Astro Spectra 9600 Baud

[kb0nly]

Ok first off lets not debate the scanner vs radio issue here, i'm merely doing this to experiment and learn. I have setup VHF 3600 baud trunking on Astro Spectra's, killing their transmit by physically removing the transistors so they can not generate any RF period! These radios are cheap compared to used scanners that will do digital so might as well get some use out of them. Moving on, i want to experiment and learn 9600 baud systems.

Here is my latest project...

D04UJH9PW7AN
10008-000480-9 1 Meg

I am told that by using R05.03 of the CPS, don't have it to verify this, that i can setup the radio for rebanded operation on a 9600 baud CC system?? Can anyone verify that this radio can actually be rebanded? I thought the Astro Series were FUBAR when it came to rebanding. (i plan on removing the rf module and final PA transistor to make sure it can NOT transmit period as i have done in the past) The problem is i have been reading a lot of reports that with the 9600 CC option the radio will not unmute without first affiliating with the system? Is there a workaround to this? If so can someone explain this thoroughly? I don't understand the difference, and i have done a lot of searching and reading on both here and the Batboard, and all the posts eventually turn into a pissing match arguing about scanner vs radio, so lets actually discuss the technical issues here.

I can get a hold of Astro Spectra's pretty easy, got some laying around now even, would like to know if this is possible, figure out how to do it, and document it for the RBTIP website and alleviate some of the questions. If people are going to do this at least tell them how to do it safely so they dont interfere with a system!

Thanks in advance for any info anyone can provide!

 

[mancow]

There is a long thread over there about it that details how to do it, or atleast there was. One can never tell what violates the rules there anymore. Discussing anything beyond the speed of a computer needed to program a maxtrac is pretty much forbidden now so it very well could have been deleted. I did have it bookmarked at one time and it was a nice tutorial on how to do it.

The other issue is the radio. You mentioned using a spectra. Finding a spectra with 9600 capable firmware is going to be impossible at best. It exists but it's as rare as rare gets.

I managed to pick up an Astro Spectra Plus a while back. That would work since it's an Astro25 in a spectra body.The procedure involved creating zones of trunking talkgroups that were beyond the control selector limit in a hand held and then pointing their scan lists to conventional channels. I'm not sure how this would work with a spectra since there is no physical limitation to the mode selection.

 

[kb0nly]

Must have been deleted, i don't see jack over there. I posted on there to see if i can stir up any life, but to be honest the batboard is pretty much dead these days. Back in its hay day before they started censoring and deleting every post that was, as you say more than info about the speed of a computer, it was crazy active, now it looks like if it gets a few new posts a week thats amazing!

Actually i have some Astro Spectra's that according to the Flashcode are 9600 Baud trunking, and the previous system in them that they were removed from also happens to be 9600, so i know they must have been working before retirement. Only retired for an upgrade to newer radios etc.

If you still have that bookmark to the thread with the nice tutorial post it up. My biggest hurdle is every friend i know with legal access to CPS doesn't have the latest for the Astro Spectra, and although i haven't been able to confirm i think you need at least version R05.02.00 to support rebanding? I have one more shop to give a call later today, an old friend of mine that might be able to give me some time at the computer to use their copy, if they have it. Seems nobody around me ever supported the Astro Spectra, of course the doesnt suprise me since only in the last five years was there anything using digital in this area anyway.

 

[mancow]

I'll PM you.

 

[Skypilot007]

I learned some things from this thread.

Batboard • Login

 

[kb0nly]

I learned some things from this thread.

Batboard • Login

Thats the one i just read, very good info there. I applied it to my Astro Spectra, i think im close to getting it working right now.

The only thing thats confusing on that, he said to use the default rx frequency in the conventional personalities, then others said you need to put in the voice and control channel frequencies in all the conventional personalities. Which is it?

 

[kb0nly]

I learned some things from this thread.

Batboard • Login

Read through that, programmed it as described, it works, sorta...

It does unmute, but it seems like its too slow on the scan to catch every transmission. The setup now is six talkgroups and its pretty low activity. Sitting side by side with Uniden i will hear stuff there that the Spectra seems to be too late to catch, the display will show the talkgroup being received and unmute but by the time it does the transmission is done and missed.

