New ADL Radio Firmware (V 4.01.116) for ADL radios in ProMark 500, ProMark 800 and EPOCH 50’s, recalled ADL Vantage Pros and ADL Vantage Pros in the Summer

There is new firmware for the Epoch 50, ProMark 500 and ProMark 800 devices. If you are having problems with receive radios hanging up, these updates will fix most of them:

  Epoch 50: [ here ]

  ProMark 500 with Internal ADL: [ here ]

  ProMark 800 with Internal ADL: [ here ]

There are also updates for external radios (think ADL Vantage and ADL Vantage Pro) connected to the external serial port.

  ProMark 500 with External ADL: [ here ]

  ProMark 800 with External ADL: [ here ]

I just checked and this software version is NOT available from Pacific Crest directly. (Although I believe it is being widely distributed by dealers.)

Is this update important? Yes, I think so. Le t me describe problems that you may be seeing:

Some radios have a propensity to ‘lock up’. When this happens, the red Tx LED will be locked on. The radio will be transmitting an open carrier and your battery will be quickly discharged and the radio will be as hot as a cheap pistol in a western gunfight (sorry, I can’t resist.) The ON/OFF switch will still work and resetting the power (either with the switch or by power cable) will get your unit working again. This problem is worse with over the air (link) rates of 4800 baud.

Rover will work for a while and then misteriously stop receiving corrections. You won’t be able to check or change the radio frequency from the data collector. You have to turn off the receiver, wait for a minute and restart to fix. Again, this problem is worse with over the air (link) rates of 4800 baud than it is with 9600 baud.

As it starts to heat up this summer, remember that your ADL radios will self limit output power when they get hot. There is a great fan unit [ see here ], to mitigate this. We have a pile in stock as it gets really hot here.

On another ADL Vantage Pro note, if you have an ADL Vantage Pro radio with a serial number that starts with 1212 through 1231, and it has not been back to Pacific Crest to be ‘rebuilt’ you probably should consider sending it in. There is an known problem with the radio not starting below 25 deg F. I believe that radios above this temperature will eventually fail.