Harris XL-200 on a Motorola Type 2 smartzone network?

[Newhanfan1]

I am trying to add some Harris XL-200s to a Motorola Type 2 smartzone trunking network. Has anyone had any experience with this in the past? I am hitting some roadblocks and I cannot locate a lot of information online that is relevant. Speaking with Motorola and Harris, they are hesitant to help so I’m hoping someone here has some helpful information.

 

[KevinC]

If you’re taking about a 3600 baud Motorola trunked system no Harris radio will work on those. It’s Motorola or a specific EFJ radio only.

 

[Newhanfan1]

If you’re taking about a 3600 baud Motorola trunked system no Harris radio will work on those. It’s Motorola or a specific EFJ radio only.

I should have asked here first, could’ve saved me a week of frustration. Thank you for your answer

 

[motorcoachdoug]

Yep the XG100 and XL200 will NOT work at all. Also only the Harris XG100M will work with RPM2, plus the XL radios.. the XG100P Will NOT..

 

[Newhanfan1]

Yep the XG100 and XL200 will NOT work at all. Also only the Harris XG100M will work with RPM2, plus the XL radios.. the XG100P Will NOT..

Thank you, I appreciate the answer

 

[ElroyJetson]

No Harris (legacy brands..) radio will operate on a Motorola network that is NOT P25 compliant. No SmartZone, no Smartnet, no Privacy Plus. (Not that many of those systems are even still operational.)

P25 trunking marked the first time you might find a Harris radio on a Motorola trunked system, or a Motorola radio on a Harris trunked system.

Admittedly, I am a bit fuzzy on the compatibility of later Motorola 9600 baud trunking systems that were "Astro 25" but not fully P25 compliant. Those systems evolved toward P25 standards even as the p25 standards themselves evolved. There may be special use cases where you could get limited interoperability between those two brands, without being fully P25 compliant. Not certain about that.

For quite some time, M/A-Com...Harris...wanted no part of Project 25, as they did not want to sign on to Motorola's pet project, but eventually market forces required them to do so. (Primarily federal contracts, I'm sure.)

 

[TDR-94]

No Harris (legacy brands..) radio will operate on a Motorola network that is NOT P25 compliant. No SmartZone, no Smartnet, no Privacy Plus. (Not that many of those systems are even still operational.)

P25 trunking marked the first time you might find a Harris radio on a Motorola trunked system, or a Motorola radio on a Harris trunked system.

Admittedly, I am a bit fuzzy on the compatibility of later Motorola 9600 baud trunking systems that were "Astro 25" but not fully P25 compliant. Those systems evolved toward P25 standards even as the p25 standards themselves evolved. There may be special use cases where you could get limited interoperability between those two brands, without being fully P25 compliant. Not certain about that.

For quite some time, M/A-Com...Harris...wanted no part of Project 25, as they did not want to sign on to Motorola's pet project, but eventually market forces required them to do so. (Primarily federal contracts, I'm sure.)

HARRIS wasn't anti-P25. it was primarily M/A-Com pushing the proprietary EDACS ProVoice and OpenSky systems. HARRIS was very much involved with and supported the P25 standard.They are the reason for the continued killing off of the inherited proprietary systems, once they are no longer under contract to support them.

The prototype XG-100P was capable of supporting all the legacy M/A-Com formats and was capable of supporting Motorola Type 2 with it's unicorn firmware, that was never released outside HARRIS. HARRIS management axed all that and decided it would only support analog, P25 Conventional and P25 Trunking. EDACS ProVoice was only added to the XG-100M because of requested demand from certain entities at the time. EDACS ProVoice hasn't died off as quickly as anticipated and that's the only reason the XL-200 has support for it.

 

[ElroyJetson]

Note that I did say "M/A-Com...Harris" which meant, actually, "somewhere along the timeline from GE to Harris" rather than the time since the Harris acquisition specifically. There was a time within this period where the company, by whatever name it was using that week, was not wishing to play Motorola's P25 game.

