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Gentner VRC-2000 Questions

DarkStarPDX

DarkStarPDX

All right... I'm helping a friend get his radio station back on track and noticed that there are issues with the Gentner VRC-2000 as the time in it has drifted and it will change power levels at the wrong times. Since my friend bought the station 8 months ago, he has been calling it to manually set the proper power level at the appropriate times...

Apparently, he never received the manual for the Gentner and I am having a hell of a time trying to find it on the Internet. Luckily I found some software that will allow easy configuration of the VRC-2000, however it doesn't have any information about setting the time on the unit.

Also, I'm wondering if there is a battery installed in the Gentner that needs to be replaced? I'm thinking that a dying battery could also cause the time to drift.

It appears that using the software, programming is pretty easy, however I didn't find an option that would pull the current programming from the VRC-2000. Does the software only go one way?

Thanks!
 
To set the time and date on a VRC-2000, enter the setup mode, then enter "060". It responds with "Time of day hours are:" and goes through minutes, seconds, AM/PM, DST, Day, Month, and year.

The software that you got should be able to set the clock to the computer clock. On the Windows version it's in the lower right hand corner of the programming screen. (If I remember correctly.) I'm pretty sure the DOS version does the same thing, but that's just been too long ago.

And finally, yes there is a battery inside, and a jumper that disconnects the battery for shipment or service.
 
Your friend should start saving his pennies and replace the VRC2000 with the VRC2500 when possible. It's plug for plug compatible with both the VRC1000 and VRC2000. None of the metering, control or status wiring will have to be changed. Plus, it comes with a nifty Windows interface that makes programming easy. It also uses a text-to-speech synthesizer, to no vocabulary to number lookup to program. A Web interface is also available to allow operation from anythere (providing there's DSL at the xmtr.) Hope this info is helpful.
 
I read the manual for the VRC-2500 hoping that it would have some clues about the 2000, so I'll definitely add it to "the-list" of upgrades we need to be considering. Thank you for all your help!
 
The internal battery is only used when the power is off to keep the clock chip and RAM going. The time reference is a 32.768 kHz tuning fork type crystal. I don't have the book in front of me, but there may be a small trimmer cap next to the crystal for frequency adjustment. The VRC-2500 is nice, but I have a harder time understanding the speech on that box compared to the 2000.
 
Oh, I missed a question from the first post: Yeah, the software goes one way only. There isn't any software to pull the current programming from the box.

Second, I've never had a VRC-2500, but a friend of mine does and he HATES it because you MUST use a PC to program it. He likes the ability to change the programming over the phone if he wants to.
 
Right now we aren't too concerned about upgrading it until things start breaking, but we believe the VRC-2000 has been in operation at this station since about 1998 and has never had any issues other than an occasional reboot to get the voice functions working properly.

The only two things the VRC controls are the BE AM-1A transmitter and an Optimod 9200, but the major concern is having the power levels adjust automatically when they should and being able to remotely power down the transmitter.

I'm thinking when the time comes that the VRC-2000 needs to be replaced, to get the Broadcast Tools WVRC-8, since our needs are fairly simple.

Thanks again for everyone's quick replies, I'm hoping that helping my friend out will eventually help me get started in a full-time broadcast engineering career! (Luckily I have a lot of other experience in amateur radio and information systems too.)
 
DarkStarPDX said:
The only two things the VRC controls are the BE AM-1A transmitter and an Optimod 9200, but the major concern is having the power levels adjust automatically when they should and being able to remotely power down the transmitter.
Click to expand...

Have you looked at the Burke ARC-16? You can control it via dialup and STL via a computer. You can customize it to do whatever you need. We have APC and a 3 minute silence shutdown with the unit, along with standard commands such as Filament raise / lower, Plate raise / lower, Transmitter changeover control, and a whole bunch of other monitoring like room temp, transmitter temp, VSWR alarm, Screen Overload alarm and so on...

R
 
Using the ARC-16 and a computer is fine until the computer hoses up and your transmitter doesn't turn off at night. After the third time that happened, automatic power-change control of the transmitter was changed to a Broadcast Tools programmable timer which has never failed. The VRCs are more reliable in that respect as everything is in one box and are not dependent on Windoze.
 
If you're using the VRC2000 now, upgrading to the VRC2500 would be the easiest route since it would be a "plug and play" operation. A slightly cheaper route would be the Sine Systems RFC-1 remote control. It takes a little while to set it up, but it will do everything you need, including automatic power / pattern changes for AM sites.

RFB
 
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