Astro Spectra W9 powers off sometimes

[SD70MAC]

I have an Astro Spectra W9 100w that will power off and back on from time to time,what would be causing this ? I resodered all power connections trying to find the problem ,but it still does it.

[Jim202]

I have an Astro Spectra W9 100w that will power off and back on from time to time,what would be causing this ? I resodered all power connections trying to find the problem ,but it still does it.

I would take a voltmeter and look close and hard at the ignition voltage feeding the radio. If it goes some where below 11 volts or so, the radio will do a reset. I don't remember the exact voltage. but it would be nice to keep it above the 12.5 volts all the time.

You may have a power supply problem if this is on the bench and your using a AC power supply.

You didn't say if it did this only it TX or all by itself in RX.

Really need some detailed info to give a detailed answer to solve your problem. My bet is on low voltage.

Jim

[SD70MAC]

I have an Astro Spectra W9 100w that will power off and back on from time to time,what would be causing this ? I resodered all power connections trying to find the problem ,but it still does it.

I would take a voltmeter and look close and hard at the ignition voltage feeding the radio. If it goes some where below 11 volts or so, the radio will do a reset. I don't remember the exact voltage. but it would be nice to keep it above the 12.5 volts all the time.

You may have a power supply problem if this is on the bench and your using a AC power supply.

You didn't say if it did this only it TX or all by itself in RX.

Really need some detailed info to give a detailed answer to solve your problem. My bet is on low voltage.

Jim

I have the radios power coming for now from a Astron 35 power supply,I will check it for the voltage drop. I switched the power supply from the original one just to test if it was that power supply and it still does it ,but never tested it for a voltage drop in either one. The radio has never done it when transmiting only when it is scanning and not recieving traffic. I want to get it ironed out before I install it in my truck.

I have been working long hours since this post and just now getting back to it.

[wx4cbh]

I have experienced the same symptoms with both an Astro Spectra and an XTS3000 when all the channels in a scan list are out of band freqs, such as when the freqs are all within the band split of the radio but fall in the 6.25 khz splits that don't coincide with a 12.5 freq. Even though the CPS warns you that some of the freqs it is packing in the codeplug are "out of band", it will still accept and receive those freqs with the proper acknowledgement click in the drop down, but when scanning these 6.25 channels that aren't also 12.5, the radio will periodically stop and do a reset. Pretty much that tells you that the radio isn't flashed for those 6.25 splits and they apparently create an error condition in scan mode that accumulates until the radio "adjusts" the error buffer overrun by a power down reset. The reset never seems to happen as long as the radio isn't trying to scan more than 3 or 4 of these channels. I've never tried scanning a combo of "out of band" and "in band" freqs, so that may compound the problem further and make it reset more often. If I remove the offending 6.25 channels from the scan list or reprogram and remove them from the radio, the radio operates normally.

[SD70MAC]

I tested 2 35amp Astrons and they stayed in 13.7-13.8 range for 1 hour even when the Spectra powered off and on again.

Cecil,

I do have it programmed out of band below 146, I will remove the out of band frequencies and try that. That sucks to remove Ham stuff.
James

[wx4cbh]

James,

I take it you're using a VHF Astro, and if it's a 146-174 band split, the radio should be good down to 146 MHZ, so just take the 144/145 MHz ham freqs out of the scan list and see if the reset happens. I have some 2M freqs in my Astro high power, and while I haven't tried scanning the ham freqs, I am scanning some "in band" 7.5 interval P25 VHF freqs and it doesn't balk until it has to deal with more than 3 or 4 unrecognized interval freqs. The radio also deals just fine with 25 and 12.5 KHz VHF federal freqs (USFS and NPS) because they are within the band split, but if they fall on anything other than 12.5 or 15 KHz intervals, the radio balks when scanning.

Just changing channels with out of band freqs and unrecognized channel intervals doesn't seem to trigger the reset, but scanning them definitely does on the two Astros I have. Even though the VHF Astro will accept and operate properly on the 144/145 KHz ham freqs (20 KHz intervals), the radio doesn't seem to like to scan them because the 144/145 MHz freqs are "out of band" and not the intervals it expects to see. The 146 and 147 ham freqs seem to be acceptable because they are "in band" and do fall into the 15 KHz interval thing.

Bruce
K4CBH

[NSPD]

What firmware is this radio running?

[SD70MAC]

What firmware is this radio running?

FW 11.71.06
DSP 8.03.05
598008-0C0640-8

[jmr061]

I dont think modat is valid in a mobile. Your flashcode could be causing the problems. What options do you ACTUALLY use. Probably best to get the radio backed off to what you actually use.

Bad flashcodes have been know to cause weird problems.

Jason

[SD70MAC]

I have tracked it down to 1 zone ,it will work fine in the other Zones. Now I just have fine the frequency or frequencies that the radio don't like. Thanks Bruce for heading me in the right direction !

As far as the flash I cannot change that myself ,it always had this option since I had it .