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An overview of the Motorola Radio Service Software / Customer Programming Software (RSS and CPS), the Radio Interface Box (RIB), their history, problems and some solutions Compiled / Written and HTML'd by Mike Morris WA6ILQ in 2003-2004 and updated occasionally...

Don't forget ‑ Whenever you acquire a new-to-you synthesized commercial radio (any brand) remember to download and save the code plug that it came with (with the commercial frequencies) and archive it. And I'd save your tuning data as well. If you screw up then having those files allows you to backstep and restore the radio back to where you started and you can try again. Just save the code plug and the tuning data on your hard drive and use the radio serial number as the file name. It's much better to waste a few kilobytes of hard drive space on a backup you may never need than to need a backup you don't have and can't get. More details below.

Much of the information presented below was compiled from information provided by a half-dozen folks via emails and phone calls, and condensed into article form for distribution here to help the radio enthusiasts understand just why the older Motorola (and other brands) service software is such a pain to use and why the perfomance is so problematic. Other information was contributed, some anonymously on a floppy disk (the envelope had no return address but had a Schamburg postmark !). You can pack a lot of plain text onto a 1.44 MB floppy...

These articles attempt to cover some of the problems that the users of DOS based (i.e. pre‑Windows‑NT / 2000 / XP era) Motorola Radio Service Software have had, where the problems came from and how they happened, and what the options are for working around them. While the articles are Motorola-specific, many of the workaround techniques are applicable to other brands.

The PCs of the day ran MS-DOS and that operating system did not have a well-written driver for the serial ports (commonly called COM ports). In fact, almost every one of the programs of the day that used a serial port (including RSS) side-stepped MS-DOS 2.x through 6.22 and talked to the serial port hardware directly. The RSS programmers needed to keep the desktop computer in synchronization with the processor in the radio as they uploaded or downloaded the data block (commonly called the codeplug) to or from the radio. For a number of years they accomplished this synchronization by slowing the RSS down with time-wasting loops included in the RSS code. As the PCs became faster they had make the program run slower (by adjusting the timing loops) to maintain that synchronization. This problem existed until the Motorola programmers developed a cpu-speed-insensitive COM port routine that was incorporated into the RSS. More detail in the article titled "Background Information Part II". Always run your old RSS in pure MS-DOS or PC-DOS (the last release was 6.22) on a slow computer that has a real COM port and this does NOT mean a DOS window in ANY version of Windows !!   If there are icons on the screen, or a START button is the corner then IT IS NOT PURE MS-DOS !!!   In an ideal situation you would run the RSS on the operating system of it's day and on a computer made in roughly the same era! CPS (basically RSS for Windows) is more forgiving, but don't forget that early CPS was written for 16‑bit or 32‑bit Windows (95, 98, ME). Most of it was updated for 32‑bit Windows NT and XP. Some CPS, including the MTR2000 or the R1225 just WILL NOT run under 64‑bit Windows (and thre are no easy workarounds). As said on the front page of this web site, Repeater-Builder is NOT responsible for anything YOU do. If you misuse any CPS, or run RSS in a DOS Window, or on a too-fast computer that makes it crash or corrupt a code plug, it has the potential for turning expensive radios into bricks. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED Read the first four articles below thoroughly and understand them.

