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P7150 to P7170

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otter9309

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Can a scan radio be upgraded to system by adding the keypad, or does it have to go in to the factory?

TIA
S.
 

greenthumb

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No need to go to the factory - it can be done yourself. It's been many years since I did that and I can't recall the exact procedure, but aside from the faceplate hardware change-out, I recall having to do something in the radio maintenance tools of ProGrammer, and I believe it was a full radio recovery and recovering it to a 7170 instead of a 7150. Remember to save your tracking data, feature data and personality before doing the recovery, or you'll have a bad day.
 

ElroyJetson

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No, DON'T recover the radio. Totally unnecessary, and it always carries a slight risk of bricking the radio.

Just change the tracking data type from scan model. to system model using the radio maintenance tools.

Once this is done, reprogram the radio with your new key mapping preferences.

My personal preference is to set the side buttons above the PTT for system up and system down,
and to set the up and down buttons under the display to talkgroup up and talkgroup down.

This way, you can have large numbers of talkgroups and systems in your radio without ever having to deal with the limitation of the rotary knob having just 16 positions.

The radio's rotary knob could be snapped off for all I care. With this control setup I have 100 percent access to everything via keypad buttons.
 

LMR_Dude

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Elroy has the best procedure. I've converted several radio using this same process and it works like a champ.
 

TDR-94

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That's handy to know.I would have thought only the system models could be converted to scan,not vice-verse.
 

ElroyJetson

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The radio neither knows nor cares which model number it is. Any given P5100 or P7100 can be made any model, with the reservation being that a P5100 can not be made into a P5170 system model,
but it CAN be made into a P7170 scan model.

The list of available model types for the 5100/7100 chassis is:
5130 select
5150 scan
7130 select
7150 scan
7170 system

If it starts out as a 5100 series radio then it will have option 30 enabled. But option 30 CAN be enabled on a 7100 series radio, too.
 

TDR-94

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Does having option 30 enabled really have any functional limitations that would effect it from being useful as a scanning radio?
 

ElroyJetson

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Certain features are not SUPPOSED to be in a limited feature radio (P5100, P5300, M5100, M5300) but they CAN be purchased for the radio. However, those features may (possibly) be sold to you for that radio only if you pay the cost difference between the x100 and x300 models.

Depending on the radio in question, the difference may ONLY be in software OR there may be hardware differences as well.

For example, an M7300 mobile radio is a 700/800 MHz radio with available GPS and it will support P25 Phase II TDMA operation, and OpenSky and OpenSky2.


But an M5300 is 800 MHz only which is not listed as supporting Phase II TDMA or OpenSky2.

However, my M5300 HAS the Phase II TDMA option in it.

The difference is software. The radio chassis is the same for an M5300 and an M7300 in the same band. I am presuming that the GPS option is installable in the M5300 even if it's not formally listed for that model radio. (Which I don't know one way or the other.)

Oddly enough, while I have Phase II TDMA in both my P7300 and my M5300, I don't have P25 (phase 1) trunking in the M5300. This happened due to a mistake made when I ordered a P25 upgrade.
I asked for P25 Phase 1 and got Phase 2 instead. I've kept it but will eventually also go back and get Phase 1 ordered for it.
 

ElroyJetson

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I believe so. Not 100 percent certain but I'd bet a quarter that the answer is yes.

Harris documentation explicitly describes the M7200 as being P25 Phase II upgradable,
however I do not know if they have actually released Phase II firmware for the platform.

The x200 platform is IMAP based like the x300 platform so it should have the same general capabilities.

However, both the P7200 and the M7200 have their share of "issues".

Reportedly, a P7200 can develop a weak received due to...of all things....static electricity discharges into the antenna. My guess is that the engineer who designed the front end of the P7200 must have been very junior, right out of college, and hadn't learned about ESD protection in front end circuits!

The M7200 has its own issues. They're very easy to crash during a firmware update or even a regular read/write cycle, and once they do that, they're bricked. Gotta go back to Lynchburg to get un-bricked.
 

TDR-94

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Yeah,all the documentation I've seen on them only mentions "P25 Phase II upgradable".I never found any info that indicated that there had actaully been any radios that were upgraded.

Sounds like they were a slight step back in performance,although I do like that they included a signal strength indicator vs. just the little antenna icon ;)
 
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