Batboard

Hey guys,

I've been digging through the archives and found a single post by Mike B (who woulda guessed? ) in reply to someone referencing a similar thing... long story short, it sounds like it's possbile but this persons requirements were just to program the radio.

What I'm looking to do is put a TinyTrak-II inside the X9000 chassis and "set it and forget it" for a stand-alone 110W APRS station. I just want to be able to mount it in the back of the car and have it just work. I dont want to have to mount a head or cables. I'm hoping the X9000 will work for be because it's the most compact of the syntor line and it's programmable... BY ME and FOR FREE.

If anyone has any info on how to do this or what pins to jump to make the radio fire up I'd appreciate it. Maybe the speaker pins or the TX trigger pins, audio in pins, that would also help. I can find those in Mikes page anyway... the most important quesiton now is can this be done? Run a syntor radio TX/RX and with audio in and out? No need to change channels. 1ch is all I need.

My brother set up a Syntor X as an APRS radio. Ill see if I can get in touch with him. I'd rather see you find one of those to use than a good X9000 chassis. The 9000 should be used at its potentional

Jason

Would the Syntor 9000 work off the same premise as the Spectra when it comes t powering it up? Being there should be 2 connections that you can jumper for it to power up on the "Home" channel. Or at the very least... THE channel in the radio.

The PTT, Ground and audio lines should be easy enough to "harvest" for use with the tinytrack.

As another option and this is where we go a little off topic, but there is a lot of information out there for using a GE Delta for an APRS radio. KB9KST I beleive has a line on getting them all ready to go for APRS use.

FWIW, the Syntor X is the exact same size and shape as the Syntor X9000 (same chassis). It would be much easier to make work 'stand alone'. The X9000, due to the way the µprocessors communicate with one another, will go into a continous self-check loop looking for the control head if you try to run it without one. You could possibly put a control head µprocessor inside the radio, and hook it to the proper points, to make the radio think it had a control head attached, but it's going to be a lot of hassle. In short, you'll be better off using a Syntor X.

I was looking at the Deltas. They are cheaper and have more room in the case. I'd be interested in any info you guys have on both the
X and the Delta. Preferably, I'd like to be able to stuff a Motorola Oncore GPS reciever (small 2x3" board) and the TinyTrak in there (1x1"). The Syntor seems to be pretty stuffed. I was considering a Systems 9000 External Options Housing to hold the other stuff (merely for visual) but all in one would be even better.

I'll dig aroumd myself as well. Thanks for the other ideas.

kf4sqb wrote:FWIW, the Syntor X is the exact same size and shape as the Syntor X9000 (same chassis). It would be much easier to make work 'stand alone'. The X9000, due to the way the µprocessors communicate with one another, will go into a continous self-check loop looking for the control head if you try to run it without one. You could possibly put a control head µprocessor inside the radio, and hook it to the proper points, to make the radio think it had a control head attached, but it's going to be a lot of hassle. In short, you'll be better off using a Syntor X.

Doesn't the X9000 operate in the same fashion as the Spectra radios? I didn't think the X9000 radios were THAT dependant on the control heads. Just like how you can run the Spectra without the control head.

Jaymz, I don't know for certain, but I would think it would be pretty hard to run the X9000 without a head. When you first turn on the radio, it's µprocessor looks for the control head's µprocessor, as well as the µprocessor of any accessories it may be programmed for (like siren or external security housing w/ SecureNet). If it can't communicate with an accessories' µprocessor, it gives an error code. If it can't communicate with the control head's µprocessor, I can't imagine it doing anything more than a continous 'self-check' loop. The Spectra, while similiar, uses a slightly different system. I don't know how the Spectra communicates, I just know that it is different from the X9000.

Something else you could consider is doing one of the PieXX conversions:

http://www.piexx.com/SynXDoc/SyntorX.html

Looks like with their much smaller replacement personality board you'd have plenty of room to stuff a tinytrack into the chassis. Get an OEM GPS hockey puck reciever, and you're set.