UPDATE: (mid 2021 and a couple of times since) The article you are reading was written by me, WA6ILQ around 2003-2004 (and infrequently updated)... Radio programming software is becoming much better, but still has a long ways to go. RSS was originally written to work under MS-DOS 2.11, and to work around the limitations of the PC hardware of the day... the read-the-radio and write-to-the radio routines had to bypass MSDOS and directly access the COM port hardware. Some of the RSS had talk to the radios at weird data speeds due to the limitations of the microprocessor in the radio. Direct access allowed that. Some of the MS-DOS RSS ran under Windows 3.x, 95 and 98, however those versions of Windows itself were just 16‑bit applications programs that ran on top of MS-DOS and as such still had to work within the limitations of MS-DOS. As an example, the CPS for the MTR2000 repeater is a windows program (and even runs on Windows 7) yet is limited to the MS-DOS "8.3" filename format… (8 characters to the left of the decimal point and three characters to the right, with the three rightmost characters usually indicating the file type). Windows was completely rewritten from scratch for Windows NT (a 32-bit operating system) and and as such had a whole new set of programming rules... one of which was that ALL of the input / output devices (which included the serial ports) were totally owned by the operating system... no more direct access! This meant that all of the read-the-radio and write-to-the radio routines had to be completely reinvented. There was a lot of relearning on both the OS side and the developer side and a lot of the 32‑bit CPS programs went through several releases. It wasn't until Windows XP that the OS and the CPS really became rock-stable. And when 64‑bit Windows came out in 2005 it first showed up, not as a new ooperating system but as the "Windows XP Professional x64 Edition". More details is in the "Background Information II" article below. Programming Computers / Laptops: What works for me may or may not work for you. I'd be interested in hearing your Comments and Ideas (and any corrections) to my opinions below. The two-way shop that I have helped out a couple of days a week for over a decade has always had two old desktops on the rear bench that are dedicated to program older radios... one is MS-DOS and 16‑bit Windows 98SE and the other computer is XP. A Windows 7 or Windows 10 computer sits on each of the main benches for everyday radio programming. Personally, I use Panasonic CF‑series Toughbook laptops as my dedicated radio programming computers simply because they are inexpensive, available, pretty indestructible, repairable, portable and most importantly have a real 9-pin hardware COM 1 port that always works. I started out with a CF-28, moved up to a CF-29, however these days my everyday programming laptop is a 2006 vintage CF-30 running 32‑bit Windows 7. Why 32 bits? Initially it was becasue the shop has over 50 Motorola repeaters in service and the CPS for them simply won't run on 64‑bit Windows. Another 20-30 have CPS that will run on either 32-bit or 64-bit. The CPS for every other radio (Kenwood, Icom, etc.) that I've needed to field program also runs on Win-7-32. Therefore standardizing on Win-7-32 was an easy decision. If anyone has a reliable solution for running the older 32-bit Windows applications under 64‑bit Windows I'd like to hear from you! We can write an article for this web site. If I have to program an old Maxtrac or GM300 I can boot the CF-30 into MS-DOS from a thumb drive. If the particular old radio is being recalcitrant I break out my old CF-27 that directly runs MS-DOS 6.22 or Windows 98SE. Why a CF-30? Because the earlier CF‑28 and the CF‑29 use an IDE / ATA drive and new drives are becoming pure unobtanium. The CF-28s and CF-29s also have limited RAM (most are 768 MB or 1 GB maximum) which impacts your ease-of-use. The CF‑30 (and later) use a SATA drive and those are cheap and readily available (and can also be an SSD). And the CF-30 easily hold 4GB of RAM (which is also the max that a 32‑bit operating system can access). After the boss saw my CF-30 he had me build more for the shop! I have a later model laptop running 64‑bit Windows 10 which handles the MotoTurbo, APX, and other newer radios. Also the current version of Chirp now requires Win-64. More of my thoughts on dedicated radio programming laptops are here. (link will open in a new window) Computer COM ports / Serial ports / Serial adapters: Unfortunately real hardware serial ports ("COM ports") on desktop and laptop PC's are becoming more and more rare. Desktops are a little easier, you can still acquire a single or dual 9-pin serial card for a desktop. USB to serial adapters and USB programming cables are becoming more and more the go-to solution for radio programming. FTDI-based USB adapters work with the stock Windows drivers, Prolific adapters are not as successful. Some Prolific adapters only work with an old driver. Some factory USB cables work only with the factory provided drivers. There is an unexpected situation with some USB-to-serial adapters. True RS-232 voltage swings as much as ±15 volts as it switches from zero to one, with ±9 to ±12 volts is common. Some of the USB devices swing only ±5 volts since the USB-A connector (the standard rectangular connector) provides +5 volts. Having an adapter swing ±12 volts requires a source of ±12 volts and that requires a voltage booster circuit inside the USB-to-serial adapter. And since the adapters are built to a price most manufacturers don't add it. Check what your target device needs. If it doesn't work don't assume it is the software, it may be that the USB-to-serial adapter is at fault. The Toughbook, Getac, Dell Latitude 7424 / 5452 Rugged line and the Dell Optiplex XE series (their rugged laptop) are known to have proper RS-232 voltages on their COM port connectors. Remotely Programming: The following assumes that you have internet at the radio site. If not, there are multiple ways to bring it in if you have a line-of-sight path to a location that has it. One option for remotely programming units like serially programmed repeater controllers is to use a Serial to Ethernet converters at the remotely located site, and a driver that makes that unit appear as local COM ports to applications running on your workbench computer. An aquaintance (now SK) did this with a homebrew repeater controller. Two options are DigiOne and NPort. I have NO personal experience with the equipment from either of the two companies. Another method is to locate a laptop at the radio site with all the programs you need installed on it, and access it with an application like Teamviewer, RemotePC, Anydesk, etc. This assumes that you are in a situation where a laptop left at a radio site won't evaporate. One friend has a locking rack drawer at his site, with a laptop inside the locked drawer. The shop where I work part time has a number of mountaintop mountaintop radio sites and we have over 70 repeaters spread across the sites. We are fortunate that the sites are secure. We have a laptop at every site feeding USB hubs and as many as 11 serial adapters at each site all plugged into a wide variety of equipment... alarm systems, surveillance cameras. trunking controllers, some of the repeaters themselves, RLC and Scom controllers, etc. Radio programming cables: Since the Toughbook has a 9-pin hardware COM 1 connector I can use the 9-pin "D" cables for radios like the Maxtrac or GM300, and I can continue to use the 9-pin cables for even the CDMs and the XPRs... Once I need to go to USB then I use only real FTDI cables or adapters. Many of the companies that made the troublesome USB cables went away because people that bought their cables spread the word about the problems they were having. Other companies came along that made better cables and had pride in their product. For a number of years I've been buying all of my programming cables (both 9-pin "D" and FTDI USB ones) from Mark Dunkle KJ6ZWL. He sells on ebay as BlueMax49ers and you can avoid the eBay markup through his direct sales web page at https://BlueMax49ers.com (off-site pointer, opens in a new browser tab). And, no, he's NOT paying me for providing this pointer. I am VERY happy with his FTDI cables! The FTDI USB cables DO NOT need any funny drivers, they use the stock Windows drivers and just plain work! Icom is famous (or infamous) for requiring their own weird USB drivers for some of their cables, even for the commercial radios. The Icom‑compatible, Kenwood‑compatible and Motorola‑compatible FTDI cables that Mark sells work just fine with stock drivers and the Icom, Kenwood and Motorola software. Mark has always had what I needed in stock and was able to ship promptly. He reponds to emails and returns phone calls. I personally have purchased over 30 of his cables for myself, for friends and for the 2-way radio shop that I work part time for (I'm 70+ years old, and semi-retired). Only one of his cables has ever had a problem and that was my own fault, in mid-2022 I accidentally broke the attachment clip on an XTS5000 handheld cable. The cable still worked just fine, I just had to use a fat rubber band (and later an elastic / velcro strap) to hold it in place on the programming connector on the side of the XTS handheld. I bought a replacement (from Mark) for the field programming computer kit and the velcro-strap one got demoted to spare status and then later given away. As of the last update of this paragraph (December 2023) it's still in service. Anyway, I'm breaking a personal rule on no endorsements. I'm recommending Marks' FTDI cables to you. They just plain work! Mark is different ‑ it's not often that a vendor includes a business card with every cable, with his email address, street address and phone number on it, and encourages buyers to call! Note that he has both FTDI and Prolific... Personally, I stick with FTDI. NOTE: This is NOT an endorsement by www.repeater-builder.com, just by me, Mike Morris WA6ILQ. And my updating / modifying this page with this text block saves me from having to re-write a number of web pages at this site that mention radio programming cables and to not trust the RIBless / USB ones. Another item to update: I'm happy to observe that the companies are slowly getting away from the RIB and special cables. The newer Icom high-end handhelds also can use either their proprietary cable or a micro-USB cable. Some Motorola radios now use common cables... the Motorola Quantar uses a DB9 cable with no electronics. The MTR2000 uses a DB9-to-RJ45 plug cable that you can build. The MTR3000 uses a regular USB cable. The Motorola SL300 and SL7550 handhelds (and probably others) use a common micro-USB for both charging and programming. And now back to the 2004 vintage article...

