Translating Motorola IDs into Real Names

[NN2B]

Are my fire department's handheld XTS2500s capable of holding a database of names that would translate the hexadecimal ID number of an incoming radio in to a name?

When another firefighter transmits, my chief would like to see the firefighter's name display on our radio's LCD. Right now it just displays the hexadecimal ID number of the transmitting radio. Our dispatch's system has a database of names that does that conversion, but can our individual radios do that too?

(I muse over how my $250 Garmin Rino radio can transmit my GPS coordinates every time I key the mic, but our $2,000 Motorolas can't send my 5-character last name to another radio.)

 

[TheManBornWithin]

Yes. You can set it up in CPS under MDC lists. If you have model IIIs, with the right softkeys you can program them in from the keypad.

 

[MTS2000des]

Are my fire department's handheld XTS2500s capable of holding a database of names that would translate the hexadecimal ID number of an incoming radio in to a name?

When another firefighter transmits, my chief would like to see the firefighter's name display on our radio's LCD. Right now it just displays the hexadecimal ID number of the transmitting radio. Our dispatch's system has a database of names that does that conversion, but can our individual radios do that too?

(I muse over how my $250 Garmin Rino radio can transmit my GPS coordinates every time I key the mic, but our $2,000 Motorolas can't send my 5-character last name to another radio.)

Yes, alias text can be displayed, the radio can hold several lists. I think 32 IDs per list, and each list can be assigned to multiple trunking personalities.

This feature has to be enabled and configured in the Astro 25 CPS, and each radio programmed with a template containing those call lists, or drag and drop used to add them to existing personalities. All of this requires an authorized system key to be loaded for any changes to be made to trunking personalities in the radios codeplug.

 

[Jay911]

You're getting some correct but not necessarily clear information in the replies.

Are you on a trunked radio system like UCAN or are you on regular conventional channels? If you're using conventional channels and hear the MDC1200 "squawk", making the MDC call lists is right. If you are on the trunked system, you may need the system key to make these changes, as MTS2000des says. I don't have my programming computer in front of me right now so I can't look it up, but I'm thinking that I have done call lists without the system key before.

Depending on the features your radio has you may have multiple instances of call lists - you may have MDC call lists, ASTRO call lists, trunking system call lists, and so on. If you're on a trunking system, it's the latter that you want to set up the call lists in. Again, like MTS2000des says, you can make several lists of 16 (IIRC) members. Just put in the number that comes up on the screen as the ID and the text you want to come up as the alias text. I have about 4 lists in my department's XTLs for about 50 IDs total.

The downside is if you are in an agency where radios are traded around frequently, it will be a pain because when you want to change these call lists, you have to touch every single radio to update the lists in each one.

I will be at home in a couple of hours and in front of my programming computer. If you need more precise step-through, I can try to do so at that point.

 

[NN2B]

Thanks, guys!

Jay911, yes, I am on the UCAN trunked system. So it looks like it's the Trunking System Call List I need to set up. Okay, I'm covering new ground here with all this, since I've never done this before.

I sure hope I don't need the system key either. One more obstacle to something that's already more complicated than it needs to be.

What you're saying makes sense with what I'm coming to understand about these radios. We only have a dozen of these radios in our fire department, so these are the ones I want to focus my efforts on first - but I can see the nightmare coming when one radio gets transferred from one person to another.

 

[Jay911]

I just opened up an old codeplug on my computer and played around with the trunking call lists without any system key present, so you should be good to go. Just make sure you keep a saved copy of the original so you can put it back in, in the event something gets screwed up!