Radius M216 no working radmbl

This forum is for discussions regarding all aspects of Motorola radio programming, including hardware, computers, installation and use of RSS/CPS, firmware upgrades, and troubleshooting. There are subforums for discussions of codeplugs, and also for software/firmware release notes and issues.

Moderator: Queue Moderator

Post Reply
Devildoc5reg
New User
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 14, 2020 6:38 pm

Radius M216 no working radmbl

Post by Devildoc5reg »

I recently purchased a d51 with an hlb4107a rf board in it (trying to go to 6m ham frequencies with it). I have tried to use radmbl 7.02 and 8.0. I keep getting an invalid opcode on the pc config screen either that or a "radio must be powered on" error, even when it is. I've tried changing com ports in dosbox, tried with a knockoff rib, homemade rib, and tried a ribless setup. I have adjusted my clock speed in dosbix down to 1050 as well as kept it the same. Nothing seems to be working.

Anybidy have any ideas I might not have thought of?
Karl NVW
Posts: 174
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 7:13 am

Re: Radius M216 no working radmbl

Post by Karl NVW »

Did you try using orian ginal factory-legit software package installed on the correct vintage PC and connected to the radio via the proper RIB and programming cable? Dosbox and knock-off RIBs, homemade RIBs, or ribless were not factory supported.
Karl - WA8NVW AFA5VB
SHARES + NCS
Jim202
Posts: 3609
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Radius M216 no working radmbl

Post by Jim202 »

Trying to use Dosbox is not always going to work on the fast modern computers. Most Dos software doesn't like working above 900 MHz. clock speed.

You might try visiting the computer stores in your area and see if they have any really old computers collecting dust on one of their shelves.

I go around to the stores near me and have made friends. Generally they get a collection of computers brought in for different reasons. The stores pull out the hard drive and throw them into a pile or storage shed. So for the most part they will generally just say take it.

You will need to come up with a small hard drive like 40 or 80 GB and do a FAT32 format of the drive. You can locate a Windows 95 or 98 off the Internet fairly easy. In many cases, it's available to download.

As already mentioned, go back and try to install a frequency pair that is in the original range of the radio.

Once the radio is proven to function normally, then you can try to put 6 meter frequencies into the radio. But my guess is the software you have will not let you do it as the frequencies are out of range. This means you will have to go into the software and hex edit it to change the band limits to open it up for 6 meters.

There should be a number of documents on the Internet to help you modify the band limits of your software. Just remember that the location of the band limits will be different for the different versions.

Hope this is helpful. One other comment is that you may have to modify the VCO in the radio to accept the new frequency range. It needs to be locked before it will work normally.

One other thought that comes to mind is do a search for your radio model and see if you can find directions on how to make it work on 6 meters.
Satelite
Posts: 670
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 10:43 am

Re: Radius M216 no working radmbl

Post by Satelite »

Hello:
The Radius M216 line was designed to be programmed in pure dos mode at 25 MHz clock speed.
Yes ive read where others emulated a dos platform and slowed down there too fast clock speed with the MoSlo program but I don't have experience with that.
Can you even read the radio ?
Not sure if the out of band shift key trick works with rambl rss but it does on maxtrac rss.
Obviously it may program out of band but refuse to lock up till rf bd is recalibrated for the band shift.
The shift key out of band trick to get radio to take the freq is for example 54.525 in shift key mode will look like this %$.%@%
A 5 in shift on your key bd will have this above it % and with shift key pressed when you enter 5 youll get the %
Do this with all numerals but don't shift key the decimal point . between freqs numbers leave it as a period just as you see here 54.525 or in shift program mode %$.%@% the decimal period stays period not > as youd get if shift key was pressed.
There was a 99ch Maxtrac called the Max300 Ontario model that I believe the info to convert is here on batlabs under the maxtrac info that may give you some insight on moving from 42 to 50 MHz to 46 to 54 MHz to get the 6meter ham band freqs.
Ive even done a 44 to 54 spread to keep more of the bottom freqs but receive sensitivity will suffer some but acceptable for normal use.
But if you want the better receive sensitivity then keep the 8 MHz spread and recalibrate and tune for it.
Youll likely also see the 60 watts at 42 to 50 drop to 50ish watts when you move the band spread to 46to54 MHz and may even need to rework the pas components and change out the brass tune slugs to aluminum and retune.
Read the maxtrac info for the Max300 Ontario conversion info as a lot of it youll need to do.
Satelite
User avatar
wavetar
Administrator
Posts: 7340
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Radius M216 no working radmbl

Post by wavetar »

Devildoc5reg wrote:I recently purchased a d51 with an hlb4107a rf board in it (trying to go to 6m ham frequencies with it). I have tried to use radmbl 7.02 and 8.0. I keep getting an invalid opcode on the pc config screen either that or a "radio must be powered on" error, even when it is. I've tried changing com ports in dosbox, tried with a knockoff rib, homemade rib, and tried a ribless setup. I have adjusted my clock speed in dosbix down to 1050 as well as kept it the same. Nothing seems to be working.

Anybidy have any ideas I might not have thought of?
You need to use a specific, modified version of DOSbox, v0.65. Are you using the one I linked to in this thread?:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=108258
No trees were harmed in the posting of this message...however an extraordinarily large number of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.

Welcome to the /\/\achine.
Post Reply

Return to “Radio Programming”