Batboard

Dear All Great and Powerful Moto Experts:

I've been reading through many pages of history and I keep finding issues similar but yet very different from what I am experiencing. What I have is the following:

An authentic RIB RLM4008B
MaxTrac Cable from KaWaMall
Homemade computer to RIB cable (SERIAL)

This setup works great on a computer that is an old Dell latptop that belongs to a friend. The software has been tested by installing the version I have on his machine and it works fine. I successfully read and programmed seven MaxTrac 300 units with his computer and my cables and RIB.

With my old computer that I am attempting to use, I keep getting an error when doing an "F3 COMM TEST" this error in the upper right box says; "Serial Bus Error: #5 Power Failure" I can switch the same setup back to the other computer and it will work perfectly.

I've attempted running straight in DOS 6.22 and using DOSBox 0.74. I have configured the serial port in the options to say serial1=directserial realport:COM1 I have also played with various values for clock speed as well.

The radio will beep sometimes once otherwise two or three as many as five beeps. Always the same error pops up on screen in the end.

Would the great and powerful have any thoughts?

PC Specifications:
Custom built motherboard with 4 Ethernet and a single Serial, Micro form factor 12VDC type computer.
Intel Celeron 400 MHz with 504 MB of RAM.

I have attempted to disable BIOS cache but the computer refuses to boot when I do that.

KD7CAO wrote:Dear All Great and Powerful Moto Experts:

I've been reading through many pages of history and I keep finding issues similar but yet very different from what I am experiencing. What I have is the following:

An authentic RIB RLM4008B
MaxTrac Cable from KaWaMall
Homemade computer to RIB cable (SERIAL)

This setup works great on a computer that is an old Dell latptop that belongs to a friend. The software has been tested by installing the version I have on his machine and it works fine. I successfully read and programmed seven MaxTrac 300 units with his computer and my cables and RIB.

With my old computer that I am attempting to use, I keep getting an error when doing an "F3 COMM TEST" this error in the upper right box says; "Serial Bus Error: #5 Power Failure" I can switch the same setup back to the other computer and it will work perfectly.

I've attempted running straight in DOS 6.22 and using DOSBox 0.74. I have configured the serial port in the options to say serial1=directserial realport:COM1 I have also played with various values for clock speed as well.

The radio will beep sometimes once otherwise two or three as many as five beeps. Always the same error pops up on screen in the end.

Would the great and powerful have any thoughts?

PC Specifications:
Custom built motherboard with 4 Ethernet and a single Serial, Micro form factor 12VDC type computer.
Intel Celeron 400 MHz with 504 MB of RAM.

I have attempted to disable BIOS cache but the computer refuses to boot when I do that.

You should try to find a cache disable dos program to shut the cache off once the computer is booted. One that I use is called "cacheoff.com" and should be able to be found doing an internet search.

You might want to check and see what else might be using any of the com ports on the computer your having problems with. Like a mouse or modem or something like that. You could try setting the software to try another com port. There should be a choice of 1 through 4. Depends on how the computer is set up as to how many it may have and are in use.

Jim

This Error is also caused by a known problem in the Motorola RIB and almost all knock offs. The RIB does not work with all computer's serial ports due to a piss poor design that does not comply with the RS232 Standard.

Motorola was advised of this problem way back in 1990 and never corrected the design.

Is there a fix for the RIB issue?

KD7CAO wrote:Is there a fix for the RIB issue?

Think Will provided a drawing on the changes to the RIB. Been a while since I looked for it. Might be on the batlabs site or repeater builder site.

Jim

Here are two of the diagrams/mods:

Change the value of R14 to 1.5k and R11 to 1K. Corrects some RS232 incompatibility.

http://batlabs.com/images/rib_mod.jpg Note the value changes from the original. And this version has a standard DB25 RS232 connector

Orig version: http://batlabs.com/images/rib.gif

And yes there are more changes...

Thank you. I will look for more mods then.

Not to pick nits, but the jpg called rib_mod is actually a modification of the ORIGINAL rib (Part # 01-whatever). Notice the lack of battery, switch, L.E.D. & etc. What Will has listed as the Original version is the original RLN4008 series version when those components were added.