The Radio Information Board

Has anyone heard about or used a maxtrac 800 for a trucked scanner. I have one such mot type II system that I would like to scan and I have the radio sitting around. Any help or insight appreciated!
Brian the toothpickboy

You can use the 800 Maxtrac as a trunkimg scanner. However there are a few things that you need to know about. First and most important, the normal Maxtrac will not do type II systems without being modified. The mod is mainly just changing the EPROM in the radio called firmware.

If you can obtain the IC from Motorola, it will run you someplace in the order of $60.00. You should be able to locate them on the web much cheaper.

Next you need to know if the radio is a 5 pin or 16 pin accessory connector. Just look at the rear of the radio. If it's a 5 pin, then you need to make a few mods to the control board. You cut a land, add a jumper and add a 10 K resistor.

Next you need a way to program the radio. Unless you just happen to be lucky and have a copy of the Maxtrac Lab RSS, your going to need a system key. You will also need a RIB and a programming cable. The cable you can make. The RIB you need to buy. There are several sources to get the RIB from.

You will need the system ID, control channel frequency info, talk groups and the like. You can generally get this from the trunkedradio.com site

You can find most of this information on modifying the radio on Batlabs.com

Now for the bad news, the Maxtrac will not do splinter channels while trunking. If the control and audio channels don't end with .xx25 or .xx75, you have splinter channels. The radio will only listen to these channels in the conventional mode. Problem is you can't select just one or a couple of talk groups in this mode. You will hear everything on the audio channels.

Last but not least, you need to make sure that the radio is not programmed to associate with the trunk system. It is best to disable the transmitter all together. Make sure the driver stage doesn't work. You don't want the law coming after you when the radio keys up on the trunking system every time you turn it on.

Jim

Thanks Jim. This is just what I wanted to know. Truth be known, I have access to prgramming it's only 1/2 as difficult.
Brian