On the Sardinas Canyon Fire, Helitack cloned its three truck radios and the contractor fuel truck radio from a handheld BK to the incident frequencies. Shortly after the cloning took place however, none of the radios would transmit. We took the radio’s to the Forest Radio Tech to diagnose the problem. Radio Tech: “DMH Radios “appeared” to clone fine however, once cloned all 4 radios would not key up {TX}. I tried to key it up with various microphones but that had no effect, so it isn’t a microphone issue. I suspected possible issues with cloning cable or a bad clone. I reprogrammed the radios with a known good code plug, the radios still would not key up. I cloned a group from one of my DPHs and same results. I had the DPH radio and Cloning cable that were used to clone the DMH radios but was reluctant to try and clone another DMH radio as it might also mess one of mine up, so I tried cloning an old GMH and had no problems, it cloned and transmitted fine. I put one of the bad DMH’s on the bench and tried to do a TX power adjustment, that worked ok so the XMTR itself is capable of putting out RF power. However the radios will not “ key up/TX” when I attempt to do so with a microphone{s}. Talked to several techs and tech support personnel at BK and it appears that “something” in the cloning process probably damaged a component on the transmitter board{s} and radios will have to be sent back to the factory for repairs. It could have been a faulty DPH or a faulty cloning cable, however they “appeared” to work fine when I tried to duplicate the problem in the shop. One other “possible” cause of the problem the something called the “ Group 99 Virus”, it is a “Virus” that has the potential to “Brick” a cloned radio… that MAY have been what caused the problem with these 4 radios, even though Relm/BK says it is highly unlikely. The DPH handheld radio used to clone the 4 DMH’s has this “group 99 virus”. See Link and explanation below. “During the cloning process, this corruption has the potential of making one out of five radios being cloned totally unusable. This is called “Bricking”—making your radio as useful as a brick. Once a radio “Bricks” it must be sent back to the factory for reconditioning. There is no other way to fix a “Bricked” radio” http://www.bocofire.org/rt130/radios/Bendix%20King%20DPH%20Cloning%20Corruption.pdf
I am sending the 4 DMH radios back to the Santa Fe radio shop so they can send them to BK for repairs, which is what BK techs suggest. “ Just something to be aware of, particularly the virus. We are on borrowed truck radios and the one hand held and will let you know what we find when the radios come back from Bendix King. |
