REVIEW: AN/PRC-148 MBITR, working replica by United-Star

[Mysuperior]

It was like I thought, I killed my worn out Cavalvy bowmen and looted
the electret condenser mic and solderd it on to my sordins.. it worked wonders, so did it for the rest of my team mates - No impedence problems whatsoever.

[EagleDriver]

I had a long talk with they engineering group at TEA this week. http://www.teaheadsets.com/

I have a real Peltor Comtac II and I also just got an MSA Sordin Supreme Pro. Both end in the TP120 "NATO" connector. Both have the original microphone in them. When I used them both with my Peltor made PTT and my Wouxun radio, they work fine in transmit and receive. I am having TEA make me two additional U94 PTT's to use with the Wouxin/Puxing/United Star radios (two pin Kenwood plug) and when we were discussing my desired config (straight cord, 24" length, etc.) we also discussed impedance. TEA said that the Peltor and MSA are low impedance microphone headsets and that neither should be a problem with the Chinese radios. They went on to say that there are many different types of radios that headsets have to interface with and some may need more power or amplification than others. This function is in the PTT and not the microphone. They said that when my two PTT's are finished, they will work fine with the MSA or Peltor microphone with no swapping needed.

So I think that the PTT's for the MBITR radios have a lower amplification than for other types and changing the microphone does a similar function as the inside the PTT function. I did not actually think to ask this exact question but I will when I talk to them when the PTTs are done. I also found out that one of the engineers there has the Wouxun radio and so is very familiar with the Chinese radios.

[leocommander]

Hi,

I was referred here by the SpecWarfare people whom I bought a United Star AN/PRC-148 from. I bought my radio about 4 months ago and just now got around to trying it out. I found that the radio had a very loose U283 connector on it and after looking a little more closely found that the orange wire (from reading the forums it is something to do with the mic) was not connected to the plug. I know that was an easy solder job for when I wanted to use that so I just tightened the connector and proceeded to program it. I managed to load the GMRS along with the FRS frequencies allowed here in the US along with 3 other test ones to see if it could receive them. I found that it did in fact work and was what I thought to be a decent radio. I then proceeded to try and program the frequencies that me and my younger brother use for Airsofting into it only to find a "data fail" error pop up. It gives me the same error upon trying to read as well. I have tried making sure the battery is fully charged, using a different USB to serial adapter, a real RS-232 port instead of my USB adapter, and using my buddies programming cable to no avail. I contacted SpecWarfare on the issue and they have told me that its no longer their problem and now I'm stuck with what is essentially a 300 dollar overglorified midland walkie-talkie. This radio was supposed to be a gift to my little brother Allen for his 18th birthday, so If anyone has any advice on what I should or could do please let me know in a reply or PM.


Thanks,

Nate Schmidt

[EagleDriver]

What frequencies were you trying to program?

[leocommander]

I had already programmed transmit and receive 462.562-462.725 MHz (United States GMRS) at 4 watts, along with 467.562-467.712 MHz (United States FRS) at .5 watts. Also I have it set to receive only on 160.560 MHz, 161.050 MHz, and 161.140 MHz. I was trying to program two additional C2 frequencies (that were unused) that the group had defined that day in the 460.000 band for transmit and receive at 4 watts, however it would not let me even read the old data from the radio, nonetheless write any new data.


Nate Schmidt

[EagleDriver]

I was under the impression that this came in either VHF or UHF and was not dual band. But I do not own one personally, so I can not say if that is part of the issue. Do the receive channels on the 160/161 MHz bands work for receive?

[wilks]

everything i have been reading has stated that it will work on anything from 30-500 mhz. its more of an antenna issue. in fact a bunch of pages back there was a tutorial on how to program it to the diffrent freqs

[Conker]

REQUEST:

Anyone that got his radio, I would appreciate if you could tell me which wire color goes to which plug (A,B,C,D,E,F; it's written on them) on the U283. I accidentaly broke the solders, so I'll have to redo them and I want to be completely sure that my hypothesis is correct.

EDIT:
Also, if anyone's radio isn't working for some reason, and you want to get rid of it, let me know I might be interested to buy it for my gear display/storage (and use the battery with mine).

[LoneWolf91]

Originally Posted by conker

request:

anyone that got his radio, i would appreciate if you could tell me which wire color goes to which plug (a,b,c,d,e,f; it's written on them) on the u283. I accidentaly broke the solders, so i'll have to redo them and i want to be completely sure that my hypothesis is correct.

Here ya go:

A-BLUE
B-GREEN
C-YELLOW
D-ORANGE
E-N/A
F-N/A

[Conker]

Thank you!

[meppie]

Who as the original source-code available of an SDK for this chipset.
The radio is not behaving consistently when using it. Most of the times it works but sometimes it just does not want to transmit. So I would love to look or play with the source-code of the software that is in the radio.
Also the software to program the radio with would be appreciated. Who would be able to help me with this or let me help the builde of this radio with. At the moment the programming software is no fun to use.

[Kokanee]

Anyone know where these can still be found for sale? EB is fresh out.

[Karloss]

Originally Posted by Kokanee

Anyone know where these can still be found for sale? EB is fresh out.

I still have 1 PRC-148 for sale at 300$ tax in + shipping. I also have few Marconi radio for 125$ tax in + shipping.

[Ernesto]

Battery 2000 mah is FAKE!!!
actual battery capacity is 1100 mah
and china bonus granite brick

But i upgrade battery 2x18650 li-on 2500 mah.

[Karma_]

Lol, that's funny. Sneaky little bastards.

My battery seems to hold up for a long time but that is good to know. Thanks Ernesto.