Posted: 3/6/2010 8:29:35 PM EDT
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over the past year most of the EMS vehicles have had there radios replaced. to comply with the new county rules on narrow band FM for emergency management and some other channels..
I was asked if I could use a radio for my ham hobby. I said , sure,, and this is what i got.. FREE !!.. it was packed in a box with alot of wires, real old cell phone cradle and speaker. most of the wire is heavy ga. power wire. the Nokia speaker is a small external kind. but I can wire in a 1/8 in plug and use it i think.. any way,, it's a Motorola Spectra 9000 100 watt(?) with 2 heads. one was in the drivers area, and the other was in the back of the ambulance. came with a /\/\ speaker and all the wires to hook up both heads.. but.. no mic's.. which I thought was odd.. might have to double check on this. I also have the mounting bracket for it. I powered it up today and works, I realy didn't think it didnt' work. with no antenna on it, but keying my HT with our local amb freq in, it recieved ok, and sounded good.. (with a whole 1/2 second test). i'm going to have to find an adapter or plug for the antenna. it takes the UHF mini plug. anyway, depends on when it was made as to what the freq range is.. seems the newer ones went down to the ham bands on 2 meter. and others didn't. i think my local moto dealer can help me out there. there are 18 channels programed into it. all local LE, EMS, and MINSEF ( statewide, 155.475). I'm doing some searching now for a mic and freq range, and just how many channels this baby can hold.. parts: 
close up of one of the radio heads: 
main radio unit: 
if it can be used as a ham radio, it should kick butt at 100 watts !! on simplex. I might even have to get a good 2 meter antenna for it. EDIT: this radio is prolly close to 20 years old. |
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There should be a lot of good stuff hitting the used market in the next couple of years. One of my ham buddies has a Spectra or a Syntor low band radio that covers 10 meters to 6 meters! Of course, he has to change antennas to make use of the 10 meter FM part, but a powerful radio nonetheless. It also was cheap!!
I plan to make it to a local auction where some city police radios are listed on the bid sheet. I could really use a couple of UHF units for 440 and GMRS. Could make a score here or it could be a lot of junk. RS |
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I agree, alot of nice old "out of date" stuff should be coming up for sale.
I was just on ebay,, looks like the most expencive part of this radio is the control cable. at about 25 bux.. saw one radio trunk part for 17bux.. and the head parts for 4 bux.. oh, well,, it was a $1500 radio at one time.. I'm still happy.. found a mic for it too, for $7 plus $7 shipping.. still want to find out about the freq range before i do anything $$$. Mike EDIT: Range 1 136-162 MHz Range 2 146-174 MHz so, depending on the location, some repeaters will work and some won't in the 2 meter ham bands. my local repeaters will work except for one. Unfortunately, our local ARFCOM freq of 145.56 won't work.. still unknown what I have. so wish me luck. EDIT II SPECTRA MODEL CHART D (D)ash, (T)runk, (M)otorcycle, Conso(L)ette 2 Power Level: 1 - 8 (1 =<10, 8=110) 7 Bandsplit: 1=lowband, 2=midband, 3=highband, 4=UHF, 5=800, 6=cellular, 7=900 K F=hi power remote, G=hi power Securenet remote, K=med/low power, V=?, Z=Smartnet trunking Secure capable M G= Trunking, L=?, M=conventional, X=secure capable, W=conventional High Power A 12 volt power 7 5=Trunking, 7=Conventional J Model Specific J, H A Control Version: A=Conventional, B=Privacy Plus, C=SmartNet, D=StarSite, E=Enhanced 9 Control Head Type: 2=3 Button Limited, 3=handheld, 4=rotary, 5=3 button, 7=12 button, 8=Expanded Control Station, 9=System 9000 A Revision: A=original, etc K K=package model according to this, I have a "high Band" model.. so,, not good for ARFCOM tac channel... but still works on normal simplex and repeaters Thanks for looking |
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Quoted:
I agree, alot of nice old "out of date" stuff should be coming up for sale. I was just on ebay,, looks like the most expencive part of this radio is the control cable. at about 25 bux.. saw one radio trunk part for 17bux.. and the head parts for 4 bux.. oh, well,, it was a $1500 radio at one time.. I'm still happy.. found a mic for it too, for $7 plus $7 shipping.. still want to find out about the freq range before i do anything $$$. Mike EDIT: Range 1 136-162 MHz Range 2 146-174 MHz so, depending on the location, some repeaters will work and some won't in the 2 meter ham bands. my local repeaters will work except for one. Unfortunately, our local ARFCOM freq of 145.56 won't work.. still unknown what I have. so wish me luck. EDIT II SPECTRA MODEL CHART D (D)ash, (T)runk, (M)otorcycle, Conso(L)ette 2 Power Level: 1 - 8 (1 =<10, 8=110) 7 Bandsplit: 1=lowband, 2=midband, 3=highband, 4=UHF, 5=800, 6=cellular, 7=900 K F=hi power remote, G=hi power Securenet remote, K=med/low power, V=?, Z=Smartnet trunking Secure capable M G= Trunking, L=?, M=conventional, X=secure capable, W=conventional High Power A 12 volt power 7 5=Trunking, 7=Conventional J Model Specific J, H A Control Version: A=Conventional, B=Privacy Plus, C=SmartNet, D=StarSite, E=Enhanced 9 Control Head Type: 2=3 Button Limited, 3=handheld, 4=rotary, 5=3 button, 7=12 button, 8=Expanded Control Station, 9=System 9000 A Revision: A=original, etc K K=package model according to this, I have a "high Band" model.. so,, not good for ARFCOM tac channel... but still works on normal simplex and repeaters Thanks for looking You can usually get the X9000 to work a few MHZ out of band if you hack the RSS and change the bandsplits, so either radio will work for 2m use. I love the Syntors. Nice and rugged radios. I have one of the low band ones that does 10m and 6m fed into a discone. So sources for info" http://www.onfreq.com/syntorx/ http://www.batlabs.com/x9000.html |
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One note- to program this you will need a 286 or 386 computer running pure DOS with a proccessor speed no faster than 20Mhz- 8mhz or slower is better. 
don't know what to say to this.... wow.. time to dig out my old IBM 386/33..... good old Win 3.11 Ooops, I was thinking a Syntor X9000. For the Spectra you just need pure DOS and a serial port and you can use a Pentoum I/II/III. The later Spectra RSS let you program the 146-174 split radios down to 144, so either way you are good for ham use. |
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There's a conversion control board for some of the older Syntor radios that gives you VFO control, memory channels, remote operation and standard mic & speaker interfaces. If you can get the radios free or near free they looked really interesting for a home remote base type setup.
ETA: here it is: http://www.piexx.com/SynXDoc/SyntorX.html |
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Wow, the wave of nostalgia that hit me upon seeing those pics almost brought a tear to my eye.
Way back when my Father was a detective at a local PD when the town got all new radios for police, fire, and EMS. For some reason the contract with the installer went sideways, and it fell to us to get the new radios installed. I can remember several weekends crawling around fire apparatus, ambulances, and the trunks of police cruisers with my Dad getting everything mounted and wired up. The ambulances were a particular challenge because there was a head both in the cab and in the back. If I remember correctly there was an issue with the wiring harnesses not being long enough to reach one of the heads. The best part was using his police callsign to do the radio checks with local and county dispatch. Those were awfully good times with my Dad-I remember being astonished that he trusted me to drill holes in roofs and decklids for antennas. I was petrified to let him down, so I made triple sure that every measurement was absolutely perfect. In the end he said he was proud of the work I did 
Good luck with your project, and thanks for posting the pics. I think I have something in my eye 
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I hope you got all the ones they had! I need an A7 head for my home-use Maratrac, but I'd really like a nice Spectra even more for my car. Quoted: Be warned- converting the old /\/\ gear to ham use is a very addictive pastime. Once you get used to the audio quality on RX and TX it is hard to go back to ham gear................... By the way, you are to blame for my Moto addiction: http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=10&f=22&t=610385 My first purchased radio was a Saber III VHF, and I've been a goner ever since.  By the way, that radio has the best receiver I've heard on any HT. I just need a new set of volume and channel knobs. |