From: jrogers@questor.org (Jason Rogers)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Motorola Flip Fone Won't Reprogram
Date: 5 Jan 93 07:02:08 GMT
Organization: Questor|Free Usenet News|Vancouver, BC: +1 604 681 0670
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 9, Message 2 of 15

Well, I bit the bullet and bought a nice little Beige Motorola
flip-fone from a shady fellow at a low price.  I wanted one just to be
able to take it apart and see the works inside, and to be able to use
it for 911 in case of emergencies.

It took me about 20 minutes to figure out the lock code, and I was in
luck as the factory six-digit security code was still the default.

This particular phone seems to be the cheapest flip-fone of the
Motorola line.  It is gray in color, has a seven-digit green,
seven-segment LED display, and has "In Use", "No Svc" and "Roam"
indicators.

The Touch pad is the usual 12 buttons, with two rows of four control
buttons each, labelled:

        Rcl   Sto   Clr   Snd
        Pwr   Vol   Lock  End

I have had it apart.  Nice construction ... all surface mount
components, lots of RF ground fingers, etc.

I managed to re-program the unit a couple of times by entering the
initial programming sequence (STO, #, Security Code entered 2x, RCL).

Well, it seems to have stopped there, and won't reprogram any more.

Manuals for such phones seem to indicate that there is a finite limit
on the reprogramming, and after a number of tries it will have to be
reset by a service person.

Can anyone tell me how to re-enable reprogramming??

Many thanks in advance.  (A tech manual would probably be an asset!)   :-)


Jason Rogers (jrogers@questor.org)
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[Moderator's Note: By setting a finite number of times the phone can be
re-programmed, Motorola is trying to discourage people like yourself
from buying phones from other shady characters (did I mean to insert
the word 'other' back there?). When you run out of attempts, then you
have to take the phone to a dealer, where it shows up on his hot list
of stolen phones and he whispers to the guy at the counter to try and
stall you while he calls the police from the back room. :) But, as
they say, knowledge is power: you can be your own service technician
and save yourself the potential for embarassment when the clerks at
the cell phone dealership snicker as the police lead you away. 

If your Motorola phone has a 25 pin connector to the battery, then it
is likely that pin 21 is what they call the 'manual test line'. By
tying pin 21 low, the phone goes into 'local test mode' and some
additional reprogramming can be done, including the resetting of that
register which keeps track of how often you have hacked at or tried to
phreak with the instrument. As luck would have it, pin 21's neighbor,
pin 20 happens to be ground. *Carefully* solder a little wire with a
micro-mini push off/on switch in the middle between pins 20-21 (be
sure the pins are the same on your unit, of course). Install the
battery and clicking the switch on or off should take you in and out
of test mode. You'll get a screen display something like this: #??#.
You fill in the ?? part. I think register 32 re-initializes the
non-volatile memory (sets everything to zeros). DO NOT turn off the
phone until the normal display returns. The phone may sit there and do
nothing for upwards a minute ... just wait it out. You should be back
in business for a few more hacking and phreaking attempts.   PAT]