Ascom/Bosch (Motorola) SE660

[DK2MHD]

Hello Henry,

I'm afraid I cant at the moment, I'm still calculating all costs, not all invoices
are here yet, but I expect it to cost around 100-150 Eur as a finished, ready-to-use
unit, tested and working

73, Michael
DK2MHD

[DK2MHD]

Finally, nearly a year later:

The first prototype successfully read out a SE160X.

Its now about time to complete the other ones. Please contact me
if you are interested in one!

73, Michael
DK2MHD

[DK2MHD]

SE660Top read out successfully as well...

[elsinga]

Sounds really good!

[DK2MHD]

Hello,

the adaptors are ready. Please contact me for further information!

73, Michael

[PA0HJA]

Hi Michael,

Why not share further details here?

Pictures, programming setup and so on, would like to read/see how you did things.

73,

PA0HJA

[DK2MHD]

Hello,

sorry for the delay - I was on a business trip. I enclose a picture of the
adaptor PCB. Its a 4 layer pcb, upper and lower side. The obsolete MCU
from the original PK160 wasnt available in new condition, so I bought
a bunch of pre-programmed as old stock, and etched them open to
erase them, reprogram them and closed them with this black sticky
goo and put them in the oven 60 minutes @ 120 degrees celsius.
To my surprise all of the MCU's were working without a problem, no
one had bit-errors. The rest was simple....but a good lot of work!

But I think the result is worth it.

73, Michael

[pe2cvf]

Ziet er goed uit! knap stukje reverse engineering ook, complimenten voor de bouwers!

Is er al meer bekend over de aangepaste software? ik las wat over bandgrenzen verruimen, is dan ook de tuning mogelijkheid aanwezig in de software, en komt deze vrij beschikbaar?

Ik heb 2 van deze SE660's zou leuk zijn om ze aan de praat te krijgen.

[PA0HJA]

Ik denk dat deze advertentie van Michael is?:



http://www.ebay.de/itm/Ascom-Bosch-Prog ... 20e94d931d

Nou niet exact een hobby prijsje.......


PA0HJA

[PA0HJA]

Er zijn nu blijkbaar manuals te krijgen voor de SE660!:

https://www.manualsdrive.com/results.ph ... 85hgf4vBBt

Alleen veel te duur!

Een testje leverde een prijs van +/- Euro 80,-- voor één manual op!



PA0HJA

[PA0HJA]

Is er al meer bekend over de aangepaste software? ik las wat over bandgrenzen verruimen, is dan ook de tuning mogelijkheid aanwezig in de software, en komt deze vrij beschikbaar?

Alhoewel de ontwikkeling van de nieuwe copie-adapter door Michael een goede ontwikkeling is, is dit naar mijn mening helaas niet de optimale oplossing voor ons zendamateurs.

Gezien de prijsstelling (~ Euro 250,-- ?) is dit financieel niet interessant voor zendamateurs die zelf maar één of twee sets hebben, wèl voor professionele gebruikers die nu weer makkelijker aan deze zeldzame stukjes hardware kunnen komen.

Anderzijds is deze programmeer-adapter alleen te gebruiken met de oorspronkelijke software en oorspronkelijke programmeer-omgeving, dwz. een oude, trage -486 PC, de moderne PC's zijn véél te snel om de oude software goed te laten werken!

Dit is dus ook het antwoord op jou vraag, de oude beperkingen van de oorspronkelijk software blijven vooralsnog in deze oplossing bestaan.

Een betere oplossing zou geweest zijn zoals Manuel die geprobeerd heeft te vinden:
Het analyseren van het programmeringsprotocol en zèlf een stukje software schrijven met nieuwe, moderne hardware (PIC- of AVR-processor oid.) op een hedendaagse PC met gebruikmaking van de beschikbaarheid van de moderne support-software zoals bv. een database- en/of spreadsheet programma voor het opslaan/definiëren van de programma-inhoud van de SE660.

Helaas heeft Manuel dit project (voorlopig?) stop gezet en is er op dit moment niet meer mee bezig.

Voor degene die dit op wil pakken en voort wil zetten wil hij zijn werk/resultaten tot nu toe wel ter beschikking stellen, denk ik.

PA0HJA

[DK2MHD]

Hello,

I was on business vacation the whole week, so I couldnt respond earlier.
Yes, the ad is from me - but the manuals are not. I announced some of
them on eBay for a buy it now or make offer. Therefore the price is not final.
As I said earlier, its as you see a professional pcb, and the MCU is no longer
available as new, so I had to buy pre-programmed ones, let them all
decap, erase & program them, and then seal them up again.......
The material costs are a total of ~120 Euro for each adapter, without
soldering work. As it behaves like the original adaptor, it might not work
on newer systems, but if you want to program radios >20 years old, you
should have an appropiate system for it to run the software. All friends
that work with Ascom, Bosch, Motorola or other brands keep their 386's
because there is no other option for the software to work. I havent tried
dosbox for its lack of a LPT port, but I have successfully tested to
program a Bosch KFS457 on my QuadCore Linux machine using dosbox.
So, it *might* work on an emulator as well, the Bosch software does.
Last but not least, the forum price of 150 Euro is still up, but I wont sell
them for a lower price. If the avr/pic-version will be done in a professional
style (pcb job, housing etc) I'm sure it wont be sold for 19 Euro..........
and you still have no software to program it. Just telling the radio to show
some symbols on the display doesnt make it a programming software, sorry...

73, Michael

[PA0HJA]

Hello Michael,

Sorry that I might have given you the impression that I was talking down on your product/solution.
That was not my intention at all!
I think the price you ask is fair for the amount of work/time/materials you put in it and appropriate for the professional market.

But I think only a few hams can afford / will want to buy it for that kind of money, considering the radio's are worth, say, only 20 (?) to 50(?) Euro's on the hamradio equipment market?
Don't forget that in the present ham radio market, people get used to free programming software and ridiculously cheap programming adapter hardware, eg. for a Baofeng radio: free "Chirp" software and a programming adapter for $5 to $10!

I also do agree with you on the need to save and use old 386 and 486 PC hardware for a programming environment for the older radio equipment, as it currently is the only option that works (-reliably) with the old software, although some DOS simulators might work for some software / radio platforms.

However for the original SE660 programmer software, most (all) DOS simulators will most likely not work because of the fact that this software seems to be using the LPT-port hardware in non standard, non regular ways that are likely not supported by the standard LPT-port software emulators.

Just telling the radio to show some symbols on the display doesnt make it a programming software, sorry...

I know Manuel was a lot further than that.
As far as I know he was already able to read / program the contents of the program memory in the radio fairly complete and further could he clone one radio to another radio 100% OK, using simple and cheap I2C hardware and modern software.

The major problem I think was, to reverse engineer the programming rules and -logic, needed to be able to define the program memory contents without errors, so that the radio would accept the data and commands sent to it.

It's a pity he stopped working on it / lost interest in the project.
Hopefully somebody will pick up the project where he left off and continues his good work.
Anyway, he/she will have my full support!

PA0HJA