Who's a Rangr master?

[ElroyJetson]

I've got some questions regarding the older Rangr mobile radios.


I have a good, working, and FREE VHF Rangr that I'd like to put to good use.


I've got about four S-850 control heads and cables.


The S-850s are of course EDACS control heads.


As I recall, the Rangr has to have the right type of controller board in it to work with an S840 or S850
control head, and if you try to swap conventional with EDACS control heads, you end up with a damaged
control head.

I've got extra 800 MHz EDACS Rangrs to pull parts out of.

What am I going to need to do in order to be able to run a VHF Rangr with an S850 control head?


Elroy

 

[obijohn]

What am I going to need to do in order to be able to run a VHF Rangr with an S850 control head?

Elroy

Just get a S550 head for that Ranger. They are plentiful, and cheap. There is also a scanning version available. I have never seen a S850 head on a conventional Rangr.

 

[ElroyJetson]

I hate the S550 head. I'll keep running an A9 Spectra rather than go to that abomination.

Alternatively, I guess it's not that hard to find an S825 head.


Elroy

 

[ElroyJetson]

I did some exploratory surgery and discovered that there are physical connector differences between an
EDACS controller board (800 Rangr) and a conventional controller board (VHF Rangr) but there are also
matching differences in the main connector board assembly.

Swapping out the controller boards and main connector boards TOGETHER as a set allowed me to
easily build up a VHF Rangr that SHOULD work perfectly with an S850 or S840 control head.

The only remaining question is, will the software support the changeover to VHF? The 800 EDACS
controller board now needs to be told it's in a VHF radio.

Does anyone know if the programming software will support that change?


Elroy

 

[Thayne]

It seems like around here all of the old boys that worked on rangrs have retired, but I will ask a guy thursday that might know.
I admire your tenacity in messing around with EDACS stuff

 

[ElroyJetson]

I've been exploring the old PST (Edacs1) software and I think it'll do it. I was able to create a VHF file and set the radio type to S825. (Which is the option you select for programming any S820 to S850 head.)
It allows entry of trunking frequency sets in VHF.

If so, I'm going to be quite pleased. I've always liked Rangrs and the S850 type control heads, and
a working VHF example would definitely satisfy my VHF mobile radio needs.

One really nice thing about the old EDACS1 software is that though it's DOS based, it seems to run,
read, and program radios just fine in a DOS window on any computer I've tried it on so far. Even under
XP, it seems to be quite happy to work.

And of course, once you've created your sets, the info is portable across all radios that are supported
by that software, too.

Motorola should have learned that lesson a long time ago. One software package for all radios.


Elroy

 

[Thayne]

I talked to the guy last night; he said he hasn't worked on any Rangrs for 5 years so is no help in that regard. I have 2 of the 800's sitting around but no heads. (They were in desktop stations)

 

[ElroyJetson]

I wouldn't mind getting a desktop station...got one lying around?

I've learned that my conversion will work. But it requires swapping out both the radio's connector panel and the controller board together. Or alternatively, swap out the transmitter and receiver boards,
and it works.

But note that you have to avoid mixing up edacs control heads, cables, the radio connector panel, and the edacs controller board witih the non-edacs versions or things will fry.

If you have a fully working edacs radio in any band and want to turn it into a different band, it's
simplest to take the radio that's in the band you want and put its tx and rx boards into your working edacs radio, and then reprogram it with a new personality in the right band.

I'm getting the same results but I'm swapping the controller board and main connector assembly out
instead. I took care to mark everything so as not to make any mistakes.

With any luck, I test it this week.

Elroy