CS580: This radio was designed to be in direct competition to the MD380 radio but have the advantage of being much easier to use because of a few new features we added. We sold over 100 radios before it was officially released and we have about 200 radios left before we have to order more. It takes at least 30 days from placing an order to receiving more radios. We have already received follow on orders from some of the people who have ordered the first batch of radios. It cost $130 each.

CS750: We reduced the price from $239 to $180. At this price, it is a competitor to the Tytera products but you get a better radio with more features. After the CS760 is stabilized, we will be adding more features to this radio as well as fixing any remaining problems.

CS760: This is the follow on to the CS750 series of radios. Besides having the features of the CS750, it has optional Bluetooth, GPS, Man Down, and vibrator. Its IP67 rated (waterproof) and has a color display. It will have the ability to be compliant with ETSI Standard Tier III. Being a new radio with new features now and more new features in the future, you can expect this radio to have frequent firmware updates both to fix bugs and to add new features. It was originally scheduled to ship December 1, then December 10, and now December 19. The basic radio cost $299 and with all the options it cost $399.

CS800: This is our single band UHF mobile (Available in VHF). After the CS760 is stabilized, we will be adding more features to this radio as well as fixing any remaining problems.

CS800D: This is a dual band CS800. I expect the VHF band to be the same as the CS801 and the UHF band to be extended to 512 MHz. It is initially going to be released as an amateur product but later we will get it part 90 certified. We do not have our cost yet but I am hoping the selling price will be $100 more than the single band CS800. We have preliminary schematics and we have a target of getting a working sample shipped by January 23, 2017 to show at the various amateur shows and production starting about two months later.

CS108G+: This is a Xiegu X108G with custom firmware to include a spectrum analyzer and an ID Timer. It covers all the HAM bands from 160 meters to 10 meters. We expect to get our first shipment next week.

CS7000/CS8000: This is a single band multi-protocol (DMR, DSTAR, Analog, and others) radio. We are still working on it but I will not give a definite date for initial shipments.

Jerry Wanger KK6LFS

The original hardware design of the CS7000 was completed over a year ago and was based on the CS750. To successfully complete this project Connect Systems had to have a stable CS750 and the cooperation of Covalue, the designer of the firmware and hardware of that radio. This plan ran into two issues. The first issue was the CS750 took over a year longer to complete than expected and the second issue was not being able to get the full cooperation of Covalue in the design.

To  continue the use of the hardware design of the CS750 it would be necessary to use the C5000 baseband chip. This has a problem in that the C5000 specifications is not accurate and it  would be necessary to communicate with the manufacturer of that part to understand the problems and that would only be possible if we understand Mandarin Chinese. To go back to Co-Value for help would not be possible because they do not have the time to help us with that design because of the other work they are doing.

To get around the design issues, a few months ago it was decided to take a completely new approach. The radio would be designed from scratch and would use only key parts that could be bought from companies that speak and understand English. The hardware design is now finished and is being checked by other people to look for mistakes before it is released for prototypes.

Much of the firmware design that was worked on during the past year is still good so we are not starting from the beginning. The hardware design we are using is state of the art and was not possible at the time the original design was started. One of the key features that people say they wanted was a dual band radio. At this time last year it was not possible based on the constraints we were working with and the state of the art at the time. It has been a year since that statement was made and now the state of the art allows a dual band radio to be made.

At the time the design was originally started, the goal was to have the radio do DMR, Analog, and DSTAR. It was never determined if we had the ability to do NXDN, Fusion, P25, and dPMR. We now have the hardware resources to do it all although there would not be a commitment to do anything that does not ship with the radio.

Some of the changes that is being made to the hardware to increase its versatility is as follows:

1. Increase the amount of Flash Memory from 64 Megabits (8 Megabytes) to at least 256 Megabits (32 Megabytes).
2. Change the Microprocessor from the STM32F4 series to the STM32F7 series. This gives a significant advantage in speed and memory compared to the old part.
3. Change the baseband chip. This gives a significant advantage in implementing some of the more advanced features of the various formats as well as implementing new formats.
4. Using advanced packaging technology to allow more circuitry to be crammed in the same form factor as the CS750.

The CS7000 will be sold in two versions. The first version will be the standard CS7000 which will be a single band UHF radio. The second version will be the CS7010 which will be dual band UHF and VHF.

A few months after the CS7000 is released the CS8010 which is a dual band mobile radio will be sold. With that radio we have the ability to make it into a Quad Band radio that covers the Amateur Frequencies of 144 MHz, 220 MHz, 440 MHz, and 904 MHz. There is no commitment to the Quad band version at this time because we do not know if people are willing to pay more for that type of radio. For technical reasons, we cannot go much below 100 MHz with the current design. In the future we might consider designing a different radio that covers the lower bands that also allows AM and SSB as well as the standard digital formats.

Future implementations of the CS7000 and CS7010 might have a high quality color display, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. However that is for the future so do not expect that type of radio to be announced anytime soon.  Future products will be backwards compatible with the current products so any firmware development will be able to be ported to the future products rather easy.

