That 2nd one in, from the right, looks strangely familiar for some reason.....
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TCA PRC-152a forums, user groups?
- Thread starter wb4sqi
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That 2nd one in, from the right, looks strangely familiar for some reason.....
Yeah,the PRC-6809 doesn't support DPL/DCS encode/decode,which is kinda odd. Not sure why it wouldn't allow you to program VCALL/VTAC channels.
Interesting that you mention the front end being wide open on UHF-AM. Curious, did you have issues with it picking up certain frequencies because they were covered by noise, even with the squelch level set to it's highest level of 16dB?
gtaman
Member
I had mostly the “swirling” audio effect on mine. UHF AM has always been noisy for me. There were a couple freqs that did not play well with my 148. But it could if just been my radio. I had no clue when it was last tuned and hell it had sand all in it 😁.
BigLebowski
Member
Mine was completely unusable on most of the UHF AM I needed and I couldn't squelch it out.
No issues with the Harris which I think is just a better radio overall.
No issues with the Harris which I think is just a better radio overall.
Huh! a rudderless ship, no admins or moderator has responded to my membership request. Of course this is a Facebook forum so probably to be expected.
I'd like to initiate a forum in groups.io but getting notifications to the right places to attract members appears to be my stumbling block at the moment.
Yeah, I can't monitor certain UHF-AM or VHF-AM frequencies at all because those frequencies are covered in noise and they can't be squelched out,but others are just fine. My IC-R20 has no issue with noise on the same frequencies.
Is the Harris an RF-310M-HH by chance?
BTW, the Thales PRC-148/JEM/6809's that are maritime versions, have such bad speaker audio because they use a piezo electric driver instead of a water resistant speaker, that's used in the urban versions. There were a lot of complaints about the speaker audio when using the maritime versions.
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I know someone that had an MBITR as you describe and he took it all apart, tightened all circuit board screws and related hardware and it seemed to cure the RFI/birdie problem. But there is a published list of potential frequencies that may have internally generated interference. The Thales MBITR is the first multiband SDR radio ever designed to my knowledge and it converts all receive frequencies up to around 1700MHz before digitizing and processing. Its really complicated inside.
The very first commercially produced SDR hand held radio was the Thales MSHR in VHF, which is the little brother to the MBITR. Its also probably the rarest radio you can find for military radio collectors, nearly all were destroyed due to the internal Type 1 encryption. There are a small handfull of these in collector world with the Type 1 encryption removed.
To keep this on topic, some of the cheap Chinese handhelds are SDRs and possibly the radio modules used inside the TCA and TRI look alike radios. If so that and the outside physical appearance are the only things the look alikes have in common with a real Harris or Thales military hand helds. The is nothing cheap or Chinese in the real radios.
The very first commercially produced SDR hand held radio was the Thales MSHR in VHF, which is the little brother to the MBITR. Its also probably the rarest radio you can find for military radio collectors, nearly all were destroyed due to the internal Type 1 encryption. There are a small handfull of these in collector world with the Type 1 encryption removed.
To keep this on topic, some of the cheap Chinese handhelds are SDRs and possibly the radio modules used inside the TCA and TRI look alike radios. If so that and the outside physical appearance are the only things the look alikes have in common with a real Harris or Thales military hand helds. The is nothing cheap or Chinese in the real radios.
gtaman
Member
I know some of the 6809s were pretty garbage. People would bake them into overtemp lockout
gtaman
Member
Uhhh well you better buy this one
American Milspec, LLC - Racal MSHR PRC6740(C)HBV VHF Handheld Transceiver, 136-174MHz Front Panel Programmable, The encryption electronics have been removed
Racal MSHR PRC6740(C)HBV VHF Handheld Transceiver, 136-174MHz Front Panel Programmable, The encryption electronics have been removed
www.american-milspec.com
I currently have two of them and one is mint in the box with what looks like all accys. And I have a couple of the convertacom type mobile adapters with 25w amplifier and a bunch of batteries to rebuild some day. These are FPP VHF radios and even though the Type 1 encryption has been removed they have DES and will keyload and will talk to older radios like Motorola Sabers and Thales T25s with DES.
Who had them? A factory guy mentioned very few PRC-6809 variants were ever sold in the US with most going out of the country. The real MBITR series including the 6809 is extremely durable with an excellent track record.
Update!
Finally got into the FB group and it is starting to be a good resource. Ordered parts to build my own programming cable. Next obstacle will be to get the software to run on Win10.
Amazed at the battery life on the PRC-152. Set up 6 memory channels to scan, ran all day yesterday and dropped .1 volts according to the startup voltage display.
Finally got into the FB group and it is starting to be a good resource. Ordered parts to build my own programming cable. Next obstacle will be to get the software to run on Win10.
Amazed at the battery life on the PRC-152. Set up 6 memory channels to scan, ran all day yesterday and dropped .1 volts according to the startup voltage display.
Some of the look alike versions will take the the real batteries and there are 6.8AH batteries available for the MBITR series. I've bought some 5.8 and a 6.8AH for good prices on Ebay. That should power a look alike radio until the sun burns out.
The knockoff battery uses four 18650 batteries in series/parallel for 8.4 volts at full charge. The "real" Harris battery is a higher voltage?
The real batteries are in the 12V range. I've seen some advertising where the knockoffs will use the real battery.
gtaman
Member
Mae got them in to destroy from some coast guard unit. I want to say they used them out in the pacific.
I let my brain wander. They were 148s. Non JEM variants. They were left in vehicles all day and essentially baked and burned. They were on a destruction pallet.
I happen to work with the USCG and I've never known them to use the MBITR series, they have and use the Harris XG-100P.
TRI version advertises they accept the 12v Harris batteries but I have not seen anything from TCA to confirm the higher voltage. TRI will have a 10 watt output with the 12v batteries but IMHO going from 5 to 10 watts isn't a big jump. You just generate more internal heat.
gtaman
Member
they were engraved USCG (poorly). They were 148v1s.
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