Service manual

Guide to ASTRO™ Digital Radios
Hardware Hacking
There are two product-families of digital-capable radios: The ASTRO™ and ASTRO25™ series. The
hardware hacking section of this guide applies only to ASTRO™-series radios. These are the Motorola
Inc. ASTRO Digital Saber™, the ASTRO Digital Spectra™ and the XTS 3000™.
The ASTRO Digital Saber™ and the XTS 3000™ share the same host (ROS) and DSP firmware
builds. The ASTRO Digital Spectra™ has its own host firmware build, but shares the same DSP firmware
as the portable radios.
As stated much earlier in this guide, there are two vocon-sizes for the ASTRO Digital Saber™ and
ASTRO Digital Spectra™: 512K and 1M. The 512K vocons use three 256K flash ROMs. Two ROMs (256K
x2) hold the 512K host ROS firmware and the remaining 256K ROM holds the DSP firmware. The same
256K flash ROM is used to store DSP firmware on the Motorola Inc. XTS 3000™ vocoder board.
The 256K flash ROMs are made by Intel or AMD. This varies on a radio-to-radio basis, and is not
critical for operation. They are the Intel 28F020, AMD AM28F020 and AM29F002NBB chips, all in TSOP-
32 packages. The AM29F series chip features a software write-lock—which is not activated or used in
ASTRO™ products.
1M ASTRO Digital Saber™ and ASTRO Digital Spectra™ vocons utilize a 1M flash ROM to store
host ROS firmware. Motorola Inc. chose to use the Intel 28F800B5B, 28F800CVB and Micron
MT28F800B5B flash ROMs in a TSOP-48 package.
In the XTS 3000™, the controller holds a 1M flash ROM in a TSOP-40 package. Motorola Inc. uses
either a TE28F008* flash ROM or the more popular Micron MT28F008B5B ROM.
These various flash ROMs may be read or written to with a chip programmer such as those
made by Willem or Phyton Inc., in conjunction with TSOP-32, TSOP-40 and TSOP-48 adapters. Proper
care must be exercised when removing/installing TSOP chips to the boards. DO NOT attempt to
experiment with chip removal unless you are an experienced and qualified technician.
Figure 11.1 Qualified technician “BSA” prepares to perform maintenance on his ASTOR radio. Subject hasn’t showered in three days and is not
photogenic. It’s believed he was packing at least seven cheeseburgers at the time, with the risk of cheeseburger-gas contamination.