EDACS support officially ended in, what, 2017? Yet my county still runs it. With a FEW ProVoice and a FEW encrypted talkgroups. Strange but true. And they're not the only ones. It was only recently that the county to the north finally turned off their EDACS system for good, and not so long ago where the county to the south did the same. So that leaves my county as one of a dwindling number still using EDACS, and all their new issued radios support it. But the day is coming when the new P25 system will be transitioned to service.

 

[KevinC]

I agree, no Harris will work on 3600 MSI systems. Oh wait, I said that in the first reply. 😁

 

[GTR8000]

I agree, no Harris will work on 3600 MSI systems. Oh wait, I said that in the first reply. 😁

Wouldn't be a proper RadioReference thread unless at least 3 people chimed in to parrot the first correct response. I suspect it's somehow your fault. 🙃

 

[Echo4Thirty]

Wouldn't be a proper RadioReference thread unless at least 3 people chimed in to parrot the first correct response. I suspect it's somehow your fault. 🙃

No harris will work on a motorola 3600 system... there! IBTL! HAHAAH

 

[ElroyJetson]

Anybody remember the rumored Motorola radio that would work on an EDACS system? I heard the Navy SEALS had them, apparently so they could use the EDACS HYDRA systems found on many Naval ships.

Come to think of it, the HYDRA system is still a bit of a mystery. I've never YET heard of any of those systems making it to surplus or beyond.

 

[KevinC]

Anybody remember the rumored Motorola radio that would work on an EDACS system? I heard the Navy SEALS had them, apparently so they could use the EDACS HYDRA systems found on many Naval ships.

Come to think of it, the HYDRA system is still a bit of a mystery. I've never YET heard of any of those systems making it to surplus or beyond.

Sigh...one in every bunch.

 

[BMDaug]

I don’t really think it’s a mystery… There are brochures (see attached) available with average google search abilities. It’s just standard Harris offerings in special packaging… like a mobile mounted in a wall box with black powder coating and a Harris logo. These likely do have customized or unreleased firmware, but having a radio with that firmware would likely be irrelevant outside of the hydra system anyway.

-B

 

[ElroyJetson]

Right, but I've never seen surplus Hydra equipment "in the wild", so to speak. As I understand it, Hydra uses a customized architecture, not regular EDACS by any means. The radios are 100 mW output. Never seen those radios at surplus, or their firmware, etc.

 

[Echo4Thirty]

Anybody remember the rumored Motorola radio that would work on an EDACS system? I heard the Navy SEALS had them, apparently so they could use the EDACS HYDRA systems found on many Naval ships.

Come to think of it, the HYDRA system is still a bit of a mystery. I've never YET heard of any of those systems making it to surplus or beyond.

Rumor was that it was a cousin to the FPP spectra

 

[ElroyJetson]

Yeah, like the VHF air band Astro saber... wait, I did that...hacked the bandsplit and it actually did a passable job of receiving some AM transmissions via slope detect.

 

[Echo4Thirty]

Yeah, like the VHF air band Astro saber... wait, I did that...hacked the bandsplit and it actually did a passable job of receiving some AM transmissions via slope detect.

Or the 800 MHz ASTRO Saber that could receive iDEN with the LAPD VSELP flash. I think @KevinC had one of those.

Slope detection works surprisingly well for an AM RX only situation. I think I might extend one of my XTSs down to play with that.

 

[ElroyJetson]

I'd forgotten entirely about the VSELP/IDEN thing. Wish I'd done that.

 

[BMDaug]

Right, but I've never seen surplus Hydra equipment "in the wild", so to speak. As I understand it, Hydra uses a customized architecture, not regular EDACS by any means. The radios are 100 mW output. Never seen those radios at surplus, or their firmware, etc.

I suppose for a collector, something like this may be desirable… but a custom EDACS implementation with 100mW output certainly isn’t of interest to me. I believe that these systems are UHF(?), but for all we know, the radios don’t operate in anything but this ‘custom EDACS’ mode…

I just want radios to be useful to me. I’m not a collector!

-B