Upgrading old Quantar wireline firmware

[mdodd]

Is it not possible to upgrade pre EPIC II cards to the latest firmware? If so, does anyone know what the last firmware version these older cards will take?

As an aside, is the limitation related to solely the lack of RAM or are there also other significant changes?

 

[mizzotch]

I'm actually going through the same thing right now. I've got a friend who is running SCM 20.14.048 and the appropriate matching wireline FW on the TRN7477 (pre-Epic) 4 wire board and does not have any problems. He did, however, have to manually burn the EEPROMs. Those old wireline boards won't self-upgrade. I'll find out if it works on my boards in a little while.

 

[Alpha]

mizzotch - did you ever get that configuration figured out? I have a bunch of the TRN7477 boards I would like to try to get running with some of the newer EPIC II SCM's, too. I would be curious the SCM board # and firmware revisions that are being run so I can try to make use of these older Wireline cards. I have tried using the older firmware around version 9 or 10 that is on 27C010 chips and the newer 20.14.003 that's on the newer boards, which resides on 27C020 chips.

The older wireline cards don't flash when they come up, and only the red lite is on with green flashing occasionally, like once ever 30 secs or so. The SCM reports wireline as "NOT PRESENT" when getting versions in RSS. If you say you have to manually burn the EEPROMS, how did you accomplish that - they appear to be soldered on?

 

[mizzotch]

Hi Alpha, it's actually been so long I had to think about what happened...... I was not successful in my attempt to swap the upgraded PROMs into the 7477 board. I did end up getting a bunch of newer boards (CLN6955 I believe) and they self upgraded when the newer SCM firmware was first booted. So, I'm running those 6955s now.

I experienced the same thing you did with the red light and green flashing occassionally along with the 'not present' message. I have a bunch of 7477s sitting around doing nothing as well. I don't know what the deal was exactly with my friend's Quantar as I just talked to him on the phone about it.

Incidentally, the WL light flashing green for a moment is a restart of the WLB. The system recognizes it's not working so it reboots the card. One little detail I noticed when I had the 7477 WLBs w/ old firmware installed with the SCM running the new firmware: If the Quantar is transmitting, you'll actually see the transmitter wander off frequency by a 2-3 Kc when the WLB reboots. I was watching mine on a service monitor and caught that little symptom. You won't notice if just receiving analog on another radio but if you run P25, it blanks out for a bit and comes back.

 

[Mars]

Incidentally, the WL light flashing green for a moment is a restart of the WLB. The system recognizes it's not working so it reboots the card. One little detail I noticed when I had the 7477 WLBs w/ old firmware installed with the SCM running the new firmware: If the Quantar is transmitting, you'll actually see the transmitter wander off frequency by a 2-3 Kc when the WLB reboots. I was watching mine on a service monitor and caught that little symptom. You won't notice if just receiving analog on another radio but if you run P25, it blanks out for a bit and comes back.

This is EXCELLENT information. One local machine I'm aware of used to do this, all because the loser who runs the repeater -- who knows absolutely nothing about Quantars, refused to let me disable his dysfunctional WL board. Explains why his machine was such a POS.

 

[Alpha]

Yes, thanks for clarifying that. That is VERY good information, I wonder if the problem still exists when you have the WL board installed but have no Modem, it always comes up with a WL FAIL flashing on the SCM (but the WL itself is booted and happy) I wonder if the system is re-checking for the modem and pulling the off-freq crap as well.

 

[mizzotch]

Alpha, it does actually still remain a problem as I remember...... You need to actually need to remove the WLB to prevent the reboots/symptoms.

 

[mizzotch]

I figured out a little nugget about R20 firmware running on the TTN4094 SCM and TRN7477 WIB. I have a fully functioning Quantar running SCM 20.10.058 and WIB 20.10.816. I think explains what my friend was probably thinking about. The R020.14.xxx doesn't seem compatible with the old WIBs. So, if you can get a hold of those versions of firmware, you can use the old hardware no problem.

This particular machine was using both analog and V.24 link. I switched it over to use the MRTI port for analog and the V.24 for astro. Works fine.

 

[d119]

Yes, thanks for clarifying that. That is VERY good information, I wonder if the problem still exists when you have the WL board installed but have no Modem, it always comes up with a WL FAIL flashing on the SCM (but the WL itself is booted and happy) I wonder if the system is re-checking for the modem and pulling the off-freq crap as well.

If you're referring to the bottom green LED on the SCM, no, that's not really a "problem". It simply indicates that the machine is in mixed mode or digital mode, but has no external v.24 connection. It's not necessarily a failure indication as much as it is a status indication, and no audio dropouts/drifts are observed.

 

[Alpha]

Thanks - I think we would have noticed any serious drifting by now as I maintain several ham systems that are set up that way - so yeah, I pretty much figured out it's a harmless failure - I checked the logs and it's just complaining it has no V.24 connection or no modem, depending on the mode the WL is in.