M5300 and P25 Phase II option (47) question

[ElroyJetson]

OK, I don't ask very many questions around here. I seem to be able to answer my fair share, though.

But there's a lot I don't know and that includes today's little mystery.


Some time ago, I ordered a P25 Phase 1 feature upgrade for an M5300 mobile radio I bought.

Somebody got his signals mixed and I got the P25 Phase 2 feature instead. (option 47)

The Harris documentation indicates that the M5300 is capable of P25 Phase 1 and it is an 800 MHz radio,
not a dual band 700/800 radio.

It's the M7300 that is 700/800 dual band and it is listed as being capable of P25 Phase 2.

So I have a feature in this radio that appears to NOT be officially supported.

Yet I got the feature upgrade via a Harris dealer shop and they ordered the upgrade via the only source,
the Harris TAC. Presumably they would not have issued an invalid feature upgrade.

Does anybody know, with any reasonable certainty, if this M5300 will actually work on a P25 Phase 2 800 MHz system?

I am going to presume that it lacks the hardware to support 700 MHz operation but as I gather, a Phase 2 system does not require a 700 MHz component so as long as the system it is to be on doesn't have a 700 MHz component, it should work, but I would not expect it to have any 700 MHz functionality at all.

 

[Radioman96p71]

Looking thru the service manuals, the M7300 and M5300 both use the same CB-015584 RF board. Which supports 7/800Mhz.

They also make reference to setting feature bits to enable/disable the various iterations of Phase 2 / 700 / 800 only etc.

It appears this is another case of the P7100/P5100 where the hardware is identical but they software-handicap them to target a different market. XGP is now standardized across the platforms so if it works for one, it should work for all.

Interesting snippet from XGP Release Notes:

2.1.7 M7300 700/800 MHz Feature Encryption
Information
For an M7300 700/800 MHz radio, bit 29 (Feature 30) must remain clear.
This is identified as LPE_50 in the features program.
For an M5300 800 MHz radio, bit 29 (Feature 30) must be set and bit 39
(Feature 40) must be clear. This is identified as BIT_39 in the features
program.
For an M5300 700 MHz radio, bit 29 (Feature 30) must be set and bit 39
(Feature 40) must be set.

Seems if you dropped Feature 30 you'd have a M7300 again.

How they ended up selling you that feature is a good question, but apparently they don't sanity-check the features when they create them. I've heard of quite a few mistakes that ended up with seemingly impossible combinations right from Harris.

Sorry I don't have firm proof, but hopefully my speculation and evidence helps your case!

EDIT:

4.2 TDMA FEATURE SUPPORT
The following radios support P25T TDMA Phase 2 functionality:
• XG-75P
• P7300
• M7300 (except for 110W VHF and UHF-LL)
• XG-25P
• XG-25M
• XG-100P
• XG-100M
• P5500 (except for UHF-LL)
• M5300 800 MHz

XGP R2 says the M5300 can do Phase 2.

 

[ElroyJetson]

Nice. Hmm...I wonder if I can get them to drop 30 from my feature string?

What is XGP? A follow-on to RPM? Haven't heard of it before.

 

[Radioman96p71]

XGP is the firmware that followed ECP R16A. All the OMAP/Unity radios run XGP now. I think they are on XGP R5 now, most radios you find have R2 or the beta R3.

I wonder if you could convince them they added 30 by mistake and remove that instead