CD&F Info and Reverse Engineering Progress!

[trevor229]

I'm not having much luck with mine. So far I only have three tone filters working, and one of them only works at 10Hz below the specified tone frequency.
688.3 (replaced chip and reflowed joints; works but only at 678 and lower for whatever reason)
726.8 (works)
767.4 (used to not work, now randomly started working)
810.2 (used to work, now doesn't)
855.5 Common tone (doesn't work, even after reflow and chip replacement)

The radio receiver I still haven't bothered with, probably never will. I think I'm just going to throw in the towel on this one. If you're interested, I'd be willing to hand this one over to you to work on since it's got just about everything except a CTCSS card.

That is really odd, I haven't encountered anything like that yet, though I haven't touched my tone filters on my silver unit yet. The filter test board seems to have LEDs that were extremely dim and now are basically dead? Not sure about that. I'm building a programming cable for the data radio and found the software too. I also plan on repainting and re-decal-ing it just cause its so bad.

I would be very happy to take you up on that offer since I missed my chance for the other cards twice now haha. Happy to pay shipping too, let me know via DM or email.

[NahIDee]

I'm not having much luck with mine. So far I only have three tone filters working, and one of them only works at 10Hz below the specified tone frequency.
688.3 (replaced chip and reflowed joints; works but only at 678 and lower for whatever reason)
726.8 (works)
767.4 (used to not work, now randomly started working)
810.2 (used to work, now doesn't)
855.5 Common tone (doesn't work, even after reflow and chip replacement)

The radio receiver I still haven't bothered with, probably never will. I think I'm just going to throw in the towel on this one. If you're interested, I'd be willing to hand this one over to you to work on since it's got just about everything except a CTCSS card.

That is really odd, I haven't encountered anything like that yet, though I haven't touched my tone filters on my silver unit yet. The filter test board seems to have LEDs that were extremely dim and now are basically dead? Not sure about that. I'm building a programming cable for the data radio and found the software too. I also plan on repainting and re-decal-ing it just cause its so bad.

I would be very happy to take you up on that offer since I missed my chance for the other cards twice now haha. Happy to pay shipping too, let me know via DM or email.

Like I said, it's been submerged once or twice before I nabbed it. I'm already surprised most of it works as it is. The test module LEDs do light up fairly bright when the correct tones are received, though I might check again to make sure the non-working filters are working and in case a few LEDs have gone bad. It still doesn't make any sense that the 810.2Hz filter suddenly stopped working when it used to a few weeks ago; it's in near-mint condition too...

[NahIDee]

Although a bit off topic to the reverse engineering project, I recently went on a detour on my way up to a graduation party. One of my stops being in Elm Creek, Nebraska – the former home of CD&F.

In the first picture, you can see one of the former CD&F buildings located on 202 East Front Street. I believe this may have been a secondary storage and office building for CD&F.
The second building at 140 North Tyler Street, I can only imagine was the main assembly building for the manufacturing of the boards and assembly of the enclosures. It has since been turned into a grocery store after the closure of CD&F.

From what I know about CD&F, it was owned and operated by Robert E. Kugler. After the closure and sale of Plectron in the early 1990s, a vast majority of the people moved from Plectron to CD&F, with some of the ex-Plectron employees going to work for Reach Electronics in Lexington (now known as Veetronix, which is currently owned and operated by Roger Teeters).

According to a local enthusiast, he helped with the setup of the Elm Creek's volunteer fire department's new radio system... which apparently has been known to have nonstop troubles and issues since its implementation. Apparently it's bad enough that he hasn't been able to actually retire because of it.

[trevor229]

Although a bit off topic to the reverse engineering project, I recently went on a detour on my way up to a graduation party. One of my stops being in Elm Creek, Nebraska – the former home of CD&F.

In the first picture, you can see one of the former CD&F buildings located on 202 East Front Street. I believe this may have been a secondary storage and office building for CD&F.
The second building at 140 North Tyler Street, I can only imagine was the main assembly building for the manufacturing of the boards and assembly of the enclosures. It has since been turned into a grocery store after the closure of CD&F.

From what I know about CD&F, it was owned and operated by Robert E. Kugler. After the closure and sale of Plectron in the early 1990s, a vast majority of the people moved from Plectron to CD&F, with some of the ex-Plectron employees going to work for Reach Electronics in Lexington (now known as Veetronix, which is currently owned and operated by Roger Teeters).