Any idea how to speed up its reaction time?

 

[kb0nly]

I did find that its best to create zones and seperate scan lists to run more than one tower, if you have two control channels in the same zone it really really bogs it down slow. The best i can figure is because its checking each control channel for the talkgroups and since it has to cycle through it twice for two CC's its slowing it down.

I did run into another problem, you can't make more than two scanlists, just won't allow it for some reason. When you make the third one it won't let you add anything other than conventional. Still trying to make a work around for that. What i would like to do is create four zones and four scanlists, each zone having its own scanlist and the conventional channels for each zone being a different towers frequencies.

The other thing that confuses me, some mentioned that the conventional frequencies can be anything and one used the default CPS frequency that fills in when you create a new personality, i don't get how that would work unless its because the trunking info has the control channel and it just switches to the frequency it needs to. But then why use 16 conventional channels, or is it a trick to play on the scanlist?

 

[mancow]

Monitoring while sitting on the conventional channel is the trick that causes the radio to permit audio to pass without affiliating. It's just the way the firmware was written.

 

[kb0nly]

Ok, here is what i did...

48 Conventional Personalities with RX Only Non-Astro 851.0625, just the default frequency that the CPS puts in when adding a new conventional personality. Three groups of 16 so i could have three systems, each group of 16 is set to a different scanlist and auto. Not sure if it matters having 16 per but thats how it was written up so thats what i did.

The scanlists are setup now also got everything to work without errors, i created three Trunking Systems and three Trunking Personalities, each is a different control channel for a different site, then i created three scanlists and set them to the talkgroups.

 

[mancow]

Is it working reliably?

 

[kb0nly]

So far so good... I have to sit and listen some more tommorrow... There is very little activity this time of night on the system without all the agencies being on it yet. But before i wandered out of the shack it was decoding one talkgroup of a neighboring county just fine, no skips compared to my Uniden scanner working right next to it. I will monitor more and compare to the scanner, but so far so good.

The programming got complicated and i can only scan ten talkgroups per zone, but its working! Ten talkgroups per tower, which around here would basically be ten talkgroups per county, is going to be plenty to monitor the basics.

1 Law
1 Fire
1 EMS
1 State Patrol
5 Interop

That leaves one talkgroup for anything else i want to toss in. This suits me just fine.

 

[kb0nly]

To monitor one system and ten talkgroups here is the basic rundown...

Create 16 conventional personalities, set each to a random frequency, RX Only, i used the default that it filled in when creating them, 851.0625, set them to CSQ or PL if you need to keep them quiet, set the RX type to NON-ASTRO, and set the scan on each to scanlist 1 and check autoscan for each. Of course it will complain that things aren't right yet, don't worry we aren't done.

Create your trunking system, put in all the info as you normally would, add your control channel, and set the scan to scanlist 1 also.

Create your trunking personality, again if your familiar with setting this up do it as normal, add the talkgroups you want, limit of ten talkgroups.

Create your zone, add all sixteen conventional channels, then add your trunking channels, so you will have 1-16 as conventional, (if you name the 1-16 conventional with your site name then you will have that on the display so you know what site your on if you end up using multiple zones) then 17-26 would be your ten talkgroups, select TRK and then the system and talkgroup, it will fill in the talkgroup and you can verify its correct.

Create your scanlist, DO NOT add the conventional channels, just add 17-26, give them a channel name which will display as the active talkgroup when scanning and it stops to monitor.

So you have more then ten talkgroups for that site, or you want to monitor more then one site? Basically just do the same thing, but add another 16 conventionals link to scanlist 2 and set auto again, use 17-32 for the conventionals and 33-43 for the scanlist talkgroups for the second zone.

Create a second trunking system with the control channel for the second site or just link to the first trunking system you created if your just adding another zone of ten talkgroups for the same site, create second trunking personality add your talkgroups and link to scanlist 2, again create the zone 2 and scanlist 2. Now you can have two zones of ten talkgroups for either the same system and site, or ten talkgroups per site and two sites.

I have mine loaded for ten talkgroups for three different sites so far and assigned a button for zone up and zone down on the control head to switch sites, or to switch between groups of talkgroups per site, etc. The possibilities go on here.

