V0.93-0.17K-R02 Firmware Discussion

[IAmSixNine]

Issue 1 we shall call out of range bonk.
For me that only occurs on the system mentioned above and its not an issue of going to multiple sites or layers as its a true simulcast system with RFSS 1 / Site 1. Which is the same with the other system i monitor during the day. I know some systems can have RFSS 1 with many different site numbers. So that takes those out of the equation. I cant comment on the control channel switching as i have not looked at a scanner when it happens, but next time im home and it does it I will try to quickly get a scanner locked on to the CC and see if it changes frequencys.

Issue 2 i shall call not finding system on power up or when switching systems.
I have never once had an issue switching onto the PAWM system. I can get to work and switch to it, or i can be driving to work and switch to it and it always locks on. However, there have been times (weekend) when i turned ON the G4 and it says Scanning for about 30 seconds. I loose patients and either switch channels or turn it off and back on to get a lock onto the Dallas COG P25 Simulcast system. again, this issue only is present on my G4 for this system, Dallas COG P25 Simulcast.
OR i can leave work, switch zones from PAWM to Dallas COG and it will get stuck scanning. Same thing, i get impatient around 30 seconds and switch channels or power it off. Then it usually connects.
1 time i left it scanning while i grabbed my XTS2500 and it had no issues, then turned on my KNG2-P800 and it locked on, then i went back to G4 and powered it off and back on and it worked just fine.

What i may do going forward to test is after work i can go from PAWM, to a zone with a conventional channel, then switch to the Dallas system, this would eliminate the carrier hang you mention of a busier control channel maybe delaying things.

I have 2 G4 with identical programming. So maybe i should do the same thing on both and see if both have the same hang ups or same drop out. .. yeah i shall do that.. wish me luck.. LOL

 

[mdsxfire]

Do the radios that are working on these systems not have these issues because they actually authenticate with the system and are in back and forth communication with them?


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[troymail]

Do the radios that are working on these systems not have these issues because they actually authenticate with the system and are in back and forth communication with them?


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No.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Do the radios that are working on these systems not have these issues because they actually authenticate with the system and are in back and forth communication with them?


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XTS and APX are set with non affiliate scan. Radio is parked on a conventional channel scanning talk groups.
KNG2-P800 is has non affiliate option enabled. With the KNG its acting just like the G4.

 

[APX8000]

It would not surprise me -- making changes to software (firmware) can be tedious when it comes to not breaking existing functionality... it's usually something that goes into the decision process of when/if changes are actually made....



Having said that, from my perspective, the last two releases (Sept 17 and Jan 18) have improved things for my usage.



Which version do you consider to be the original?

I consider V00-03-05_Beta07 to the the “original” firmware. I never had issues other than the slow response to changing knob positions. V00-03-09_R02 was next and knob response was great. But then all the other issues that I and others posted popped up. This version seems to be a little better than R02, but still not as good as the “original” in my opinion.


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[kruser]

Update to Loss of RF

An update to my earlier post regarding loosing RF on the Primary radio only in my G5.

After experimenting this evening, I found that my G5 does indeed receive signals on its primary 7/800 MHz band.

But... it now only receives anything on the Primary band while sitting in its Charging/Amp cradle with an external antenna attached to the charging cradles BNC jack.

If I remove it from the charging base, the G5's signal indicator drops to no bars and of course no signal.
I did try hooking up an external yagi to the G5's removable antenna socket but still no reception when out of the charging base.
The antenna socket on my G5 is fine and the center pin has not fallen out or been broken.

The Secondary receiver works fine both in and out of the charging base. One thing I noticed that I did not think worked is the fact that the Secondary radio (VHF on my G5) does indeed make use of an external antenna attached to the charging base BNC jack.
I swore I tried this before and an external antenna made no difference with the G5's secondary band when inserted into the charging/amp base. I know the removable antenna on the G5 does not supply any signal to the Secondary radio in the G5 and I thought the charging base worked the same but I guess not. Or they changed something in this latest FW that does allow an antenna attached to the charging base to work for the Secondary radio in the G5.
Now I can make use on an external antenna with my Primary statewide VHF system.