The radios that are being designed are being designed in a manner that will allow us to make them in the United States if we wanted to. The first versions will probably be made in China.

We will release the hardware design and the source code of the firmware. However Connect Systems will retain control of the copyright of the firmware to prevent our Chinese and other competitors from making knockoffs of the radio and selling at prices below my cost. The amateur community will have the ability to make whatever changes they want to the firmware as long as they only use it on the Connect Systems radios. We might make some other restrictions to prevent our competitors from stealing our designs.

Connect Systems has hired a full time programmer to work on the CS7000 to speed the development of the project. We might encourage other people to work on other aspects of the project in parallel with us.

De codeplug voor de CS700 is hier te downloaden!
De codeplug voor de MD380 is hier te downloaden!

To do the CS7000 I need some things that has to happen sequentially. If the earlier part is not finished then I cannot go on to the next step.
The first part is the hardware. Without the hardware I cannot test the firmware. Depending on the hardware, the firmware might have to change.
I came up with a hardware design over a year ago, soon after the CS7000 was announced. This was based on certain assumptions. One of the assumptions was the speaker microphone design in the CS700/CS750 could be used in the CS7000.
The manufacturer of the CS700 told me my assumption was wrong and could not be done. I did not believe him! However since that time in another context he said it could be done. I am developing the software that will need the same audio processing as the CS7000 and I should have an answer in less than 30 days if it works.
If the audio processing does not work, then I have to redesign the audio section which might be an issue because of my space constraints.
If it works then I can go on to the second phase of the project and that is build a prototype of the radio.
After the prototype of the radio I can then get serious in developing the firmware for the DSTAR portion of the CS7000. Once I finished getting the DSTAR part working, I then go back to the manufacturer and have him integrate the two formats.
After we get a working radio, we then start building production radios unless the hardware was not perfect and then we might have to do multiple versions of the prototypes.
Jerry Wanger KK6LFS

“There has been much rumors about the status of the CS7000and the CS8000. It is still an active project but has taking much longer thanexpected. First you have to understand what the scope of the original projectwas and why there has been such a delay.The original project was going to take the CS750, take outthe firmware DVSI Vocoder and replace it with a hardware vocoder from DVSI. Wealso had to optimize the A/D and D/A anti-aliasing filters going to and fromthe baseband circuitry to allow better fidelity when encoding and decodingdigital signals. Those details were done over a year ago. The manufacturer of the CS750 expected to complete the DMRfirmware over a year ago which is the firmware basis of the CS7000. Thisproject is now almost done although we have another month or two to completesome of the enhancements I promised for the CS750 such as keypad programming. From a firmware development standpoint, I now had tointegrate the DMR radio the manufacturer has designed with DSTAR code other peoplehave designed. This is a relatively simple project and something that shouldnot take more than about six months. So the question you are asking is why havewe not finished it yet?The first roadblock was not being able to have the DMR partfinished. This roadblock is now almost removed as we make the last firmwareadjustment to provide a stable working DMR radios.  The second roadblock was the A/D and D/Acircuitry of the microphone and speaker. The A/D and D/Acircuitry is within a part inside the radio we call the C5000. This is thebaseband chip for the DMR processing and includes the A/D and D/A circuitry forthe microphone and speaker. Part of the CS750 keyboard programming project thatI am working on includes the ability to record and playback messages from theradio. The manufacturer told me I will get the firmware to do that sometimebetween late this week and next week. After I get that firmware the last knownroadblock will be solved and I can get back on the CS7000 project again.While I will not give a firm completion date, I canconfidentially say I will be able to get back on the CS7000 project within twomonths and hopefully be able to get prototypes working for DMR, DSTAR, andAnalog about six months after that.The other protocols that we will work on such as Fusion,NXDN, and P25 is much more complicated than D-STAR and I will not give even anestimated date of completion. As I said in earlier post, there is a possibilitythe existing hardware might not even support those other protocols but we willnot know until we try.Jerry Wanger KK6LFS”.

Er is een video verschenen van de Connect Systems CS800 mobilofoon. Deze langverwachte set geschikt voor zowel FM alsook DMR. Met een vermogen van 45 Watt is deze set uitermate geschikt voor mobiel gebruik. Op YouTube is een video verschenen waarbij de uitpakparty te zien is.

De CS800 lijkt qua uiterlijk wel wat op de Motorola CM-series en heeft een ingebouwde speaker in het front, zodat montage in de auto gemakkelijk is. Het front kan desgewenst apart gemonteerd worden en is afneembaar.

De set beschikt over een N-connector en een DB9-connector voor het aansluiten van accessoires en de programmeerkabel. De laatste moet optioneel worden besteld. Voor het aansluiten van een speaker is een standaard 1/8″ (3,5 mm) connector beschikbaar. De adviesprijs voor de radio is $280.- en pre-orders worden via resellers aangenomen. De genoemde prijs is exclusief sales-tax (omzetbelasting) en verzending. Wat de prijs bij de Nederlandse distributeur Bamiporto.nl uiteindelijk zal worden is nog niet bekend.

Om een CS700 te upgraden naar een CS750 (de firmware voor de amateurversie met front panel programming) moet er een chip worden vervangen in de porto.