First, some clarification on how RSS and CPS is identified.

Motorola has two different software packages: RSS (Radio Service Software) and CPS (Customer Programming Software). Think of CPS as RSS for Windows. Motorola sells the software, like the radio manuals, through their spare parts system. Each software package, like each manual, has a part number, generally starting with RVN or HVN. RSS is MSDOS-based, and CPS runs only under Windows, but some people refer to all Motorola programming software as RSS. The earliest CPS runs under Windows 95, some packages run on Windows 98 and some runs under Windows 2000, XP, 7, 8, etc. Windows 95, 98 and ME had some USB support but it was very inconsistent and you will be smart to NOT count on it. Personally, if I need to run a Windows 95, 98 or ME vintage program I use only a 9-pin "D" connector cable on a real COM port.

Each radio product line - for example the MTR2000, the Spectra, the GM300, the Radius LRA and the Maxtrac - have their own RSS. And despite how much one would like, the RSS written for one won't work on another. Maxtracs use Maxtrac RSS. If you have a LRA series Radius mobile it uses RSS for the LRA Radius product line. Saber handhelds use a different RSS than Astro‑Saber handhelds. If you have a MCS2000 mobile or MTS handheld it uses RSS made for that product line. If you tried to read a MCS mobile radio with, for example, the RSS for the Radius, GM300, Spectra, GTX, Maratrac, MTR, MSF, GP300, or any other product line it's going to do just as it should and report that the particular radio is not supported. Typical error messages are "Model is not supported", "Unknown component", "Check the cable" or "Check the connections".

Some RSS supports multiple radio models - for example, the GM300 RSS package supports the entire GM300 product line which includes the M10, M120 and M130 models as well. This is because the M10 is a single channel GM300, the M120 and M130 are two channel versions. The GM300 was designed from the outset to be four models on three different front panels, hence that particular RSS "knows" about and supports the entire product line. More recently, the CDM Mobile series uses the "Professional" (or "Waris") product line software (initially for the HT750, HT1250 and HT1550 handhelds.

Some RSS packages contain other RSS. For example, the Desktrac base comes in two versions, a base (with one radio chassis inside) and the Desktrac repeater (with two radio chassis inside). The stock radio chassis inside the Desktrac housing are Maxtrac mobiles, plus there is a control board that interfaces them together plus controls the wireline remotes. The RSS package for the Desktrac contains two different RSS programs, one is the Maxtrac RSS, the other program talks to the control board inside the Desktrac station.
However the Maxtrac RSS won't work if the radio chassis inside has been swapped for a GM300... a common amateur radio modification since the radios are physically interchangeable, the UHF Maxtrac comes in either a 406-420 MHz or a 449-470 MHz range and the GM300 comes in a 406-420 MHz and a 438-470 MHz range and covers the amateur UHF repeater band quite nicely (but the Desktrac channel display won't work with the GM300 radio body).

A typical RSS part number, for example, is RVN4020K, which happens to be the last version of the conventional (i.e. non‑trunking) Maxtrac RSS. The trailing letter "K" is the 11th version indicator letter, which in this case is Revision R07.02.00a, and is dated 25-Jun-97.

Trunking radios generally used different RSS packages than the conventional models in the same product line - I first ran into this on Maxtracs - the conventional units used different RSS than their trunked cousins.

The revision (or version) number only comes in to play when Moto updates that particular RSS. Naturally revision 2 is later (newer) than revision 1. And the version number of the RSS is embedded in the "codeplug" - the data block that is loaded in the radio - to change the programming later you need to use the same version or a newer one (more on this in the articles below).

Revision (or version) numbers typically have a leading letter then three numeric fields and frequently end with a letter. The overall number starts with R or B (I've seen one "D" and I personally think that was a transcription error or typo of "B"), as in R07.01.03a or B03.00.01c, and the "R" stands for "Release" or "Revision" (they've used both), and "B" stands for "Beta" (a pre-release product).

To reiterate, the "Version Numbers" or "Revision Number" by itself means nothing without the model number / part number of the RSS itself since when referring to the version or revision number one must be careful to specify which RSS part number is being considered. For example, "R05.00.00" by itself means nothing, since HVN8177 (GM300), RVN4023 (Maratrac), RVN4043 (Trunked Maxtrac), RVN4175 (MCS2000), RVN4077 (MSF5000), HVN9007 (SM50/SM120), and RVN4001 (Spectra) have all been issued as version "R05.00.00", and all are different and are completely incompatible.

