Syntor X9000 Fail 01/90

[btrains]

I've read plenty of threads here and among the other various sources of Syntor knowledge, and I cannot find my cause of the Fail 01/90. Here's a breakdown of what happened prior to the Fail 01/90:

I cobbled together a Low Band X9000 from various sources on that specific eAuction website... Drawer unit from NC, control head from MI (HCN1036), and cable (HKN4240) from WA. I double and triple cross referenced everything before I purchased to assure that everything was appropriate for a Syntor X9000. The control head worried me at first because it is a 1036, and I had not seen that one listed, however, later searching pointed out that the 1036 was a "new" DIP control head that replaced an earlier DIP model that was NLA.

I plugged everything together on my desk with my power supply, and everything turned on. I discovered 26 modes programmed in, likely from a FD. I was able to open the squelch up using the Monitor feature... all in all, worked exactly like any Spectra I've dealt with. Then I plugged in my microphone, SWR meter, and antenna. I may have hit a snag with the microphone since I used a 1080. However, all of my info points that the 1080 was a new microphone to replace the NLA 1052. I noticed upon keying up the radio, the TX light came on, but the ammeter on my power supply did not budge and there was nothing noticed on the SWR meter. I ran through several more zones with the same negative result.

If a zone/zones are programmed as RX only, would the X9000 give an error beep or anything?

Next, after my initial observations, I opened up the control head cable at the radio end, to inspect the interior connections, since this is where I was planning on adding an RJ45 jack to make my own programming cable (since I don't have the $200 bucks I've seen them going for on the aforementioned eAuction site). I put everything back together and decided to take the radio down to my car and test it on the battery (ie. more amperage, in case my 20A power supply was causing an issue with the radio as to why it wouldn't TX).

I put the radio on my 40A power lead direct from the car battery, and hooked up the ignition wires to another 12v source and turned the radio on. Poof! Fail 01/90. So I brought the radio back in to put back on my desk and back with my 20A power supply. Still a Fail 01/90.

My internet searches have brought me to find a host of different solutions to Fail 01/90. Most have to do with the big red power cable. I've checked the red power lead, and it is fine. I am getting a steady 13.6v at the radio connector, and at a few points along the path of the power leads on the underside of the radio. These checks were done without the green/orange cables connected, to assure I only had one source of 12v.

The radio lid is locked, so until I can meet up with one of my friends who has a 2135 key, anything on that side is not going to be accessible. Can the VCO LED be seen from the bottom side of the radio? Also, people have referenced the capacitors in the control head as being a cause of this fail. I'm used to the caps in the Spectras that fail. Are the ones in the Syntor line the same physical shape? Silver and round, canister looking? The drawer unit has a similar smell to the Spectras I had that developed leaking caps. This odor is coming from the area near the cable connector, right about where the large blue capacitor that runs between the power leads is.

Basically I'm looking for any assistance as to what you do to remedy a Fail 01/90 after it has been ruled out that the power cable is indeed fine.

Thank you!

[btrains]

An update, if you will. I took the control head apart and tried wiggling the control head cable at the control head end. I was able to, for a split second, get the radio to boot. But then I shut the radio off and turned it back on, only to go back to the Fail 01/90. With the rarity of actual X9000 accessories online, I don't have much ability to keep buying control heads and cables to find a working one. Any suggestions?

[Jim202]

An update, if you will. I took the control head apart and tried wiggling the control head cable at the control head end. I was able to, for a split second, get the radio to boot. But then I shut the radio off and turned it back on, only to go back to the Fail 01/90. With the rarity of actual X9000 accessories online, I don't have much ability to keep buying control heads and cables to find a working one. Any suggestions?

The error your getting indicates that you have a serial bus communications problem between the radio and the control head. This could be from a number of reasons. But you will have to solve it before going any further.

Let me ask a simple question here first. You do have the DC power cable going to the radio itself with power to it. This is the heavy red and black wires coming from the big control cable where it plugs into the radio. If there is no power on these wires, the radio will not power up. Then there is the green and orange wires from the control head end of the control cable. You need to have +12 volts on these wires also. From what you have indicated, there is at least power on the green wire as the control head powers up.