According to a local enthusiast, he helped with the setup of the Elm Creek's volunteer fire department's new radio system... which apparently has been known to have nonstop troubles and issues since its implementation. Apparently it's bad enough that he hasn't been able to actually retire because of it.

Oh wow, nice! I was wondering what the area looked like aside from street view on maps. Interesting info as well, I didn't know about the Plectron migration. Cool stuff.

Who woulda guessed, the VFD of the town which had a company known for making sometimes flaky radio receivers has radio issues lol.

[NahIDee]

Although a bit off topic to the reverse engineering project, I recently went on a detour on my way up to a graduation party. One of my stops being in Elm Creek, Nebraska – the former home of CD&F.

In the first picture, you can see one of the former CD&F buildings located on 202 East Front Street. I believe this may have been a secondary storage and office building for CD&F.
The second building at 140 North Tyler Street, I can only imagine was the main assembly building for the manufacturing of the boards and assembly of the enclosures. It has since been turned into a grocery store after the closure of CD&F.

From what I know about CD&F, it was owned and operated by Robert E. Kugler. After the closure and sale of Plectron in the early 1990s, a vast majority of the people moved from Plectron to CD&F, with some of the ex-Plectron employees going to work for Reach Electronics in Lexington (now known as Veetronix, which is currently owned and operated by Roger Teeters).

According to a local enthusiast, he helped with the setup of the Elm Creek's volunteer fire department's new radio system... which apparently has been known to have nonstop troubles and issues since its implementation. Apparently it's bad enough that he hasn't been able to actually retire because of it.

Oh wow, nice! I was wondering what the area looked like aside from street view on maps. Interesting info as well, I didn't know about the Plectron migration. Cool stuff.

Who woulda guessed, the VFD of the town which had a company known for making sometimes flaky radio receivers has radio issues lol.

Same enthusiast also said he's supposedly got a Corvette with a perch in it for his pet parrot. Bob sounds like he is... an interesting guy I guess you could say.

I also happened to run on down to Overton as well during this trip. They were formerly home to Plectron from the 1950s up until they sold out to Federal Signal in the 1990s.

[trevor229]

Although a bit off topic to the reverse engineering project, I recently went on a detour on my way up to a graduation party. One of my stops being in Elm Creek, Nebraska – the former home of CD&F.

In the first picture, you can see one of the former CD&F buildings located on 202 East Front Street. I believe this may have been a secondary storage and office building for CD&F.
The second building at 140 North Tyler Street, I can only imagine was the main assembly building for the manufacturing of the boards and assembly of the enclosures. It has since been turned into a grocery store after the closure of CD&F.

From what I know about CD&F, it was owned and operated by Robert E. Kugler. After the closure and sale of Plectron in the early 1990s, a vast majority of the people moved from Plectron to CD&F, with some of the ex-Plectron employees going to work for Reach Electronics in Lexington (now known as Veetronix, which is currently owned and operated by Roger Teeters).

According to a local enthusiast, he helped with the setup of the Elm Creek's volunteer fire department's new radio system... which apparently has been known to have nonstop troubles and issues since its implementation. Apparently it's bad enough that he hasn't been able to actually retire because of it.

Oh wow, nice! I was wondering what the area looked like aside from street view on maps. Interesting info as well, I didn't know about the Plectron migration. Cool stuff.

Who woulda guessed, the VFD of the town which had a company known for making sometimes flaky radio receivers has radio issues lol.

Same enthusiast also said he's supposedly got a Corvette with a perch in it for his pet parrot. Bob sounds like he is... an interesting guy I guess you could say.

I also happened to run on down to Overton as well during this trip. They were formerly home to Plectron from the 1950s up until they sold out to Federal Signal in the 1990s.

Also pretty dang cool. Federal Signal HQ is actually about 15-20 mins from where I live in IL. They have some jobs available, but their position descriptions are quite demanding.

[trevor229]

Some good news, I was able to get the maxon radio programmed! I could not get the interface cable I built to work, but I was able to manually make a hex file of the programming software EEPROM preview and manually flash the I2C EEPROM with a CH341a programmer. I added a speaker too since the radio has that output.

Even after cleaning all the boards, it still works fine and responds to tones sent via radio for on and off! The decoder test board LEDs apparently work fine, so I wonder if there was maybe some conductive residue making them glow faintly.

Looks like in addition to adding more info on the CD&F wiki page, I am gonna document the headache I went through battling this maxon radio as well. Just need to have a look at the other cards for completeness now.