PROGRAMMING THE EFJ

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PROGRAMMING THE EFJ

• Programming analog channels in the E.F.Johnson
  5300 mobile radio

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Its 3 am, the IC has directed you to Division B,
and youve stopped by the Comm Unit for a quick
reprogram of your radio. The green comm tech has
never seen a Johnson before, and has no clue as
to its programming. You know you cant go to the
line without communications
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Its easy, you will need to program in the
Communications Plan yourself. The E.F.Johnson
5300 radio has user-programmable channels. Zone
10 contains the USER PROG programmable channels
in Nevada radios. Switch your radio to that zone.
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When you press the PROG button, you are
entering the wonderful world of radio
programming Its not rocket science, but you do
have to pay attention to details. You cannot hurt
the radio, but you may not achieve the desired
result. I would suggest reading through this
training, and then checking out a training unit
and going through the programming. A training
unit is available at the Radio Shop.
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Before you start programming, turn off the Scan
and make sure you are not in Scan Edit mode. If
the channel currently in use is opening the
squelch, find another channel that is quiet. Now
you can press the PROG button.
Scan edit
Scan
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CHNG ZONE is displayed as well as a little
triangle below the SCN ED button. The Zone and
Channel numbers remain the same as they were
before you entered the programming mode.
(early EFJs will show ZONE CHG)
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Turn the SELECT knob clockwise and you will see
CHNG CHAN, SYS PARMS, CHAN PARMS, and back to
CHNG ZONE. (If you had turned the knob
counter-clockwise, you would have seen them in
reverse order. For this class we will always turn
the SELECT knob clockwise.)
(Early EFJs will show CHAN CHG, SYS PRM, and
CHAN PRM
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The radio does not like to be ignored during the
programming, so after a minute or so of
inactivity, it drops out of programming mode. It
may or may not save all of your work up to that
point, so you should always start at the
beginning and check. Pressing the PROG key will
take you back a level much like the BACK button
on a web browser or the ESC key in some computer
programs.
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Try pressing the PROG key when the display says
CHNG ZONE. It will take you out of programming
mode. Press it again and you will be ready to
select your programming zone.
(Early EFJs exit programming mode using the
BKLHT or PRI ED button)
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With the display reading CHNG ZONE, press the
SELECT knob. A name of a zone should be
displayed. Turn the SELECT knob until it reads
USER PROG 10. You are now in the user
programming group of channels.
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Press the SELECT again and turn the knob until
you see CHNG CHAN then press the knob again. You
will see the name of the channel like this USER
X 10 X where X may be any channel
number. Turn the knob until you are in channel
1, and then press the SELECT knob.
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Turn the knob until you get to CHAN PARMS and
then press it. You should see RX FREQ. Press the
knob again, and a frequency is displayed. Notice
that the second digit has a flashing underline.
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Turn the knob and the digit will change set it
to 7. Press the knob again and the underline
goes to the next digit. Change it to 1 and then
go through the rest of the frequency until you
get to the last zero. You should have 171.67500
showing. Press the knob again and it should show
RX FREQ
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Turn the knob until you see TX FREQ, press it and
enter the transmit frequency of 168.225 the same
way you did the receive frequency. Then, after
you have finished, turn SELECT until you see TX
CODE and press the knob.
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You should see 000.0 CTC. You can either press
the knob again to enter the ctcss (PL, CG,
ToneGuard, tone) or turn it to select EDIT
CTCSS or EDIT DCS. Only a very few cooperators
are using Digital Control Squelch, so we will
concentrate on the ctcss.
(Early EFJs may show NO CODE)
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Press the knob at the EDIT CTCSS prompt and you
will see 000.0 CTC again with the first zero
underlined and flashing. Use the SELECT to enter
the digits of the tone. When you enter your last
digit, it will return to the TX CODE screen. If
the frequency plan requires a tone on the
receive, make the necessary changes to RX CODE.
(Early EFJs will scroll through the tones use
SELECT to set)
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Turn SELECT to TX POWER and press the knob. When
you turn the knob you will have a choice of HIGH
or LOW power. Good practice dictates using the
minimum power to reliably communicate.
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All the channels on this plan are used by 2-5
watt handhelds, and the Johnson puts out 15 watts
in low power into a much better antenna than is
on a handheld. It will be best to set your power
to LOW on these channels. For the District
repeater on the plan, which is your link back to
town, set it at HIGH. Use your judgment, and set
the power level and exit back to TX POWER.
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Select TX TIMER. Press the knob to check that it
reads TX TMR ON. The radio has been set for a
default of 120 seconds of continuous transmit
before it turns off the transmitter. Rarely has
anyone timed out in this District, and this
setting helps prevents problems when you sit on
the mike and transmit unknowingly
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Next select CHAN SPACE. Currently all Federal
channels are NARROW, but some of our cooperators
are WIDE. In 2005 NARROW will be required on all
the government channels. Set the channel at
NARROW.
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The final entry is SQ ADJUST. If and only if,
you are having problems with the squelch opening
on a channel you have programmed, you can come
back here and make adjustments. Making changes
in this setting can make your radio very deaf.
It is best not to play with the default setting.
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You may have noticed that we skipped over SYS
PARMS. These are default settings for the timers
and they should be left alone. You may be
instructed by a tech to change these, but
otherwise leave them alone.
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Exit out of the programming mode by pressing the
PROG key or by waiting a minute or so. Use the
DISP key to display the frequency, and if you
have correctly done the programming, you should
see 171.67500.
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Go back into the programming mode, and program in
the remaining channels on the frequency plan into
their proper locations. You can go back to slide
6 and follow through the steps.
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After you have finished programming the radio and
exited with PROG, you must turn the radio OFF
and ON with the switch on the front panel to
permanently store the frequencies. On vehicles
with battery switches, turning the truck off
with the battery switch will cause all your hard
work to disappear if you do not take this step.
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After you have finished, bring the training unit
radio back to the radio shop, and Ill check your
programming. I also have certificates for those
who show ability, and I expect to hand one out to
everyone who takes the time to do the training.
EFJ