Anyway, the reception issues I noted earlier since upgrading FW to the latest the other day, appear to be caused by the G5 not switching back to its removable antenna jack for signal when it is removed from the charging base. I did try different antennas on the G5's removable jack but zero luck in getting any signal into the G5 when using that antenna jack on for 7/800 MHz band. Strong or Weak signals do not make it into the G5.

I did play with various external antennas while the G5 was plugged into the charger base and they all produce varying results as indicated by the G5's bar graph signal meter. Both the primary and secondary radios in the G5 appear to make full use of any antenna attached to the amp/charger base.

My original intent for this G5 was to use it more as a base receiver to get around LSM issues but for the cost, I'm not going to leave it half working!
If I did, whatever has failed will just fail further and no antenna jacks will work!

I now suspect it is a hardware issue probably related to whatever component is responsible for switching the Primary radio's front end from the charging base BNC jack to the G5's removable antenna socket.

VHF signals do switch back to whatever the G5 has for an internal antenna for its Secondary radio as can be seen on its bar graph by holding the radio and using your hand to block signal from entering the case on weaker signals. Who knows if the Secondary radio is even disconnected from its internal antenna when it is plugged into the charger/amp base. It kind of acts like the internal antenna is always connected as you can tune a signal showing only say 2 bars and those 2 bars remain lit when you plug it into the charging base with no antenna connected. Hookup an external antenna tuned to the VHF band and the G5's bar graph will go full bars indicating the charger base external antenna does work for the Secondary radio.

I also read something in one of the scanner forums, I think, where someone said the G5 will only switch antenna jacks to the active jack when it is powered on and it detects the strongest signal. I don't know if this is true as it does not seem that it would be very reliable. Wherever I read this, they were talking about the G5's Primary radio. Mine is the 7/800 MHz band for the Primary radio and VHF for the Secondary radio.

In an nutshell, they were saying the G5 may not switch to the correct antenna jack for the Primary radio unless you power it on with a working antenna hooked up to the jack you intend on using. Sounds like hogwash to me!
Of course if there is any truth to this, please advise as mine sure does not seem to be switching antenna jacks back to the removable antenna jack when it is lifted out of the charging/amp cradle.

If I let mine go "out of range" and then plug it back into the charging cradle with an external antenna attached to the charging cradle, it does pickup the signal again after maybe a 15 second delay. It does not detect the signal instantaneously like I would expect so maybe there is some antenna jack switching circuitry coming into play inside the G5? It's weird whatever happened.

If anyone has the charging/amp cradle and has upgraded their FW on the same model G5, please let me know if you can duplicate my findings or not. That would be much appreciated!

Thanks everyone and sorry for the long post but wanted to get my new findings out there since posting my trouble report earlier this morning.

 

[elrod]

Phase2 works in V0.93-0.17J

Maybe I missed one but I don't recall seeing a ver. 17J.
I have only seen 3 releases.
The original FW loaded in my G5 bought in July was V0.90-0.14A_R11P and the first PPS I download was V00-03-05-Beta07.
The next FW was V0.93-0.17I R00 and PPS V00-03-09-R02 that I never installed because of all the issues I was seeing about it.
The latest FW is V0.93-0.17K R02 and PPS V00-03-10_Beta07. I plan on installing this one to see if it will help with the E F Johnson system Will County, IL. is now using.
Can someone confirm that the above releases are correct or did I miss V0.93-0.17J.

