Motoroloa XPR8400 Diag/Repair

[WSFI404]

I purchased an XPR8400 rack mount repeater for private gmrs use at our property. Our 40' tower should be going up as soon as a few tree branches are trimmed down. I ordered the repeater off ebay that came out of a commercial service department in Ny.   Its the 403-470 model 25-40watts. As soon as I got it, I cleaned all the dust out, powered it on and used CPS2.0 to read and reprogram it to 462.550/467.550 and no CTCSS.  I had a 50watt dummy load on and the RX/TX lights were blinking and all signs showed it was working properly.

I went to attach my SWR meter on, and as soon as I removed the dummy load my kid key'd up the HT I was using, the RX/TX lights on the repeater and then it shut off.  I flipped the on/off switch on the repeater several times and nothing. I left it powered off for a bout 2 minutes and then it powered on just as normal. 

However, now I'm not getting anything on the RX/TX. It's as if the repeater is not detecting any signal whatsoever. I've tried doing some self diagnosis but I've come up with nothing. I've programmed it for several freq's with and without CSQ/DPL/TPL but still getting nothing. If anyone has some advice and how to get this back up and running again please let me know!

I'm more than willing to ship it off to someone that's capable to diag/repair it. 

-WSFI404

 

[tweiss3]

Did you have logging on? Is there any error codes pulled when you connect to CPS? It sounds like there was some kind of internal protection that tripped, but it's hard to tell if something actually fried, or if it needs something reset.

[WSFI404]

I just check with CPS, at the bottom there are 0 results for Validation Results, Warning Messages etc. I know there are internal protections such as High VSWR, several types of alarms etc..  I've just not found any sort of Built In Testing DIAGs that I'm able to conduct using CPS 2.0. 

I just looked at all the available programming menu options. I didn't see an option to turn Logging on or off. Unless it's a hidden option, I don't have that capability. 

Under the CPS tools, is the only location I see anything regarding logging, those are all now checked. They weren't previously, after rebooting CPS. I still see 0 errors or warning messages. 

[WSFI404]

UPDATE:

TWEISS3, turns out after racking my head over this issue for a week. I had the RX/TX frequencies backwards. UGH!!!!    

I switched to digital mode and plugged in some frequencies, it worked. Went back to analog and sure enough I had my RX/TX freq's backwards. Felt like and idiot for a hot second. Guess it pays off to stop looking at numbers for a few days before tackling it again. Thank for the help anyway! 

[Radioguy7268]

You would need to download and use RDAC (Remote Diagnostic and Control) program in order to see the internal repeater logs.

The "logging" in CPS is software validation -  nothing to do with operations. It just logs changes in the software & read/write operations.

If you programmed the unit with CPS 2.0 & it was originally set up using CPS 16, you probably should have updated the repeater firmware prior to 'upgrading' to CPS 2.0  Assuming you read & saved the original log - go in and look at the Codeplug & Firmware info on the original codeplug, as well as the 'last programmed' date (which should be the last time it was set up prior to you touching it.)  If you've got really old firmware in the box, that may be causing you some of your issues.

A basic GMRS repeater does not need half the functions available in DMR.  Keep it simple. Just add a new analog channel, then delete any previous channels, and program that new Analog channel with your basic channel info. Leave CWID and any other settings off for now.

I'd be a little concerned if you had to 'blow the dust off' of a unit. That makes me think the machine was in use for a while without ever being touched or upgraded. The XPR's are a fine set & forget machine in typical single user campus type applications. They're not a high end repeater designed for mountain top use at RF dense locations for 24/7 operation. They are really just 2 basic XPR mobiles in a box with some special interfacing.