So, from the above, you can see that what is critical is that the model number of the RSS / CPS has to be the correct one for your radio product line, and the version number has to be equal to or greater than what was last used to program the individual radio.

RIB or RIBless ?     And what's a RIB ?
A newcomer to programming Motorola radios has to first understand the question, then answer it before the purchase of his first cable. Many people do not understand the parameters of the decision to go with a RIBless cable versus a RIB coupled with one or more "dumb" cables.

What's a RIB? It's a Radio Interface Box ‑ made by Motorola as the RLN4008. I have a RLN4008B and there was a later surface-mount version, the RLN4008D. There's also an E version, supposedly it's just a vendor change and as far as I know no component differences have been found. Anybody have the PDF for the 4008E? Let us know! No matter what the version, the RIB is a multifunction black box device that does several things:
1) It does voltage level conversion (from the RS232 serial data voltages to the voltages that the radio expects).
2) It handles the "busy" signals between the radio and the RIB and the second set between the RIB and the computer for those radios that need it (like the Spectra).
3) It combines the data stream from the radio to the computer and from the computer to the radio into a single bidirectional data stream between the RIB and the radio (for those radios that need it, like the Maxtrac, GM300, GP300, CDM, etc).
The RIB goes inbetween the serial port (also known as the COM port) of the computer and the radio. It has it's own power source, which can be a wall transformer, an internal 9 volt battery or it can be powered through one conductor in the cable to the radio (like in the MaraTrac).

There are manufacturers that build so-called "RIBless" cables. You need to understand that there are two different types of RIBless cables - those that have a DE-9 or DB-25 serial plug on the computer end, and those that have a USB connector.

We will discuss the D-shaped connector ones first: They aren't really RIBless as these serial cables take advantage of the design of the serial port (sometimes called the data port) built into some radios which allows the use of a simple RIB circuit that works almost all of the time and some manufacturers package that circuit into the shell of the DB connector. These expensive cables are capable of programming a limited number of radios: model numbers include the GP300, GP350, GTX, MaxTrac, Radius Mobile, M10, M120 / M130, GM300, HT600 / MT1000, MT2000, etc. and several others. These cables are very attractive to those folks that have a fleet of all or mostly one kind of radio.

The USB-connector cables essentially have BOTH the RIBless circuitry AND a USB to serial adapter in the connector shells. These USB cables are totally USELESS on any DOS-based RSS as DOS has no concept of USB, so if you purchase or use one of them you are deliberately limiting yourself to only those radios that have a Windows-compatible RSS or CPS package available for them.   Again, if you limit yourself to USB cables then you are limiting yourself to Windows 2000 (or later) compatible RSS or CPS and you won't be able to program the older radios with that cable.

My personal opinion: I'd build (or buy) a real RIB and a dumb cable because if you have problems with a RIBless cable you will never know if it is the USB to serial converter, the quirky RIB circuit, the radio, the inconsistent USB support in the older Windows, or .... ????
Some of the RIBless cables purchased from ebay just don't work, and for multiple reasons - some are wired up wrong, others have flaky or proprietary USB drivers, some have weird USB to serial converter chips, others have shoddy construction and fall apart. 99% of the time you are normally dealing with a company in Hong Kong, Tiawan, Indonesia or mainland China. In many cases they speak English only until they have your money - after that they just ignore you or pretend to not understand. Every single person that I know that has bought a RIBless cable has sooner or later ended up buying (or building) a real RIB and the appropriate cable(s) - for one of three reasons:
1) He gets a better radio, for example graduating from a GM300 or MaxTrac (that can use a DE-9 RIBless cable) to a Spectra or Syntor X9000 (that can't), or ...
2) He's damaged the expensive RIBless cable (just try and get a schematic of it to do any troubleshooting, and many are nonrepairable because they are molded rubber or potted), or ...
3) The RIBless cable is inconsistent - this first showed up with a friend that has 8 or 9 GM300s and a few Maxtracs in his extended family - several for the business trucks and the business base, several more for for ham radio (6m, 2m and UHF), Civil Air Patrol, all of the UHF ones include both the business channels and the GMRS channels. The chinese RIBless cable he purchased would program some radios but not others. My real RIB and homemade cable did every one, every time, and with his computer.
As I said above, either way sooner or later every single friend of mine that purchased a RIBless cable eventually acquired a RIB and a repairable or duplicate-able quality dumb cable. Over the long term they had more consistent programming, less discord and a more cost-effective arrangement.

