A couple radios to play with.

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Werthers
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A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

I've been having a bit of a sort out and put some old PMR radios aside for Ham radio conversion. First I want to start with these two.

One is a Tait radio UHF and will cover the 70cms band. The other is an icom F1010 VHF and will cover the two meter band.

First I want to talk about the Tait radio.... these are known to be good radios for Amateur use, however my experience with some versions is that the audio is always low with a deviation of about 2.5KHz. I need at least 5KHz and in theory that should be fine.

Right... I used to program Tait radios on my old laptop but that wont be possible this time. The laptop has been very temperamental in the recent year and its no longer posting so I will have to find another way.

My Tait programming software is DOS based but can be ran in Windows however I decided to see if there was a better version to use and I found a Windows based version which I've downloaded and can be ran in Windows 7 :thumbup: Brilliant.

With it being a four channel transceiver, I did some research to see if more channels can be added but four channels is all it can do so this will have four Repeaters programed into it.

The Tait radio puts out 25 watts and will probably get hot on long overs so it will be turned down to 12 watts.

Hopefully programing should go smoothly although it never does. I know there will be something.

Once I get the Tait programed up then it be time to open it up and make the adjustments to the RF and deviation then it should be good to go.

The icom F1010... I've never programmed one of these before and the programming software is DOS I think I've found the programming software for this but I wont know until I've ran it. This can be done in Windows 10 under DOS Box. I've never used DOS Box before I'm willing to give it a try, its gotta be an easier option than hunting for another old computer that might not have much life in it.

From what I've read up about these icom radios, they require a channel expansion board to allow more channels which can be bought cheaply on ebay but first I need to find a way programing the radio provided that the programming software works
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Werthers
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

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I installed the Tait programming software to my computer running Windows 10 and it installed with no errors, however as I said before there is always a problem to encounter. I could not read the radio on Windows 10.

I had to get my other computer out that's running Windows 7 and I installed the Tait programing software on that and connected the serial cable to the radio was able to read from the radio to begin programming it.

Tait Radio programed successfully.

Now I have two more things to do and thats to adjust the deviation and RF which I will do tomorrow.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by bigpimp347 »

I assume you set the deviation up for around 2.5khz or under seeing as we're using 12.5khz channel spacings.
and 12w ?? i assume you're licenced for 12w, if you are then you'd already know we're running 12.5khz channel spacing b y now.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

bigpimp347 wrote: 03 May 2021, 20:37 I assume you set the deviation up for around 2.5khz or under seeing as we're using 12.5khz channel spacings.
and 12w ?? i assume you're licenced for 12w, if you are then you'd already know we're running 12.5khz channel spacing b y now.
Narrow band deviation at 2.5KHz is very narrow, 2.5 KHz deviation was insufficient FM deviation needs to be adjusted by turning the RV907 to 5KHz clockwise.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by bigpimp347 »

it's not narrow, the average CB is 2.2khz to 2.5khz for a 10khz channel..
so 2.5khz to maybe 3khz would be plenty on a narrow 12.5khz radio.

i'll get vast amount of test equipment out and try it on a few narrow band radios and see what the audio is set at and report back.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

bigpimp347 wrote: 03 May 2021, 23:13 it's not narrow, the average CB is 2.2khz to 2.5khz for a 10khz channel..
so 2.5khz to maybe 3khz would be plenty on a narrow 12.5khz radio.

i'll get vast amount of test equipment out and try it on a few narrow band radios and see what the audio is set at and report back.
On these radios the out going audio is terrible when its not adjusted, it will work fine on some repeaters but not all. Every time I've programed a Tait T2000 series radio its always been the case and nobody can hear you or just hear the edge of your audio so doing that adjustment makes it wider and the audio then improves a lot. Its just the way it is on these Tait radios.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

Well thats the Tait T2000 sorted. I've got brilliant audio reports. I don't have to chew the mic anymore. :thumbup:

On to the Icom F1010.

I dug out quite a few old computers, they all worked when last used however old computers have a habit of crapping out, motherboards going bad or harddrives failing due to age. I have an IDE to CF card adapter to hand just encase which is good enough to install MS-DOS I haven't set any of them up yet. I have a huge mess to clear up before hand from all the junk I've been sorting through.

I have downloaded a few of the F1010 programming software's so hopefully one of the downloads should work.

Next is my programming cable... I have a one of those all in one Motorola programming cables so if the wiring configuration is the same as the Icom F1010 then it should work otherwise I will need to find the correct programming cable.

I will set everything up later probably this evening and see if everything goes ok. If successful the next stage will be ordering a channel expansion board. I think its something like 16 channels without the expansion board which is good enough for the time being.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

These will be next on the list to service and repair. My plan is to save as many old radios as I can.

The Philips radio I remember having a fault somewhere I do have the original mic for it but for the life of me I can not find it. This radio is already on 2 Meters so its just a question of tracking down the fault.

The Motorola is fine I just need to find a way of expanding the channels to 32. It will do 40 channels but only 32 channels are needed and currently only has 8 channels.

Another Tait radio this one is a low band on 4 meters and needs adjustments to the deviation and power turned down to 12.5 watts rather than running it at full pelt at 25 watts. And a general tidy up of the channels.

So those will be next.
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Last edited by Werthers on 17 May 2021, 16:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

Ok I just set up the old computer. I was expecting to run into problems but the computer fired up without any issues. I've tried the Icom F1010 software and it works :thumbup:

I'm making progress, I kinda feel excited now but don't want to speak to soon because anything can happen. I will connect the radio up shortly I'm just having a cig break and then I will see if the software reads the radio, I tell ya I'll be over the moon if it does.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

An update on my Icom F1010

Yep no joy. I knew it was to good to be true. On the positive side I am closer than ever before to getting this radio programmed.

I ran the software in Windows 98SE and it loaded up fine but wouldn't read the radio so I assumed it has to be ran in Dos only. I then got a 3.5 floppy disk to save the F1010 files to and restarted the computer in DOS and ran the software but an error shows up in the corner of the screen about there being a file missing.

I know all the files have been copied correctly and are all there. I checked everything to make sure. I then ignore the error message and continue but no communication from the radio. I'm using a serial cable.

1) I will order an Icom F1010 programming cable "if they exist still" and try again. Maybe the programming cable I have is not the correct type.

2) Continue to search for another copy of the programming software. I will ask around on QRZ and on the radio. Perhaps the software is missing something.

3) see if I can find somebody to program it for me for swaps or paying but I'm not paying much because the radios aren't worth a whole lot.

4) if all else fails it will be sold or binned.

I will keep trying in the mean time.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by MrWeetabix »

Quite the lost of projects there. Whilst I have very little experience with these radios, I am enjoying the read.

Thanks for sharing
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by Werthers »

Yeah these old PMR icom F1010 radios can be very time consuming finding the correct software. I'm glad your enjoying the read. Its always good to document stuff like this.

Update on the Icom F1010. I've found the problem which is the software revision doesn't support this model of Icom F1010 unfortunately. I'll have to do more google searches for the correct version although I'm finding myself going around in circles with my searches and there isn't a whole lot of information about them so I'm a bit stuck now. I have the EX1764 software.

I may have to put this radio on the back burner until I can find a PMR guy that might have the software or could tell me a bit more about the radio. It has 0168 on the side of the radio.
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Re: A couple radios to play with.

Post by MrWeetabix »

Its good to update information and group info we find together to make it easier for the next person who needs it. Its appreciated that you are doing this for these radios. Thank you.

The next thing would be to try and make the software available too, so that its not lost of the source goes offline! :-)
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