High power - Low power M-RK RF boards

Forum dedicated to the Harris PSPC Product group items such as Orion, M7100/M7200/M7300, P7100/P7200/P7300, Harris Unity XG-100, GE Orion, GE Master Repeaters, EDACS Trunking, Pro Voice, PC Configure, RPM, and other topics relating to Harris, MA-Comm, Ericsson, GE products.
Post Reply
Grizgoalie
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:24 pm

High power - Low power M-RK RF boards

Post by Grizgoalie »

Good day all,

For the most part I have been placed into a position of working on older radios. My newest challenge is working on repairing old M-RK radios.

Now I have a couple of questions. Ok actually three.

1. The RF board in a M-RK radio is capable of high power 5 watts and the low power is about 100 mwatts. Is there there a way to program a high power RF board down to a lower power or is it a completly different board. I have looked at the boards and see a jumper and a transister removed on the low power board but is that all there is to it? Or do I need to find someplace to buy new/refurbished boards.

2. The antennas for these radios are hard to find. At least for me it is. I need about 200 of them. Does anyone have the inside scoop on where to obtain a large quanity of these.
The radios are in the 430Mhz to 450Mhz range.

3. Lastly, is there any kind of training left on these type of radios. Or for that matter hand held radio basics. I am better at hands on than reading a book. ZZZzzz. I look at some of the posts and go, man am I :o , Deer in the ole headlights.

Thanks for your time and glad to see a forum like this to share information. (Except RSS of course)
George Washington's brother should be known as the Uncle of our country.
mitaux8030
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2008 3:54 am

Re: High power - Low power M-RK RF boards

Post by mitaux8030 »

For setting an MRK to lower power levels - try editing the DAC value for the "30" and "10" power levels in Radio Maint, but be sure to backup your tracking data first in case things go badly wrong. No doubt these settings will become highly non-linear towards the extremes.

Antennas - New London Technologies have been good to me, or you can try FMR (though they've been less responsive to enquiries)
JungleJim
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:32 pm

Re: High power - Low power M-RK RF boards

Post by JungleJim »

There's no need to mess with the tracking data. In programmer's conventional sets window is the option "power". Here you can set the transmit power on a per channel basis to high or low. The check box labeled "fix power" will not allow the user to alter the setting. If you go to the programmable menu window you can add the "tx power" item to the menu which allows the user to select high or low power, provided you haven't checked the "fix power". "tx power" is also available to assign to a key on the keypad.
Grizgoalie
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:24 pm

Re: High power - Low power M-RK RF boards

Post by Grizgoalie »

Thanks for the ideas. I got sidetracked on learning the "new" radios we just got and had to put out rather quickly. Some XTS radios. But that is another story.

I got to try the high/low change and I knew about that one. Just drops about 2/3 of the value of the power out. Not exactly what I was looking for. But thanks.

The tracking data to me seems to be more of a fine tuning of the power you start out with. I messed with that thing all day yesterday and the power out did not drop.

I think there are two different boards for the power. I noticed that on the low power boards there is a jumper. So I am thinking that Macom must have built two different boards. One for high power (around 5 watts) and a low power board (around 100 mwatts). I don't think that you can power down a high power board or at least from what I have tried.

So if there are two boards what are the part numbers. I have the 5 watt model as K19/AS00001295. Does anyone know of the part number for a possible low power RF board.

Thanks again for the help and the antenna info.
George Washington's brother should be known as the Uncle of our country.
Post Reply