Today, I encountered a problem with a MaxTrac that I can only describe as strange...
I was assisting Jim WA9FPT with getting his MaxTrac converted to operate in the ham portion of the band. He has a DeskTrac similar to the one I own, which was originally a trunked station. He had put conventional Firmware into the radio before bringing it to me for the VCO modification. However, the radio had NOT been blanked yet. When I tried to power up the radio, the front display remained blank/dark. It did not go through the power-up tests, and did not "BEEP". I removed the conventional firmware and put the trunked firmware back in. Still no power-up test "BEEP" and no front panel display. So I took the radio out and put it together as a dash mount radio. Still dead. Next I took a known-good 900 MaxTrac that I had on the bench and powered it up. Worked fine. Took the trunked firmware out and put Jim's conventional firmware in. When I powered the radio back up, it exhibited the same problem Jim's radio did - dead. Returning the trunked firmware to my radio did not resurrect it, either. So what is it about a firmware EPROM that might kill a radio? Could a bad chip cause something else to fail in the rig... maybe an internal fuse somewhere that may have blown or, heaven forbid, blow up the CPU? Does anyone know if there is there any way to breathe "new life" into a radio in this condition? We now have two that are doorstops that I'd like to fix, if at all possible... Many thanks, Mark - N9WYS