I considered this too but they are outragously expensive for what it is. I mean, c'mon, a Syntor Rivival for $140?? You can buy a GOOD 2m mobile for a lot less than that brand new. I suppose in this particular situation it would be one of the more effective ways to do what I'm looking to achieve. I'm just having a difficult time swallowing the $140 to buy such a simple device :-/

akardam wrote:Something else you could consider is doing one of the PieXX conversions:

http://www.piexx.com/SynXDoc/SyntorX.html

Looks like with their much smaller replacement personality board you'd have plenty of room to stuff a tinytrack into the chassis. Get an OEM GPS hockey puck reciever, and you're set.

The Spectras run off the SB9600 protocol for it's communications within itself and it's accesories. I honestly don't know how the x9000 communicates, but what you said does make sense. But of course how would we know what the 9000 is doing if we powered it without the control head... Besides it plain old not working, there is no way of telling what (if any) error codes are being generated.

A pinout of the control cable would come in handy here though. at least that way you can almost give it a trial and error approach to power the radio and see what happens.

And while the PIEXX "upgrades" are neat none the less... I think they are almost futile attempts at trying to keep something alive where it can be used for other things, elswhere.

ssybert wrote:I was looking at the Deltas. They are cheaper and have more room in the case. I'd be interested in any info you guys have on both the
X and the Delta. Preferably, I'd like to be able to stuff a Motorola Oncore GPS reciever (small 2x3" board) and the TinyTrak in there (1x1"). The Syntor seems to be pretty stuffed. I was considering a Systems 9000 External Options Housing to hold the other stuff (merely for visual) but all in one would be even better.

I'll dig aroumd myself as well. Thanks for the other ideas.

Yep, the Deltas work great - specifically the Delta SX. I know of quite a few in service around here...

Any documentation on how it's being done? The GE line isn't covered quite as well as Motorola. I'd rather not re-invent the wheel but the Delta's or even a Rangr are definatly nice radios. I think the Rangr might have more space in it but I've never opened one. Just based on the case size.

I do have a Syntor available for this project too. No Syntor X's but regular Syntors. The only thing I think I'll end up running into is I cannot imagine these are the lower VHF split (136-150) as they came from Public Safety. I'll have to the UCN's though.

The GE's are certainly sounding like the cheapest and better solution.

http://www.packetradio.com/0699snl.html

You can try that page...

There was another site around that I saw that had a lot of good info... but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

If you want a single package, tune up and forget radio with that kind of power - MICOR - old yes put they keep on workig and very cheap.

Get a Syntor X, pull the memory module and program it with an Eprom burner, reinstall and put your TinyTrak near the memory module where there is plenty of room. Wire it up directly to the personality board and your done.

I wrote an article about jumpering and making connections to a Syntor X for repeater use over on the RBTIP website. Same would apply for the TinyTrak setup. Just substitute the connections to the inside except for power and ground to the main connector.

That's a lot easier to do than a X9000 hack. And it's not hard to program. You can also easily use a rotary switch to select more than one channel, it's just a matter of grounding the select lines to get the channel you want.

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

Ok Sounds good... I'd prefer the syntor over the Micor anyway. The micor is built like a brick sh*t house and weighs about as much too.

Two questions: Does the VHF split of the drawer matter? I believe there 3 versions, do I NEED the lower 136-150 or can I expect the same preformance and sensitivity from the mid split?

Second: Anyone know where I can get the Eprom programmed? We've got a prom burner @ work but figuring out how to do this is probably lot more effort than it's worth if paying someone is cheap enough. I only need one channel and dont anticipate ever changing it.

Thanks for everyones input!
Scott
KB1FXY

If you can get a Syntor X low split 136-154 go for it, otherwise your most likely to find mid split radios which are fine, and if you get someone to realign it for the ham band it will be more than adequate for your needs.

However if your going to be using it as a standalone APRS then most of the time all it's doing is transmitting it's location anyway so receive isn't the biggest concern.

If you got an Eprom burner than your set, there is free programs out there to generate the .bin file to program to the chip. I can create an image file for you as well, just email me with what you want for transmit and receive, i assume your going to just use channel 1 then, and i will create the file and email it to you. Then you just load that file with your eprom burner software and program the EEprom from the memory module in the radio. Just that easy!