On Mar 4, 2008, at 7:47 AM, NORM KNAPP wrote: > HELP! > I got a MASTR II repeater... Works great, except I want to add a > tone board. > I have a programmable (dip switch) factory board that installs on > the system board. I plugged it in and it made no difference. I > looked in the manual and it says "for moble, clip jumpers X, Y, and > Z. For station installation, see sation manual." I have what I > thought was a station manual, but I got no instructions in there > (that I can find) telling me what jumpers to cut or install... > Anyone got any ideas? > Thanks es 73 de N5NPO > Norman Knapp
Norman, I think out of all of our repeaters, we're about "half and half" using the stock GE boards, and on others when the GE encoder boards became unrealistically expensive and hard to find, we switched over to doing this: http://www.repeater-builder.com/ge/mastr2/ts-64-mastr2-mod/ts-64-mastr2-mod.html The only thing that may not be clear in that article is that the photo of the CommSpec TS-64DS is not what we order from CommSpec for this -- we order the TS-64MSTII which is originally built to plug straight into a MASTR II mobile rig's system board to replace the GE board in a mobile. Then we modify the TS-64MSTII as shown in the diagrams and photos so it'll behave nicely in a MASTR II Station/Repeater chassis. MOST of the system board jumper settings are listed, but the full notes on making a MASTR II station repeat are in the LBI. I always (ALWAYS) make sure the Station operates normally as a repeater BEFORE ever touching these jumpers for the modification, if they're not already done. There's a LOT of Stations out there on the used market that are jumpered/configured as Stations or Remote Bases, and you gotta get the station repeating properly first before messing with this. Throw all of the above out the window if your MASTR II repeater is a a mobile conversion. I'm 100% certain a similar modification document could be written and designed for the mobile rigs and their system board, but this document above won't do you (much) good other than as a reference. The TS-64MSTII in a mobile without modifications will do CTCSS for RX or TX but NOT at the same time, similar to the behavior in a station. By the way, when I was reviewing this mod, I remember seeing something that caught my eye as being "hazardous" to the TS-64MSTII board if it were just slapped in a station without the mods... something would end up connected to one of its pins that it probably wouldn't "like"... but I don't remember what it was. I just get the clippers out, get the mods to the TS-64MSTII done, start with a working repeater station, and haven't had any problems with this modification since we started using it on some of our repeaters. I have never carefully traced the schematic and documented what I was thinking was "bad" about just slapping the board in, but I know a different tech definitely blew up one of our TS-64's during creation of a new repeater chassis once -- I never got the full story, but luckily we'd ordered extras for spares. I definitely wouldn't just stuff a TS-64MSTII into the slot in the station where the DECODE ONLY board goes without looking over the LBI very carefully... and/or doing the appropriate mods and trace cuts -- you could toast a nice little TS-64 doing that, if I remember correctly. In general, we like this mod -- but since were about to install one or more S-Com 7330's this spring... we're going to have to do some new modifications to use the on-board CTCSS encoder in the controller, while still using the TS-64 for receive tone... so we have some changes to sit and scribble on the LBI schematics to get that accomplished... Ironically it probably means putting the stations back to something similar to factory spec as they would have used the original two tone boards, one for TX, one for RX... and then running the tone from the 7330 down to the exciter. We'll also have to make sure we don't double-up the TX delay with the jumpers set wrong on the 10VDC regulator card, since the S-Com will keep the station keyed during STE/ RB... no need to have the extra delay in the station itself, probably... it just needs some study and thought to get it right, prior to swapping the controller. Since we also like to keep our connections between the controller and the repeaters to points on the backplane to keep the cabling clean, we'll probably have to add a jumper coming down from something unused on the backplane to the exciter's feed-through caps on the right side of the station shelf, to make the installation "clean". Will have to look and see if there's any other clean way to do that. Will probably start with a more "factory" station that doesn't have the TS-64MSTII mods done to it, figure out the proper connections and any added wiring from the backplane to the exciter, and then reverse engineer that back into the Stations that already have the mods. -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [EMAIL PROTECTED]
