band specific... So unless you have a logic board problem, possible since it does control the PA, i would say no.
 
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