How do you get astro radios to power on?

[charchar]

Hello, I am used to dealing with every other kind of Motorola radio but these Spectras / Astro's have me confused. Typically a M1225 or MaxTrac will power on simply by plugging it into a Astro Power supply but these Astro's just won't power on the same way. I connected the control head with the proper remote cable to the radio, plugged it in to my power supply, and I can't get any of the radios to power on. I am new to dealing with these and I will greatly appreciate any help to get these to power up!! I know they are in working condition. Thanks for your time

[Doug]

You also need to power the control head. If they are dash mount you'll need to power pin 5 of the db15 acc. connector Your speaker audio is also retrieved at the db 15 as well.

http://batlabs.com/spectra.html
Doug

[charchar]

They are rear mount, i'm pretty sure, because the control heads aren't connected to the radios except by the cable. Do you know of a certain model cable I can search for that will allow me to power pin 5 of the DB15 female port on the back of the radio? I didn't see that information on the batlabs spectra site.

For programming i did see "Low power (one peice) Spectra's use a DB15 cable on the rear panel for programming. The Low Power programming cable also provides a 12VDC power lead to power the radio since the same connector is used for the power (the high power radios use a third connector for power). In this case, you need the Low Power Cable."

So this low power cable might be what I need to power the radio? When I searched for cables to buy they say the cable also needs to be connected to a RIB which I see is being sold as a black box with a battery inside. So if I bought the low power cable and rib box and hooked it up would this get my radio to power on?

Newbie here, I appreciate the help!

[Doug]

It's been soooo long since I've played with that type of radio. Here is another site to browse and look through

http://www.repeater-builder.com/motorol ... tions.html

[N4KVE]

Pt # 3080091M01. Connector with speaker leads & key hot. I just connect it up to the power cable. GARY

[N4KVE]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/aw-cgi-/2512657 ... 1929488499 Here's a photo for reference. GARY

[Jim202]

Hello, I am used to dealing with every other kind of Motorola radio but these Spectras / Astro's have me confused. Typically a M1225 or MaxTrac will power on simply by plugging it into a Astro Power supply but these Astro's just won't power on the same way. I connected the control head with the proper remote cable to the radio, plugged it in to my power supply, and I can't get any of the radios to power on. I am new to dealing with these and I will greatly appreciate any help to get these to power up!! I know they are in working condition. Thanks for your time

If you follow the links that were given here by one of the other members, you will see a photo of the control head connector on the trunk mount cable. It has both an orange and green wire coming out of the connector. These are the way you turn on and off the radio. The green wire turns on the receiver and you need power on the orange wire to be able to key the transmitter. I normally run both together through an ignition controlled feed in the vehicle. This way when you have the ignition hot, the radio will turn on. When you go to start the vehicle, the radio will shut off while the engine is cranking.

Jim