Now remember, this is 9600 baud in my example, 3600 is different, and also with 9600 you CANNOT tell the radio to not affiliate. I tried everything, the radio still wanted to transmit on power on, and sometimes when switching zones. Verified with a wattmeter and dummy load and nowhere near a site so don't go pannicking on me here k?

So what i did was open up the PA section of the radio, desolder and lift the input and output of the RF module, and then also remove the DC blocking cap on the output of the final PA transistor before the filter and T/R switching. Verified once again with a wattmeter and RF probe, its dead. The only RF is from the exciter to the PA section of the radio, with a frequency counter and the covers removed it had to be held in just the right spot to capture a signal, a probe to the output of the exciter showed mW of power being disipated, with the covers on no signal was detectable. If you are REALLY paranoid you could also go into the RF section of the radio and remove more components so it can't generate any RF but i find that a bit excessive, disabling (aka neutering as i call it) the PA takes care of it quite nicely.

Now ONE question remains. Can anyone tell me why its a max of 10 trunking per scanlist? Is that just the way it works?

 

[Skypilot007]

Nice work and documentry, glad you got it working. Its a proven method of passive monitoring. The 10 talk group limit is a /\/\ thing it seems, kind of like the 16 channel conventional scan lists. Someone did develop a hack for the spectra to scan more than 16 conventional channels. Not sure if it worked for tg's also. I think that post was on batboard somewhere but its been years since I read about it.

 

[kb0nly]

Nice work and documentry, glad you got it working. Its a proven method of passive monitoring. The 10 talk group limit is a /\/\ thing it seems, kind of like the 16 channel conventional scan lists. Someone did develop a hack for the spectra to scan more than 16 conventional channels. Not sure if it worked for tg's also. I think that post was on batboard somewhere but its been years since I read about it.

Edit: Nevermind i screwed up the scanlist this morning... LOL

Still working!

 

[kb0nly]

Nice work and documentry, glad you got it working. Its a proven method of passive monitoring. The 10 talk group limit is a /\/\ thing it seems, kind of like the 16 channel conventional scan lists. Someone did develop a hack for the spectra to scan more than 16 conventional channels. Not sure if it worked for tg's also. I think that post was on batboard somewhere but its been years since I read about it.

Hmm i might have to play around with that but i bet its probably just for conventional, oh well 10 talkgroups is plenty for me.

 

[KD0NDO]

i am greatly interested in doing this. so would this work with an astro saber?

 

[RKG]

I am told that . . . i can setup the radio for rebanded operation on a 9600 baud CC system?? Can anyone verify that this radio can actually be rebanded?

Limiting myself to this question only:

A) I assume that the reference to "9600 baud CC system" means an Astro 25 trunked system.

B) "Rebanding" -- insofar as that term refers to the need to upgrade firmware to use a modified table that relates "channel numbers" to frequencies -- does not apply to Astro 25 trunked systems. The channel table employed in Astro 25 trunked system radios is capable of reaching all channels -- those used prior to rebanding and those used after rebanding -- as is.

 

[kb0uxv]

"Policechaser" Before you pursue this method know that creating an ARMER system key illegally, which is necessary to make the trunking system in CPS, is in violation of MN statute 609.891
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=609.891

Affiliation will elevate to the gross or felony level depending on the circumstances.

The safe method would be to scan the voice channels in digital CSQ, RX only.

Law issues aside - I am sure its fun to experiment and learn CPS, but if you screw up my safety, and that of my partners, is on the line.

 

[mancow]

I don't buy it. He's infiltrating no system at all. He's using a small bit of non protected code to unlock a feature in a piece of software that he is in possession of to enable the editing of certain fields. The system key creation method is well document and has been for what...a decade on the main Batlabs site. There is nothing special about it.

It would be like equating the connection of WIN500 or some other bit of scanner software to this site's database to download the system file as a form of hacking. Both are enabling the software to program a bit of code into a device to enable its operation.

The radio is not affiliating with the system so there is no active penetration of any system. You are effectively creating a police scanner. It's doing the exact same thing. I would think the State's definition of "penetration" is what is crucial to the argument. Place a 396XT and an Astro programmed with this method side by side and define the functional differences. There are none.