In beide gevallen geeft Connect Systems aan dat er risico’s zijn aan het zelf aanpassen van de porto en biedt een mogelijk de porto op te sturen en te laten upgraden. In hoeverre dit ook door de importeur kan worden uitgevoerd is niet duidelijk bij het schijven van dit bericht.

Meer informatie is hier te vinden.

UPGRADING CS700 TO CS700A
AND
UPGRADING CS700 TO CS750

To upgrade from a CS700 to a CS700A requires the following steps:

1. Get a copy of the tuning parameters.
2. Take the radio apart to get to the PCB
3. Short two points on the PCB and turn on Power
4. Load New Driver
5. Load New Firmware
6. Convert new tuning parameters to new turning parameters
7. Use service Monitor to tune certain parameters if necessary
8. Initialize code plug

There are three issues with having the customers do this themselves.
(1) If you make a mistake you might brick the radio and could take at least 4 hours to recover.
(2) If you short the wrong spot on the radio you might damage the radio.
(3) We have no way of protecting our intellectual property from being copied by other manufacturers.

Connect Systems decided that because we cannot have the customers do the upgrading themselves because of the above reasons, we would charge a nominal fee of only $20 including shipping within United States to upgrade an old CS700 to the new CS700A. For customers outside the United States, we will charge $15 plus shipping. For those customers it would be advantageous to ship multiple radios at the same time.

To Convert the CS700 to a CS750 requires the changing of a memory chip. This means unsoldering an existing IC and soldering in a new IC. Then you following the above 8 instructions. For that the price is $60 including shipping. For customers outside the United States, we will charge $55 plus shipping. For those customers it would be advantageous to ship multiple radios at the same time.

To upgrade your radio call (818) 889-0503 after the Dayton Hamvention for a RMA number. With the RMA number, you must include the radio, your return shipping address, and a check or credit card number to cover the cost of upgrade.
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CS700A

The CS700A is the old CS700 Hardware with some new firmware. Among some of the features in the first version of the CS700A is programmable Mike Gain and Nuisance Channel Delete. Future updates will have some of the other features I promised a long time ago. If you are happy with the CS700 you have now, there is no compelling reason to upgrade your radio. The outside of the radio is still marked CS700.
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CS750

The Original CS700 was designed for the commercial markets and as such did not have certain features that was desired by the Amateur market. The CS750 is the first DMR compatible radio to be designed specificially for the Amateur market. In the commercial market, having one thousand contacts is probably more than you will ever need. There is nearly 10,000 contacts available just in the DMR-MARC network and all those contacts and more can be stored in the CS750. The Papa Amateur Club has nearly 1000 channels covering its repeaters up and down the California coast. Our radios will have more than 1000 channels. The Amateurs have a need to add channels while away from their computers. The CS750 will have keypad programming. Some of the other features that the Amateur Community has asked for will be in there such as Nuisance Delete and Mic Gain. More features will be added as we get feedback from the Amateur Community. The price for this radio is $239 if ordered directly from Connect Systems. The price is $229 if your order 10 or more at the same time. You will also save on shipping cost per radio. Some of the features described will not be available on the first release but will be added by a simple upload of new firmware. To order please call (818) 889 0503

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COMPATABILITY WITH OTHER VENDORS RADIOS

The firmware that will load in the CS700A and CS750 will not load in any of the radios that is sold by Quantun Electronics or any other vendors. Some of the Ham Friendly features in our radios are being written by Connect Systems and will not be available in our competitors products.

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CS300 Radio for Visually Impaired

Summary
The purpose of the this radio is to achieve two things:
(1) Have a radio that is ideally suited for the vision impaired population.
(2) Have a test bed to test some of the concepts for the CS7000 multi-protocol radio.

Background
Early in the development of the CS7000, I promised some Hams that the CS7000 will be ideally suited for the Hams that are visually impaired. It is now time to meet that promise and develop an inexpensive test bed to prove the concepts

I decided that it might make sense to take the CS100 radio and partially rewrite the firmware to achieve this purpose. This radio is a top of the line commercial radio that is every bit as good as the Motorola commercial radios. Once the development and testing is completed for this radio, and it has been in the field tested by visually impaired Hams, the feedback will allow the CS7000 to have a fully optimized visually impaired radio at a reasonable price.

Other Advantages
Beside being designed for the visually impaired, this radio will have other advantages and features that might interest the larger Amateur Radio Community.
(1) This radio will be ideally suited for emergency operations where the lighting is too low to easily operate a normal radio.
(2) This radio will be programmed without having a computer.
(3) This radio will have special macro features that will allow the average HAM to program the radio to do functions no other radio can do. As an example, the user can program the radio to wake him up at a predetermined time, then transmit a wake-up call to someone else along with his call sign, then put the radio into a receive mode to listen for normal radio traffic, then start the coffee maker. It can also be used to automatically generate a distress call or dial a phone number through a phone patch and leave a message.
(4) Because the radio is designed for the visually impaired, wide use of voice prompts will have to be used. This radio will allow the user to program the voice in any language.