Another reason to avoid the RIBless cables is the outright cost. Each RIBless cable will set you back $40-$75. You can buy a project box from Radio Shack and build a RIB on perfboard for less, or build one for zero if you have a decent junk box, and then build your own radio cable for the cost of the materials. I built my own RIB and all of my own home-brew cables for Maxtrac, Radius, Maratrac, Spectra, Syntor X9000, MSF5000, HT600 / MT1000 (from a speaker-mic cable), HT1000 / MT2000 (ditto) and several others. I use quality metal shells on the D-style connectors, use grommets and cable strain reliefs where appropriate, and the entire kit (including the RIB and six or seven cables) cost less than four ribless cables. I was handed a real RIB several years later...

As to the real Motorola versus clone RIBs argument... the schematic of the "real" RIB is widely available and linked above. Exact clones are available from several sources. Other "clones" have difficulty in knowing when to send and when to listen. The real Motorola RIB and the exact clones have additional circuitry that takes care of this task, along with circuits that handle interfaces with the more complex radios, such as the Syntor X9000, MaraTrac, Spectra, Astro Spectra, Astro‑Saber, and MTS series.

RSS versus radio list:
Moto maintains an RSS versus radio list on their dealer web site. Every so often we at repeater-builder get a copy in anonymous email. Here is the 9th August 2007 RSS list.
If you are looking for something older, there are links to several older lists located near the end of the first RSS article below. Naturally the older radios drop off the available list. As an example, the August 2007 list does not have the conventional Maxtracs on it. You will have to go to the older lists for the older radios.

Update as of November 2012:
A newer master list of RSS was found, but you'll have to search it to find what you want: RSS master list November 2012. If anyone has a newer list please forward a copy to the page maintainer above.

A note on entering frequencies into the RSS:
Some RSS allowed out-of-range frequencies to be entered simply by holding the shift key down while entering the numbers, others don't have that feature and require hex patching the RSS to allow out-of-range / out-of-band frequencies to be entered (see the article below that is titled "Modifying the Radio Service Software"). I suspect that either it was a Lab feature or possibly a ham or ham-friendly programmer added the shift key feature and it just got copied to subsequent software generations... When the programmers wrote the RSS for a new radio series they naturally started the process by copying the working source code from a similar / earlier radio and modifying the copy, and therefore the early RSS program "look", structure and features (and therefore "shift-key" data entry feature, and unfortunately the CPU-speed-dependent serial port driver) continued into the newer program, i.e. all that was really changed was the title page (radio name, RSS part number / Revision / release date), the feature set, and both the format and contents of the data block / codeplug sent to and received from the radio.

Those RSS programs / versions that allowed the shift key method operate as follows: To program a frequency of (for example) 147.435 MHz the user would hold down the shift key and enter "!$&" (without the " characters) for 147 then release the shift key, enter the decimal point then press the shift key down again and enter the 435 as "$#%" plus all the extra digit positions with extra trailing zeros if necesary (each of which which will show up as a ")" character). Our example frequency of 147.435 MHz actually requires the user to type 147.43500 as !$&.$#%)), and at that point you just hit the Enter key. While a 2 Meter frequency is shown in the above example, this same trick is used to enter 28 MHz, 52 MHz, 440 MHz and 927 MHz frequencies into the appropriate RSS as well ‑ just remember to fill in all the trailing digit positions of every frequency position that needs the shift key trick with zeroes.
If you are using a non‑USA layout keyboard, remember that RSS was written in the USA long before the RSS was internationalized. The USA keyboard has the "!" (exclamation point) as upper case 1, "@" for upper-case "2", "#" is upper case "3", "$" (the dollar sign) is upper case "4", "%" (percent) as upper case 5, "^" (caret or "up arrow") as upper case 6, "&" (ampersand) as upper case 7, "*" (asterisk) as upper case 8, and open and close parentheses on 9 and 0. Localized keyboards move things around and can cause confusion - for example, the Canadian keyboard has different symbols on a few of the numeric keys, the Latin American / Mexican keyboard has more differences, and the UK (Great Britian) keyboard is VERY different! It has a double-quote on the upper case "2" and a £ (the stylized "L" GB Pound currency symbol) as upper case "3". The "@" and "#" are included in the three symbol keys to the immediate left of the "Enter" key (yes, three, not two, as on the USA keyboard). As an email from an acquaintance in the UK said, "See if you can guess how I figured this out. Bonus prize for guessing how long it took..."
If you use a Non‑USA keyboard the simplest cure may be to put a piece of white tape on your keyboard above the numeric keys, then write on the tape the symbols that RSS expects above the numbers.

