Sandia Research STR-1000 User manual
User Guide
Subterranean Tactical Radio
STR-1000
Sandia Research Corporation
www.sandiaresearch.com
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Version:
25 September 2017: Initial – V1.00
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Table of Contents
Version................................................................................................................................ 2
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... 3
1. The Front Panel .................................................................................................................. 4
2. The Bottom......................................................................................................................... 5
3. Battery ................................................................................................................................ 5
4. Smart Handset.................................................................................................................... 8
5. Antennas........................................................................................................................... 11
6. Antenna Tuning ................................................................................................................ 13
7. Speakers and Mute .......................................................................................................... 14
8. Backpack ........................................................................................................................... 15
9. Basic Operation ................................................................................................................ 16
10. Basic Troubleshooting...................................................................................................... 17
11. Operation Specifications.................................................................................................. 17
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1. The Front Panel
The front panel has two areas for connectors and antennas, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. STR-1000 Front Panel.
The Antenna Connector is keyed to receive the Sandia Research antennas.
The Ground Connector is only used when a counterpoise (ground wire) is desired and is not used
in normal operations.
The Handset Connector is where the Smart Handset attaches. All controls are located on the
Smart Handset.
The Built in Speaker provides audio from the radio receiver. It may be turned on or off by using
the Smart Handset.
The Charge Connector (also marked Data for future use) is where the battery charger attaches.
The battery does not need to be removed from the radio for charging.
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2. The Bottom
Figure 2. STR-1000 Rear Panel - battery removed.
The rear of the radio includes the connector for the battery.
3. Battery
The battery has a mating connection to the bottom of the radio. It is only possible to fully seat
the battery in one orientation.
Figure 3. Top of battery.
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Figure 4. Battery latch.
When fully seated on the radio, locking latches are engaged to the radio body to hold the battery
in place. Use the attached key to tighten the latch. To remove the battery (usually not needed),
use the attached key to loosen the latch and then move it off of the mating part on the battery
box.
The battery is charged by attaching the 19 pin circular connector to the radio Charge/Data port
on the lower right portion of the front panel. The charger itself is plugged into a standard 120
volt AC outlet. The charging time for a fully discharged battery will be up to 16 hours. The
charger will automatically go to a standby mode when charging is complete. When plugged into
the AC outlet the charger will display a green light in the upper right corner. During the
charging phase, the charger will display a yellow light in the Output graphic on the charger. See
Figure 5.
Figure 5. Charger and charger plugged into radio 19 pin Charge port.
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There is also a fast battery charger cable provided to directly connect to the battery. Remove the
battery from the radio to charge. Plug the 6 pin cable into the output side of the charger body,
replacing the 19 pin normal charger plug.
The battery charging temperature is recommended to be between 32 degrees F (0 degrees C) to
104 degrees F (40 degrees C). If the temperature of the battery is above 104 degrees F (40
degrees C) the charger will not operate. If charging is underway and the temperature rises to 122
degrees F (50 degrees C) the charging will be stopped automatically.
During the first 20 cycles of a new battery, it is recommended that the battery not be discharged
fully. After every 20 charge cycles, the battery should be fully discharged (leave the radio on – it
will shut off automatically) and then fully charged again. This procedure will give maximum
battery life.
If the batteries are to be stored for an extended amount of time, they should be fully charged
beforehand. When batteries are taken out of storage, they should be fully charged before use.
The length of time that a battery can be stored before recharging depends upon the storage
temperature. At 85 degrees F (30 degrees C) the storage time is 6 months, at 70 degrees F (20
degrees C) the storage time is 12 months.
When a battery is no longer serviceable, it should be recycled in accordance with local
regulations and environmental acts. Batteries should not be burned or disposed of in landfills.
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4. Smart Handset
Figure 6. The Smart Handset.
The Smart Handset controls all of the functions of the radio and displays information about the
status of the radio.
The Smart Handset connects to the Front Panel upper right hand connector labeled “Handset.”
The upper left area of the Handset has the On-Off Power button (green). Press this button for a
few seconds to turn the radio on. The same button may be used to turn the radio off with a long
press (about 2 seconds) or the red button in the upper right part of the handset may be used to
alternately turn the radio off with a long press (about 2 seconds).
The speaker is on the upper end of the handset and the microphone is on the lower end. The
handset functions similar to a conventional telephone handset. The “Push To Talk” (PTT) button
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is located on the side of the handset body. The PTT is depressed when the user wants to
transmit and is released when listening. The Volume Control is on the central right side of the
handset – pressing the top half increases the volume and pressing the lower half of the button
decreases the volume to the speaker.
Figure 7. Handset upper half – display and function buttons.
The upper half of the handset has Function Buttons (F1, F2, F3) which work directly with the
display above them. The display indicates that the F1 button (Figure 7) controls the MUTE
function (turns the receive channel squelch on or off – incoming voice will be received). The F2
key changes the TX (transmit) power level from High to Low and back. In Figure 7 above, the
power level is set to Lo (low). The F3 key starts the Manual Tune process which will be covered
in a later section of this User Guide.
The display also shows the active channel and channel band designation (CH11-C is shown in
Figure 7 above). The active channel is changed to what is desired by the control button shown in
Figure 8. Press the top half of the button to change to a higher channel number and the bottom
of the button to change to a lower channel number. When the maximum or minimum channel is
reached, the channel switches to the lowest channel or the highest channel (the channel list can
be thought of as a circular selection – See Figure 9). The exact number and frequencies of the
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channels to be used will be determined by the frequency coordinating authorities responsible for
the individual user group.
Figure 7 also shows the Estimated Battery Life indication. The calculation for battery life is
based on the radio mostly listening and transmitting occasionally. If the opposite condition
occurs, the battery life will decrease much more rapidly than the indication.
Figure 8. Handset buttons.
Figure 8 shows the location of the Channel UP/DOWN button, the Volume UP/DOWN button
and, the Function Buttons (F1, F2, and F3). The two other buttons on are used to control the
Antenna Tune and Transmit Power function. All other buttons on the handset are currently
unused but available for future functionality.
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