Radioguy7268

Motorola also makes the DLR version of 900 MHz license free radios. You may find some newer ones sold under the 'curve' designation. DTR's are expensive for what they are. Even the older DTR650 radios still carry a price tag when sold as used, working units. What's your budget? There are also some folks using older Nextel units on just the "direct talk" feature - and they're usually cheap since they no longer work with any cellular providers. Look for something like an i355, but realize there is zero support and zero cross-communication with anything outside of another Nextel unit.

The transmit light should come on. That's normal operation for a repeater that's being keyed with a hand mic. If you have a receiver (portable) listening on the 462.675 - then put it in Monitor (disable the PL tone). If your repeater is transmitting on that frequency, you will hear it. Even if the repeater has a bad amplifier, or the duplexer is totally hooked up wrong, you'll still hear the output if you're in the same room with a portable listening on 462.675 If you can't get that - then you are NOT transmitting on 462.675. There's a limit to the amount of help you're going to get online. At some point, you need to be able to troubleshoot step by step & figure out what you have, and what you don't have. Throwing darts at a virtual dartboard for tech help is not the answer.

According to that picture - your repeater is set to 467.675 Receive - but with a tone of 77.0 Hz. I believe you said your portable had a tone of 127.3 ?? The repeater needs to have the same PL tones as the portables. Your transmit appears to be set to CSQ (no tone at all) with a frequency of 462.675. If the portable radio you are using is set up with a PL on the receive, you would not hear the repeater. (You should still see a 'busy' LED when the carrier comes up on channel). It appears your frequencies are correct - but you need to match your tones on your portables and your repeater. If you can key the repeater with a local mic plugged in - the repeater will just be transmitting on the base of 462.675

If you have the programming software & can read the repeater, then you have pulled the codeplug already. If the information programmed into the repeater is what you requested at purchase - and your portables are programmed in the reverse (Portable transmits on 467.675 & receives on 462.675 with a matching tone of 127.3) then the programming would appear to be correct. Double check frequencies in the portable. I will assume that your two portables will communicate with each other on a common simplex channel (ie: 462.675 for both transmit & receive). If that's all true, then I'll say it once more - call the seller & see what they advise.

I would be asking the seller for some help. It sure sounds as though the repeater has not been programmed to your frequencies. If you key up on a base mic attached to the repeater, you should definitely hear it on a nearby portable set to CSQ (Carrier squelch) - even if the antenna/duplexer is totally wrong. Even if PL tones are incorrect, you should still be seeing carrier activity on the LED's. Pulling a codeplug is probably the easiest way to figure out what's going on, and less trouble than boxing it up & shipping it back & forth. Ask the seller for assistance.

What is the EXACT frequency for the repeater's receive?

What frequencies are the portables programmed to? Even if the tones are incorrect, a transmission on the repeater's receive frequency should show as an active 'RX' light on the repeater when keying the portable. If you're not even getting that, then something is drastically wrong. The VXR7000 is fairly straight forward, and I'll assume the repeater (and duplexer) were tuned to the frequencies you specified at time of sale. Do you have the ability to pull a codeplug for the repeater?

You're not going to be able to buy the software for that from Motorola. That radio is about 30 years outside the Factory support window. There's a few different places online where you can find Radius mobile RSS available for free download, but you'll need to run something like DosBox to emulate a really slow old 386 PC processor. Hamfiles is where I'd probably start looking for the software. You should probably also get familiar with the Repeater-builder.com Radius and Maxtrac Mobile page

You are correct - and this specific problem is probably worse with GMRS than 'coordinated' Part 90 systems. However, the Linking issue can make the problem much worse over a much larger area. This exact issue would be part of the reason why people should read the "You just got your license, now you want to put up a repeater?" sticky - and then understand why overlapping coverage is usually less than ideal, and should be avoided. Still, there's a difference between me putting up a machine that I know might be lacking in coverage and still making best attempts to monitor before transmitting (up to and including monitoring the output freq. at my repeater site, in order to disable my repeater when a co-channel user is on the air), and me putting up a linked machine that by default says I don't care about your conversation, mine is somehow more important. If there are linked networks that are monitoring somehow, I'd still be interested to hear about it.

For anyone advocating for the use of AllStar or similar Linked repeaters, I've got just one question that sidesteps all the issues regarding networking and "wireline" definitions: How are you monitoring all those remote links for local non-linked traffic prior to keying up all repeaters in your network? What are you doing to avoid stepping on active local conversations that are not happening on your linked network, but are already taking place on non-linked repeaters? Monitoring for traffic prior to transmitting is one of those bedrock assumptions in the shared service frequencies - at least in any conversation I've had with FCC types. If your linked network routinely tramples on someone else's active conversation, I don't think the FCC would care if you're using microwave, Internet, or the Public Switched Telephone Network for wireline links.

If it was already written with CPS 2.0 - then there's no going back. (Well, there are ways, but nobody wants to send a rookie down that path!) Good news is, if they already did the updates & got it to 2.0, then there's little harm in using CPS 2.0 to make the changes you desire. You will need to activate that EID for the software in order to write a wideband frequency back into the codeplug. Hopefully someone already walked you through that part. You have a much better repeater than a Bridgecomm in my opinion, and I wouldn't get too worried about writing to it with CPS 2.0 The troubles come if you take something with really old original firmware & try to write it with the latest/greatest. Sounds like Used-Radios already did the work to get you up to date.

The XPR8300 is very first generation for the TRBO series repeaters. It's really just 2 XPR mobiles in a box, with some specialized hardware connecting them, and specific firmware loaded into the mobiles to allow them to act as a repeater. The XPR8400 was the 'improved' 2nd generation unit with more memory, more features, and a better cooling fan configuration. There is no option for an analog 'courtesy tone' in the standard XPR8300 configuration. You can get that courtesy beep if you add on an external control panel. Assuming that you have CPS 2.0 from Motorola with the Wideband EID - I would not bother to mess with the repeater other than pulling a codeplug & storing that copy for future reference if you might ever need it. It might be a good idea to also grab the MotoTrbo "Tuner" software & use that to read & store the tuning settings for the repeater just in case. There is absolutely no advantage to 'upgrading' the XPR8300 to CPS 2.0 If you have a working machine, and it does what you need, I'd really think twice before trying to touch it with anything above CPS 16. There are wideband enabled versions of CPS 16 'in the wild' that would allow you to make the CWID changes & hangtime that you're asking about.

Yes - 3rd party testing, and when you drill down into the FCC Certs for Part 95 equipment, some of it has been 'certified' for strange ultra-narrow emissions and lower power than what people are actually going to use the radios for. If the certification is for a 7 kHz bandwidth and 1.25 watts of power, your shiny Part 95 'certification' kinda gets fuzzy once the end users program their new GMRS HT for 25 kHz and 4 watts.

Happy April Fools day.