Astro Saber III- Poor Digital Reception

[KF5LSC]

I have an AS III VHF radio that I got about a year ago. I don't transmit on it much and it serves mostly as a secondary receiver in my work vehicle. While the radio has AWESOME analog reception (I could hear my local 2m repeater from nearly 200 miles away), it is nearly completely deaf when receiving P25 digital transmissions, even when I am well within the system coverage area. Those transmissions that I do receive usually consist only of squelch breaking and broken voice.

I realize that this symptom may be a bit vague, and I can provide any more information needed to help resolve the problem.

Radio Info:
Model: H04KDH9PW7AN
S/N: 465AXS0xxx
F/C: 599108-0C1E00-2
R07.71.07
DSP I08.03.05

Any information will be helpful. Thanks!

[MTS2000des]

Alignment.
Even if the RX is slightly off frequency, it's enough to make for a poor digital experience, but sound totally acceptable in analog.

When was the last time the radio was aligned? If not, this is the starting point.

[KF5LSC]

When was the last time the radio was aligned? If not, this is the starting point.

Unknown. The previous owner made no mention as to when it was aligned. Since I would figure a fresh alignment would be a selling point, I can assume its been quite some time.

Are there still shops that service older Motorola equipment? I live in a small town so it looks like I would be sending my radio off regardless.

[MTS2000des]

Most MSS's SHOULD be able to, a fair price should not be more than a 1/2 labor, provided nothing is electrically wrong with the radio.

FYI you might try posting a want ad in the for sale/wanted forum- there are several people here who can do that for a reasonable charge.

A word of warning about buying used digital radios, especially from unknown sources like Ebay, hamfests, etc- alignment is very critical to get good performance, as much so as having current HOST and DSP is. Many times these older radios get hacked, people force codeplugs in them and don't bother to carry over the correct softpot values from the original codeplug, and you wind up with exactly what you have now: a radio that works, but poorly.

if there is nothing electrically wrong with the RF board, a full alignment by a qualified person should get that radio working well on P25.

[KF5LSC]

MTS2000DES,

Thanks for your help. I went ahead and put an ad up in the FS/FT section.

You make a very good point also about being aware when buying radios from unknown sources. This was my first radio purchase in nearly ten years off of eBay and I am sorely disappointed in how far the quality and reputation of eBay has fallen. Even this "8/10" radio came to me with a broken channel knob and a few other issues that only reared their heads after a few weeks of use. Examples:
Non-OEM Motorola antenna
A "NIB" IMPRES battery (advertised as a selling point) that became non-chargeable after three weeks of use
Channel knob that worked loose and now has excessive play
All of this was from a guy with 400+ feedback and a 99% positive rating.

But hey, at least the audio is good on analog! Hopefully the radio is in fact able to be aligned to factory specs.

As they say, buyer beware...

[MT2000 man]

That sucks about your bad e-Bay experience, but just chalk it up for a lesson learned I guess.

When buying a radio I ALWAYS buy from well known people here at Batlabs, or from erac1 on e-Bay. I've bought many radios from him in the past. His products are always near new condition, and he has a TON of Motorola gear always up for sale ( and does programming on every unit he sells too ! ).


Just a small helpful bit of info

[N4KVE]

When buying a radio I ALWAYS buy from well known people here at Batlabs, or from erac1 on e-Bay.

I've had excellent results from this seller too. GARY