Motorola Control Unit Question

[KB9LUK]

Hello and Help
I have been cleaning out the ham shack. And I came across this Motorola Control Unit that I have been sitting on for a while now.
The Information listed below;
Model # L99ZX+336L
ID # L53KXM7174AM
Serial # 276AWN0033
FCC # ABZ89FT3732
I got this radio from The Shop that maintains the local PD, County and Fire radio service.
Now what I am looking to find out, Is this that rare Low Band Radio that I have only heard and read about?
I have looked through out that internet on a whole poop load of websites with no luck. it seems that this radio just does
not exist. and I only hold in my hand a figment of my imagination. But I thought that I would try posting on a few sites and
see what my fellow Ham Radio operators can tell me about this radio, is it gold or fools gold? I would be in dept. to all of you if I can get any
information, like what is it, what head do I need for it and the biggest question, what is the best way to mod it into that ham radio world for the rest of it's life.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thought. Please feel free to email direct at kb9luk@live.com
But please do post your response here to, there be someone else looking for this information too.

Thanks again;
James KB9LUK
Eau Galle, Wi.
KB9LUK Repeater System.

[d119]

50 Watt, VHF Conventional consolette.

Nothing rare or low-band about it.

You may have fallen victim to one of our popular jokes on the site here, the "Lowband FPP Spectra", let me assure you such a thing does NOT exist.

By the way, google is your friend...

[Jim202]

You should be able to program it up for 2 meter operation.

VHF Spectra radios are a fine radio that are hard to kill software wise. Depending on if it has a DC or tone remote board under the radio will determine just how you can operate the radio remotely. You could also put a control head on the radio and then have the full features of the radio available to you.

These Spectra radios can be made to have 128 channels in them. You can create different zones for different regions or selections of different frequencies. They can scan 16 channels at a time either in a fixed scan list or operator selected. I prefer to use the fixed scan lists as they don't go away each time you power off the radio and have to set the operator scan lists up again.

You can set a button on the control head for multiple PL selection on either TX or RX. I use it to be able to select the more common PL tones for the region I am in.

Some of the other features will depend on which control head you use.

Need a slow computer that runs pure DOS, a RIB and a cable that goes between the radio and the RIB for programming. I always make my own programming cable that goes to the radio accessory connector. If you have the pins, or use a solder pin type connector, you can just add a cable to the DB15 accessory connector for programming. Just unplug it from the RIB when your using the radio. You can also make a programming cable that uses the rear accessory connector so you don't have to open the cover to program the radio.

There is a bunch of info on the radio on both the batlabs.com site and the repeater builders site. You will find some links to other sites like the Mike B site, www.onfreq.com site that has a pile of information on a number of the older Motorola radios.

Jim

[Will]

<snip> Need a slow computer that runs pure DOS, a RIB and a cable that goes between the radio and the RIB for programming. Jim

Miss information: Spectra RSS latest version runs on Pentium computers running real DOS and with a real serial port.

Even runs on my Dell Inspiron 600M with Win 98 OSR2 DOS.

[Jim202]

<snip> Need a slow computer that runs pure DOS, a RIB and a cable that goes between the radio and the RIB for programming. Jim

Miss information: Spectra RSS latest version runs on Pentium computers running real DOS and with a real serial port.

Even runs on my Dell insprion 600M with Win 98 OSR2 DOS.

I guess the definition of a slow computer is anything under say a 1 GHz. clock. Today most computers are in the 2 to 3 GHz. speeds and are not able to support the Spectra software. Plus they don't have a serial port.

Jim

[Will]

So I guess we need a definition. The RSS is Pentium Compatible, so a Pentium computer?