Batboard

how can you tell how much memory an astro saber has?
and what does the 1meg give you the 512 cant...

"whored out" i cant stop laughing!!! your statement definatly makes sense, due to everybody wanting it, oh well.

FYI- If you happen across a VSELP Saber with 512k, you can still get Flashkeys with the old 5.60.00 version from Motorola to Flash upgrade it to IMBE.

i tried the side button pressing for service, it does enter service mode, but i dont see 512 or 1meg. just serial, DSP, and some other numbers, but not memory size any ideas?

What does it show for DSP & HOST numbers? They're probably quite old, since you're not getting the memory size in the display. Basically means you have an older 512K on your hands.

Todd

I had a AS3 with the 512k board in it with the 5.6 firmware (IMBE) and I have never seen a 512k radio show 512k. In fact, I have another 512k radio that doesn't show it.

Basically, for the average user, 512k v 1 meg board really doesn't apply. It's nice to have the 1meg board, but unless you are doing the 9600 trunking, your not missing much.

"Test Mode" will show the flash memory size only if the firmware is 4.x.x or newer and if it can query the hardware to determine memory size. So if you see 1 Meg, then you have a 1 meg flash part. If you see "Unknown", then you either have 512K or 1Meg. Then the only option is to open it up and eyeball the board.

Here is what a 1 Meg Flash looks like...



and here is 512K



To boil it all down, for anyone who doesn't care about 9600 CC Trunking, 512K vocoders are just fine. All the other "new stuff" in newer versions is of not much use to 95% of us. In fact, all my personal radios have 512K vocoders. I've sold the 1 megs because it brings me more money.

Exactly XDC... OTher than DTMF, MDC there isn't much that the average user is going to use, since most people will be using it on the business, HAM, and public safety...however most public safety systems are simple (we are talking VHF/UHF here). When you get into the 800 systems, then yes, having the trunking is nice. You don't see Smartzone Omnilink systems on VHF too often .

For instance, I see these features on radios alot, but how many of you ACTUALLY need them (sans scanning, but requried on the system you use?):

Smartzone OmniLink
Multikey
DVP/DES etc
Radio Inhibit
Radio Check
Radio Trace
Astro Data
OTAR/OTACS
Soft ID
APCO Packet Data
9600 Control Channel

Etc etc. There is much more, but I think you get the point. I'm no better. I have a line on a radio that has quite a bit flashed into it (legit) that I may never use. I said the same thing about a IMBE radio that I had, and I turned it into VSLEP thinking NO one would be going IMBE around here...come to find out two years later....my dept is going IMBE. However, I have a USE for it. Not flamming anyone, just my thoughts...Maybe we need to update the Astro page here on BL to explain features a bit more.