1BillyBob1
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Is it possible to run two radio bricks controlled with a single control head?
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Is it possible?
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1BillyBob1
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A 185m and 200m or dual same radios.
mmckenna
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Yeah, I'd like info on that also. I'm running XL-200's at work and haven't seen anything that suggests that is an option in the software or documentation. But possible I missed something along the way.
That's because there is no evidence, because its not possible. Typical out of the ass talk from the usual suspects. I doubled checked the service and user manuals for the XLMs and the XL-CHs and there is nothing in there or RPM2 about dual bricks on a single head. The 2 RJ45s on the XL-CH are for daisy chaining up to 8 control heads of a single VCH.
mmckenna
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Yeah, that's what I figured, but was giving the benefit of the doubt. I've only been playing in the L3Harris world for a few years and am always learning something new.
Well, I see this is going to become a heated argument.
Since the Orion series, including M7100, radios have been paired, mainly for dual band or cross band repeaters. Master/Slave radio configuration. I haven't seen it, but no reason an M7100 and XG-75 could not be configured in a master-slave setup OR crossband repeater.
Bricks would have to be connected together properly for that and the master of course would need a control head, the slave, optional.
A repeater setup would need a repeater controller and peripherals.
Repeater builder has a good bit of this, even different manufacurer radios. A couple other sites get into this also.
Looks like the XG series would be simple, just daisychain the CAN bus radio to radio.
Using the term "NOT POSSIBLE", to quote Evil Kenivel "Imposible just means you haven't done it yet"
I am not the only one with 8 Gb of Harris documentation, it is out there for a search.
Since the Orion series, including M7100, radios have been paired, mainly for dual band or cross band repeaters. Master/Slave radio configuration. I haven't seen it, but no reason an M7100 and XG-75 could not be configured in a master-slave setup OR crossband repeater.
Bricks would have to be connected together properly for that and the master of course would need a control head, the slave, optional.
A repeater setup would need a repeater controller and peripherals.
Repeater builder has a good bit of this, even different manufacurer radios. A couple other sites get into this also.
Looks like the XG series would be simple, just daisychain the CAN bus radio to radio.
Using the term "NOT POSSIBLE", to quote Evil Kenivel "Imposible just means you haven't done it yet"
I am not the only one with 8 Gb of Harris documentation, it is out there for a search.
That is because it is not about the CHs or the programming software. Each radio (head and all) in such setup would have to be programmed accordingly. Remote head(s) is such common configuration, you might find a little in XL documents.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
I think this is the issue. OP said he's talking about the XL-185M or XL-200M:
I've got the XL series maintenance and installation manuals in front of me, and there's zero mention of dual-decking these guys.
Maybe it's possible with the right firmware, but that's currently not an option, not advertised, and not offered.
But, yes, 'anything is possible'. Just not a current option from the factory and not something that most agencies are going to want to do with the risk of screwing up a radio/voiding warranty.
I would think it could be done with a CAN translation and heartbeat uP unit that acts as a traffic management system. It would have to be made to talk to the control head via CAN and create a software switch that directs CAN traffic to whatever brick is selected while also maintaining the required CAN heartbeat data to satisfy the non selected brick that will be looking for a control head to talk to.
If you sniff the CAN data between a brick and head you will see a pulsing heartbeat of sorts that seems to correspond to one of the LEDs inside the brick. You will also see ASCII display data pass as well as blasts of large chunks of data that carry the audio both directions. I've successfully rendered an XG100M "wireless" by way of CAN to wifi converters but the audio suffered due to latency and timing. I would like to try ethernet but life got in the way and never had time to finish the project.
If you sniff the CAN data between a brick and head you will see a pulsing heartbeat of sorts that seems to correspond to one of the LEDs inside the brick. You will also see ASCII display data pass as well as blasts of large chunks of data that carry the audio both directions. I've successfully rendered an XG100M "wireless" by way of CAN to wifi converters but the audio suffered due to latency and timing. I would like to try ethernet but life got in the way and never had time to finish the project.
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Same here, and I've been playing with Harris since the Orion days. I had a dual brick M7100 at one point in time, and yes worked well. I don't doubt that a talented person could make it work, but that is a long way from having "complete documents". I assure you, it is not a factory supported or available option.
This. The XL mobiles do not have any functionality for dual-brick support. Quite literally the current publicly available firmware, at the minimum, doesn't support it.
The XLs do not share any original architecture with Orion or M7100-era radios and are of a completely different design internally.
You have no clue what you are talking about. Have you ever configured XL Mobiles or VCH systems? Have you read the maintenance manual or TSM's about XLMs? There is NO SUPPORT for dual brick on a single XL-CH. PERIOD
Perhaps in the future Harris will build code to support it or design a new CH to handle it. The OPs question was can I run a XL185M and a 200M on a single CH and the answer is NO right now.
CAN is a XG series thing. XL series uses IP to talk between all their VCHs and CHs now in the XLM line. You can actually run a VCH 200M, 185M, or 85M over an IP network including a switch and have the head somewhere else in the network. Pretty neat!
There is no option for a dual brick… the control heads get a dhcp IP address assigned from the MRU. The control heads don’t take two IP addresses.
You can manually assign one IP per control head also, LAN/WAN.
You can manually assign one IP per control head also, LAN/WAN.
Yea, sadly I don't know much about the XL series. I do have what documentation is readily available, and the fail point with newer Harris is the vague, incomplete documentation. These radios though, can do things no ordinary radio can, and the firmware is responsible for that.
You are right. I have had no XL radios to work with but I will guess even Harris doesn't know the limits of these newer radios.
What I have seen and know about the XG series, people are only confined to the current galaxy, and there are thousands of them.
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