Monitoring Capacity Plus system

[firemedic2150]

I have a XPR-6550 that is programmed with a IP Site Connect system along with several analog and stand alone Mototrbo repeaters and I want to monitor a separate Capacity Plus System that does not have RAS in use. I would like to monitor the repeaters in the system in my scan list without having to add the entire system to my current programming but I am not sure how to program them, I don't care about particular talkgroups I just want to be able to add the repeater frequencies and add them to my scan list.

 

[ScanWI]

In order for the radio to decode traffic on the system you will need the color codes and a range of group codes. I normally put capacity plus systems into their own zone and then scan the channels as you would a conventional site, just attach the RX Group List to all the channels.

Your channels should look like this in the zone.

CH-1 1st Frequency Time Slot-1 RX Group List- List 1
CH-2 1st Frequency Time Slot-2 RX Group List- List 1
CH-3 2nd Frequency Time Slot-1 RX Group List- List 1
CH-4 2nd Frequency Time Slot-2 RX Group List- List 1
CH-5 3rd Frequency Time Slot-1 RX Group List- List 1
CH-6 3rd Frequency Time Slot-2 RX Group List- List 1

You can then add them to scan lists as desired.

The radio will not unmute unless it sees a valid group code from the group list.

I have found that sometimes the Motorola radios don't scan the Capacity Plus as well as other brands for what ever reason, They do fine on Connect Plus.

Let us know how it works.

 

[mikewazowski]

That's exactly how I do it as well.

 

[Forts]

This works nicely for Connect Plus as well.

 

[DaveH]

I programmed a CS700 with a CapPlus and a ConPlus system as described above. I'm
getting parts of conversations, not sure what's being missed but doesn't sound natural.
Is that what I should expect, if not what would be likely cause/fix?

Dave

 

[ScanWI]

A weak signal could be why you are not hearing good audio. Also if there are other channels in the system that have not been found, you will miss any traffic that is on those channels.

 

[DaveH]

A weak signal could be why you are not hearing good audio. Also if there are other channels in the system that have not been found, you will miss any traffic that is on those channels.

It's definitely not a signal strength issue, and all channels for given sites are known. I'm
thinking it is related to a delay in resuming scan after a transmission, or the speed at
which channels and groups are actually scanned...need to dig into that further.

The CapPlus has four frequencies (8 channels) and the ConPlus is three frequencies (6 channels)
so it's not that there are many to scan. The scan list is only a handful, given what I've been able to
find so far.

Dave

 

[DaveH]

Global scan resume delay was set to 1s. Time to scan 6 channels appears to be
a couple of seconds. That could explain some missed responses on a different
channel.

This delay can't be set below 500ms, unless the channel has talkaround enabled
in which case it can be set to zero; probably also not good to catch quick responses
on the same channel. I don't know if talkaround applies if the channel is set to RX
only, will see what happens.

Dave

 

[Forts]

Do have a lot of groups in the RX Group list?

 

[DaveH]

Do have a lot of groups in the RX Group list?

In some test cases up to a dozen; could try pulling out some, sticking to a few groups
which seem busy and/or interesting. A 3-frequency Cap+ system using lower delay
(it's either 500ms or 0, depending on whether talkaround is actually enabled) seems
to work OK though in low-traffic conditions.

Dave

 

[DaveH]

Watching the SS indicator on CS700, on an idle site with 3-4 frequencies (6-8 channels),
the scan cycle takes a couple of seconds. The number of RX groups scanned, from 1 to a dozen
or so, doesn't seem to make much if any difference.That would explain some of the missed
callbacks.

Does anyone have any clever techniques for "holding" on a TG while it is active,
in scan mode? Only option I can think of is to duplicate zones for the same system/site,
with different scan list for each containing one (or limited number of) TGs.

Dave

 

[DaveH]

I was thinking down the lines of using the programmable key(s) to do something.
Starting/stopping scan seemed worth a try; turns out one of the keys was already
set up for this. I tried it, and it didn't do much other than interrupt message in progress,
but might help in temporarily getting around a long annoying transmission
by restarting scan.

Dave