ACC RC-85 Repeater Controller Manual
(PDF Format)

The RC-85 manual can be downloaded here: rc85manual.pdf (1.33 MB)

The Story:

When I inherited the responsibility of maintaining our clubs repeater, I was given the club's manual for our controller, an RC-85.  Looking over the pages in the binder, I noticed that several chapters were missing, primarily all the hardware-related pages.  The only chapters I had were programming commands.  As I looked more into how our controller was set up, I also realized that we had version 5.1 on our controller, but our manual only covered version 3.

I started doing research on the internet.  Surely, the manual must be available online, I thought.  I did find information on the Y2K workaround, which allowed our time/date and female vocabulary to work again, but I could not find codes to program these features.  The RC-850 manual was helpful in that the vocabulary codes were similar.  But I was still missing documentation on hardware connections and programming the scheduler.  I had learned that no electronic format of an RC-85 manual existed, but a printed copy could be ordered.

Well, I ordered one.  Nicely printed and included a binder.  The original Version 3 manual plus Version 4 and 5 updates and an updated command summary.  I was able to get my controller configured just the way I wanted, and now have plans for a link radio in the works.  Other members of our ham club were curious about how the controller worked, and I had seen posts from people looking for a downloadable manual.  Well, I decided to create one.

I figured the easiest solution would be to scan the entire printed manual into the computer, but this would make the PDF size too large, and the text would not be searchable.  I then tried OCR, but the recognition quality was not up to my standards at all - besides all the misread command codes that didn't exist in the OCR's dictionary, font sizes and weights seemed to be random.  So, I decided the only solution would be to retype the entire manual.

I had done some work a few years ago at a rubber stamp factory.  My job was to typeset the rubber stamp design exactly how the customer wanted it to look using Pagemaker.  Many times the design was of an official seal or something else unique like a company logo, and the original I had to work from was a faxed copy of art.  I got pretty good at duplicating things, and have attempted to do the same with this project.

The PDF does not look exactly like the original, but it is very close.  All information included in this file came directly from the manual I ordered from Link Communications.  Exceptions include a couple of sentences which were incomplete in the original Version 3 documentation, which I completed using context of the paragraph.  All graphics are scanned, all text is text.  The PDF is completely searchable and includes a table of contents of bookmarks.

I recently received permission from Allan Overcast of Link Communications to redistribute this electronic version of the RC-85 manual, as long as I don't sell it.  I never intended to make money from this project - it was a labor of love for the amateur radio community.

Enjoy, and if you find any errors, let me know

Dan Ratzlaff - WWØF
ww0f@norbysoft.com