There is always the possibility that the control head has an issue. The best way to check this out is to mate it up with a Spectra radio and see if it will work with that radio. I have run across a few heads that wouldn't work at first on the Syntor X9000. I had to mate it up on the Spectra radio and get it working. To do this I took a working Spectra package, read the radio. Shut it off, changed the control head to the one your having an issue with and then wrote back to the radio without changing anything. Then take the newly wrote head and go back to the Syntor X9000. Use the "chprog.exe" program and create a new codeplug for the head. Can't remember the exact selection, but your going to make a new codeplug from scratch.

If you haven't already gone to the repeater builder site, go there and do some reading. There is also a link there to the Mike B site that has all sorts of good info.

http://www.repeater-builder.com/motorol ... index.html

Keep us posted on your progress. I have a number of these radio up and running. They are not that hard to shake into working the way you want them. They are a tank when it comes to reliability, but they do have a few quirks.

Jim

[Mike B]

The large red wire is known for coming un-soldered inside the radio J1 connector housing. Wiggling or mechanically stressing the large red/black wires at the J1 connector may change the connection from working to not working or the other way around. I have simply pulled red wires out of the connector without hardly any effort many times. If this is the problem, the wire must be soldered back into place on its connector pin (I like to remove the power pin from the connector body when doing this soldering).

There is one caution on the X9k. You should remove all power sources before plugging in the X9k cable (turn off the control head and/or remove the green wire fuse, then remove the large red wire fuse). The X9k radio drawer has been know to die sometimes when a hot powered cable is plugged into the radio drawer (too many various pin connections all at the same time).

Unlike the remote mount Spectra, the X9k gets most of its power through the control head green power wire. The remote mount Spectra drawer does not get power from the control head. In the X9k it is the RF power amp, audio amp and radio drawer microprocessor that get power from the large red wire. If the microprocessor looses power then the control head cannot contact the radio drawer through the Systems 9000 serial data bus which is one cause of the fail 01/90. Anything that prevents the Systems 9000 serial data connection from working will result in a fail 01/90, as long as the control head is still working to report the error.

It sounds like a loose red power wire is a likely cause of your problem. Also keep in mind a bad solder connection will sometimes act like a resistor and limit the current. This means sometimes the radio may receive, but fail when you attempt to Tx.

Some of the things on this page may help:
http://www.onfreq.com/syntorx/syntorx9k/progx9.html

[com501]

Look at the connector the connects the control cable to the radio drawer and make SURE that all the contacts are at the same level in the connector and one or two of them aren't pushed back, especially the power connections. They are notorious for that problem also.

I will be throwing away all of my X9000 accessories in the next month or two as soon as I have enough spares for my lowband X9000s I am keeping.

Watch here in the for sale section, I'll probably be giving them away for the price of shipping, or just throwing them in the dumpster.

[btrains]

Well, for the time being, the Fail 01/90 has disappeared. Here is something we may be able to add to the list of things to check when a Fail 01/90 shows up:

I opened up the control head and took both the display board and the memory board that interfaces with the Series 9000 cables. It turns out that the metal covers on the memory/interface board were not fully inserted and snugly fitting. So I squeezed the boards together until they more firmly fit on both sides of the board, and re-attached everything, plugged it all in, and the radio powers right up.

However, I'm still having zero power output when I key up the microphone. the TX light comes on, but there is nothing on my SWR meter and nothing on the Ammeter on my power supply. What can I check at this point? I am also looking through the Holy Grail of Syntor X9000 information as well to do my research!

[Jim202]

Well, for the time being, the Fail 01/90 has disappeared. Here is something we may be able to add to the list of things to check when a Fail 01/90 shows up:

I opened up the control head and took both the display board and the memory board that interfaces with the Series 9000 cables. It turns out that the metal covers on the memory/interface board were not fully inserted and snugly fitting. So I squeezed the boards together until they more firmly fit on both sides of the board, and re-attached everything, plugged it all in, and the radio powers right up.

However, I'm still having zero power output when I key up the microphone. the TX light comes on, but there is nothing on my SWR meter and nothing on the Ammeter on my power supply. What can I check at this point? I am also looking through the Holy Grail of Syntor X9000 information as well to do my research!

Flip the radio over and take off the bottom cover. There are the 2 heavy red and black wires that go back to the PA section that will be run along the left side of the radio rail to the back. They are then soldered onto the feed through on the PA section. Take a volt meter and make sure you have a solid 12 volts when you try keying the transmitter. If not, then you probably have a loose connection on the 2 metal plates on the black plastic assembly just behind the main control cable connector. This is all held tight by a single screw from the top side.