Update 2020: Some RSS (like HVN9054 version 4 for the M1225 / R1225) will allow the shift key trick for the numbers but errors out when you press the Enter key. I've made it work by using the Tab key to place the cursor into the frequency field, then type the numbers with the shift key, and then use the Tab key to advance to the next field (frequency or tone, or...).

Finally, if you can't make the shift key trick work on a particular RSS then your only option is to hex-edit the RSS. There are articles on this web site that will walk you through the process.

Update 2019: On the other hand, some radios, like the CM200 / CM300 / PM400 series tell the CPS what their frequency range is during the codeplug download from the radio (i.e. 146-174 MHz), so you have to hexedit the downloaded codeplug (to, for example, 144-174 MHz) and then load it into the CPS to add or modify a channel, then upload the hexedited and modfied codeplug back to the radio. It took me a week of evenings to figure out how to get a 145 MHz range repeater frequency pair into a 146‑174 MHz range CM300. I was able to make it work, but ran into a "gotcha!"... when you download the codeplug from the radio into the RSS it "fixes" every out-of-range frequency. All you can do is to keep the hexedited codeplug on your computer hard drive and re-edit it every time that you need to change something, and then reload it into the radio.

A couple of notes on the PC's serial "COM" ports:
The IBM PC and XT used DB-25 male connectors for the serial connectors on the back of the computer. The AT series and RT series used a mix of DB-25s and DE-9s depending on the option boards. Hewlett-Packard had a manufacturing error on the early production runs of their serial boards and used a female serial connector (it was way too easy to confuse a serial connection and a printer connection). A male-to-male adapter on the serial port connector fixes that HP screwup.
All of the early serial boards had hardware jumpers that selected COM 1 or COM 2. The later boards allowed selecting COM 1, COM 2, COM 3 or COM 4. Use the MS-DOS command "MSD" to verify that the BIOS "sees" the port as the correct COM number.

The earliest MS-DOS based RSS will be limited to COM 1 or COM 2, at some point they added COM 3 and COM 4. RSS / CPS for 16‑bit Windows generally allows up to COM 4, some later RSS / CPS allows up to COM 16 (especially for 32‑bit Windows).

A final point: Over the years the Motorola legal group made the topic of RSS / CPS so touchy that the first four articles below were written by knowledgeable folks that wanted to be anonymous. The Motorola legal group seems to think that RSS / CPS is more valuable than the British Crown Jewels or the formula for Coca Cola. One person demanded that I reword / rewrite his article to hide his writing style so I did that to all of them. There is some repetition of information in the articles below both for emphasis, and because they were independently written by different people. When you have multiple people writing on the same topic some information duplication is inevitable...

	Background Information I
	Background Information II This was written after someone saw the first article, and felt that some topics were not adequately covered.
	The Radio Interface Box (RIB) A look at the hardware involved.
	Radio Service Software (RSS) Some additional details not in the above writeups.
	An overview of a common problem in the Radio Service Software This article expands on a problem that was touched on only lightly and in passing in the Background Information II article above. You may never see it but Friend #1 fought it for a weekend and decided to share...
	Introduction to RSS and Radio Programming   by Robert W. Meister WA1MIK This article describes the various pieces of the puzzle - how to connect them, how to set them up - to allow you to easily and successfully program many of the older Motorola radios. It's geared towards the user who just bought a radio, needs to program it, and is new to RSS and RIBs.
	Modifying the Radio Service Software (RSS) Sometimes you have to modify (edit at the hexadecimal level) the RSS to allow it to do what you want (like entering amateur radio frequencies on 28-30 MHz, 50-54 MHz, or 902-927 MHz). Sometimes you have to patch a 450-470 MHz range to 440-470 MHz (or in one case 440-476), or a 146-174 MHz range radio to 144-174 MHz. There are pitfalls to watch out for, especially when you buy or sell a radio.
	Pentium Compatible Radio Service Software (RSS) Some additional details not in the above writeups.
	There is an article that describes hex-editing the MT1000 (P200) Low-band RSS so it allows 42-54 MHz frequency entry, by Robert W. Meister WA1MIK. It can be found on the Genesis page of the Motorola section of this web site.
	There is a "Secrets of the MDF file" article by Robert W. Meister WA1MIK on the GTX page of the Motorola section. While it is somewhat GTX-specific, it's worth reading before you read the next article.
	Hex-editing the MaxTrac MDF file for UHF and 900 MHz   by Robert W. Meister WA1MIK This article describes the process that you have to do to modify the Maxtrac RSS MDF file for programming on UHF or 900 MHz amateur frequencies. The procedure is applicable to other RSS programs as well.
	Hex-editing the MTS2000 RSS for 900 MHz Someone read the article above and created a patch for the MTS2000 RSS.
	Reasons for using LAB vs Regular RSS From a thread on another web site. Initially asked about MaxTrac RSS but applies to many other radio product lines.

