"OUT OF RANGE" DOA Astro Spectra?

[Anderegg]

I have an 800 MHz W9 Astro Spectra that all of a sudden will only show "OUT OF RANGE". The radio is installed as a base station, and after checking all the antenna cabling, I swapped it out for a W7, and it received fine, so signal is not the problem.

I figured the VCO may have gone bad, so I broke out one of my other spare W7's, and attempted to swap out the VCO. Well, it didn't end well. I got the boards out fine, but getting them back in presented issues. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the bottom RF plug to go into the socket, it just gets pushed down into the hole.

Anyway, even if I was able to connect everything, would I have to get the radio re-tuned after such a swap? I am guessing that with the price of used Astro Spectra's on eBay being so low, it would probably just be cheaper to replace the whole unit if tuning will be required.

Any other reason why this radio would be giving me the "OUT OF RANGE" display?

Paul

[MSS-Dave]

Check reference oscillator frequency. If it's off frequency, it could have issues decoding the control channel, especially if you are doing 9600 system.

Dave

[radioeng462]

I think it was inhibited.

[N4DES]

Check reference oscillator frequency. If it's off frequency, it could have issues decoding the control channel, especially if you are doing 9600 system.

Dave

I agree. We just had an XTS3000 with the same symptoms and if I remember correctly it was 2500Hz off frequency, would not decode the CC correctly, and always showed out of range.
It worked OK on conventional, but trunking was DOA.

[MSS-Dave]

I think it was inhibited.

Won't show out of range if it's working correctly and inhibited. Either will look dead or just bonk on PTT. Radio is not decoding the control channel or can't hear it if too far away hence "out of range".
Had a bunch of XTL2500's fail after my system went to 9600. All off frequency by 750 hz or more. Radios seem to be able to decode fairly reliably up to about 1K off frequency at 3600, 400 hz seems to be the limit at 9600 in a simulcast environment. Got the mobiles on a schedule now to check frequency. Wasn't happy to see 2-3 year old radios drifting so bad.

Dave

[Anderegg]

Not inhibited, it's a "legitimate" radio with a paid monthly subscriber fee and valid RID. Also, it gives "OUT OF RANGE" on all trunked systems in the radio, won't even try to auto affiliate at all. I tried a reprogram of the codeplug, but that didn't change anything.

I should have programmed in the trunking control channel as a conventional frequency to test the receiver before I got into my current VCO situation....didn't think of it before, whoops.

Paul

[MSS-Dave]

Any chance you have a frequency counter? If you are swapping VCO's, I would hope so....

If you do, program up a conventional channel. Transmit and see if it is more than 250 hertz off frequency in either direction. If so, reference frequency needs to be re warped to correct that. This is the most basic test you could do. Lots of reasons for a trunked radio to quit decoding if it's off frequency, especially in a simulcast environment or if the system is 9600.

[motorola_otaku]

Anyway, even if I was able to connect everything, would I have to get the radio re-tuned after such a swap?

Yes. Also, the transmit warp setting affects the receive side.

If for some crazy reason you did need to swap the VCO out, you could steal one from an old analog Spectra - the PA, receiver preselector, and VCO are not Astro-specific.