You also may have some arcing on the 2 metal plates that bring the heavy 12 volt feed from the control cable connector to the PA. Remove the screw holding the black plastic assembly and look at the metal plate connections.

If the 12 volts is good, then you have an RF issue that you will have to walk through and locate. My bet is on the 12 volt feed to the PA.

Jim

[btrains]

I checked the power at the PA deck while pressing the PTT switch. I had a solid 13.6 volts. I did notice upon closer inspection of my power supply the ammeter moves slightly upon PTT. By slightly I mean from about 1 amp with the unit on to like 2 or 3 with the PTT pressed.

What can I check next?

[com501]

Are you out of lock? Is the channel you are transmitting within the normal bandsplit of the radio? Can you hear yourself talking?

Those pa's are very robust. Are you sure you have drive from the exciter to the PA deck?

Check the PA driver controls on the control board and make sure they are configure correctly, especially that they aren't turned all the way down, which would cause no output.

Do you have a manual? I assume you have looked here> http://www.onfreq.com/syntorx/syntorx9k/index.html ??

[btrains]

I checked the driver locations on the control board. I've turned both of them and also set them back where they were. No changes occur in power output or amps being drawn.

The only test equipment I have is an SWR meter, a volt/ohm meter, and the ammeter on my power supply. I seriously hope I didn't get a dud radio from the auction site.

I finally got a key and looked under the cover. The LED flashes upon channel change, and flashes quickly every time I key the mic. It is not on any other times. The cover labels match the serial number on the front of the radio. I don't know if the frequencies do or not. There are 16 channels listed, all within the 39-42 range. I am still in the process of finding a suitable computer and working with a friend to build a programming cable. So until then I don't know what's on the radio.

[com501]

The light NOT being on indicates you are in lock. The brief blip when changing channels or between TX-RX indicates the synthesizer is changing from one mode to the other. It will do the same thing sometimes in scan, or appear to blink rapidly. If its on, RED is BAD.

Looks like manual time.

There are some voltages to check, but without the manual its going to be tough to see where they are or what they should be. These are normally very robust radios. If someone knows offhand where to tell you to check the TX line voltage, that is where I would start next. Perhaps a connector or control board issue. Make sure ALL the cables internally are actually plugged in correctly. But you are going to need a manual.

[btrains]

I found a copy of the low hand manual on the repeater-builder.com site. That's where I found the info about the power and current pots to adjust. I ran both of those through their entire moveable rotation and nothing changed. I guess my question would be: in the instructions they reference a Watt meter. Is this Watt meter plugged into the PL259 as in like an SWR meter with two needles, or is there such a thing as a Watt meter you put on individual contacts? I suppose I could always just take the entire radio apart and rebuild it making sure all connectors are tight.

Thanks for all the help. Once I know I can use my simple volt/ohm meter to test this I will follow the flowchart in the manual!

[btrains]

Update:

I took the radio apart as much as I felt comfortable without excessive prying. Upon removing the common circuits board and unplugging the 10 pin connector (almost looks like a modern internal USB plug on PC motherboards), the yellow wire's pin fell out of the plug. The yellow wire goes from the common board to the PA deck. I reattached this wire, put everything back together, and now it all works again!

Thank you all for the support!

[Jim202]

I found a copy of the low hand manual on the repeater-builder.com site. That's where I found the info about the power and current pots to adjust. I ran both of those through their entire moveable rotation and nothing changed. I guess my question would be: in the instructions they reference a Watt meter. Is this Watt meter plugged into the PL259 as in like an SWR meter with two needles, or is there such a thing as a Watt meter you put on individual contacts? I suppose I could always just take the entire radio apart and rebuild it making sure all connectors are tight.

Thanks for all the help. Once I know I can use my simple volt/ohm meter to test this I will follow the flowchart in the manual!

The watt meter is a meter to measure TX power in both directions. One direction measures the forward power leaving the transmitter and you change the meter to measure the reflected RF power coming back from the antenna. Moving the 2 pots on the PA can cause problems. One is the current limit and the other is the RF power output adjustment. You need to be careful with the RF out as you don't want to have too high of a setting. This will damage the PA over time.

Jim

[Pj]

What is the model number of the radio? I do recall (though I don't think it was in lowband) that there was a SP08? model that was setup as a receiver only... I doubt this is one of them. At this point you may be better off finding another drawer on ebay. At one time these could be had dirt cheap.