You will want to maintain a programming notebook and write notes to yourself for future programming sessions. You will also want to read the release notes for the RSS or CPS (and the book that comes with it if you can get your hands on it) before you program a new-to-you radio for the first time. You will discover quirks that go with specific RSS or CPS.
For example, on a "Waris" family radio (the CDM mobiles and the HT750 / 1250 / 1550 / EX500 / EX600 handhelds)... You will get an "Unknown Component" message (why couldn't they use easy-to-understand error messages?) and you won't be able to get past it until you read the release notes and you will discover that:
a) you MUST launch the CPS program and let it initialize and be stable, and ...
b) the RIB must be on, and ...
c) the radio has to be powered up and stable, and ...
All of this has to be done BEFORE you connect the programming cable to the radio.
...then you download the codeplug from the radio, make your changes, upload the codeplug to the radio...
THEN YOU HAVE TO WAIT... the radio will beep after the codeplug is finished loading, then the radio will reset, then beep again (the power-up beep) and then and only then can you disconnect the cable and / or power off the radio.

One final comment on radio programming in general: If you are programming a multichannel radio for a commercial or public safety client it's a bad idea to leave a channel position totally blank. If it's an 8 channel radio and you only have 5 channels in it then you have potentially three empty switch positions. Some radios, like the Spectra, "wrap around" when you go "up" or "down" from the last defined channel (i.e. if you only program five channels and go up from 5 it wraps around to 1. Likewise if you go down from 1 it wraps around to 5). Some radios that have channel switches have a physical "stop" or "pin" on the switch that can be positioned to block the switch from rotating to unused channels. Others do not have that option - if you have a 16 channelradio with only 9 channels programmed then you have 7 dead switch positions. What happens if the person accidentally bumps their radio from channel 9 to channel 10? Will they miss calls from their dispatcher? What is the worst-case scenario?
Personally I program all empty positions in a VHF radio to carrier squelch, receive-only and on the local weather channel (which is 24x7 key down). Similarly I program all of the extra positions in a UHF radio to carrier squelch, receive only, and on a local public safety P25 control channel (also key down 24x7). The constant raspy sound of the P25 data stream tells them that they aren't on their dispatch channel. In either case the user will know that he bumped the channel selector and he will know it RIGHT NOW.

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This web page first posted 16-Mar-2004

Motorola® is a registered trademark of Motorola Inc.   CPS, HT600, MICOR, Mostar, MaxTrac, Radius, MT1000, R100, Radio Service Software, RSS, Radio Interface box, RIB, Saber, SmartRIB, Spectra, STX, Syntor, Syntor X, Syntor X9000, Systems Saber and a bunch of other terms used in the articles above are trademarks, service marks or copyrighted by Motorola Inc. and are used in this writeup and on this web site in a descriptive or educational use only, and no misuse or infringement is intended.

The first five articles above are original works that were written at the request of a Repeater-Builder staff member, and were donated. They are © Copyright March 2004 and date of last update by Mike Morris WA6ILQ, and are hosted by the Repeater-Builder web site.

This web page, this web site, the information presented in and on its pages and in these modifications and conversions is © Copyrighted 1995 and (date of last update) by Kevin Custer W3KKC and multiple originating authors. All Rights Reserved, including that of paper and web publication elsewhere.