Chuck

 

[troymail]

Maybe I missed one but I don't recall seeing a ver. 17J.
I have only seen 3 releases.
The original FW loaded in my G5 bought in July was V0.90-0.14A_R11P and the first PPS I download was V00-03-05-Beta07.
The next FW was V0.93-0.17I R00 and PPS V00-03-09-R02 that I never installed because of all the issues I was seeing about it.
The latest FW is V0.93-0.17K R02 and PPS V00-03-10_Beta07. I plan on installing this one to see if it will help with the E F Johnson system Will County, IL. is now using.
Can someone confirm that the above releases are correct or did I miss V0.93-0.17J.

Chuck

I don't think J was a general release -- sounds like we've got a beta tester amongst us...

I'm interested in your findings for Will Co -- I think someone else reported it still doesn't work with K

 

[elrod]

Once i get my profile setup and loaded I will try it out and report back.
It would be nice if David would reply if they are aware of these systems and either they will not work or they are looking in to it.

Chuck

 

[troymail]

Once i get my profile setup and loaded I will try it out and report back.
It would be nice if David would reply if they are aware of these systems and either they will not work or they are looking in to it.

Chuck

I've asked multiple times since last summer/fall and even posted a thread specific to EF Johnson in the Unication forum but no official response from Unication. I know David has been pretty busy but I am surprised that up to this point, no response has been provided.

However, it now seems that the issue isn't EFJ specific but more likely the lack of information being sent in the control channel of a given system.

 

[TwoWayTim]

J was round one of Phase 2.

 

[elrod]

I've asked multiple times since last summer/fall and even posted a thread specific to EF Johnson in the Unication forum but no official response from Unication. I know David has been pretty busy but I am surprised that up to this point, no response has been provided.

However, it now seems that the issue isn't EFJ specific but more likely the lack of information being sent in the control channel of a given system.

Ya. Apparently totally different than Moto or other systems in that it doesn't need the info on control channels. I can monitor the system on my scanners but I have to question the quality of the system. A lot of breaking up and drop outs, missed calls and replies. Even the users have problems. Hopefully it will all straighten out... soon

Chuck

 

[radios4bill]

Hi Group, So I was able to get the delay to work on my conventional and single channel P 25 frequencies. Can someone share how to do this on the Trunking systems? Thanks!


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[TV88KEYS]

Erratic Operation

Although I love the pretty colors the new G4 firmware provides I can't deal with the signal loss and scanning to new TG's in the middle of a transmission..Does anyone have a link to the original firmware..I think its V0.90-0.14A_R11P.....Thanks.

 

[baileydogg]

I'm striking out editing profiles with the new PPS and looking for help.

I manage the radio communications of a public safety agency, which includes paging, and we have about 15 different profiles that were created in PPS 3.05-BETA07. We cannot get edit any of these profiles in PPS 3.10-BETA07. They are all listed in PPS 3.10, and we answered "yes" to the initial profile import/conversion upon 3.10 first run. So far I've tried:

A. Uninstalling/reinstalling 3.10, with and without 3.05
B. Reading profiles from two separate pagers
C. Exporting a profile from 3.05 and then importing into 3.10
D. Exporting a profile from 3.10 and then importing into 3.10
E. Converting a profile to a new model in PPS 3.10 tab C2

When trying to edit an existing profile in 3.10 we are presented with a prompt stating "The profile version is not appropriate for the current PPS". In the case of reading a profile from a pager with new firmware, we are presented with a prompt "The unipps file is unrecognizable, please check if it is from a PPS which has a different version".

Both computers I've tried are running Windows 10.

What am I doing wrong? I've been managing these devices for 6 months now and this is the first dead in the water point I've had with PPS.

Thank you, your help is appreciated.

BD

 

[GLNWDFD481]

This may serve as some interest and be worth some future research. I am a Unication dealer and have multiple pagers out as demo that were 3 firmware version ago. I had no issues with paging tones, voice channel announcement or anything else. When the firmware release came out with quick call over p25 I upgrade my demos and found the channel announcement was intermittent and now my lower frequency pager tones on analog stopped alerting.

I have been testing and trying different settings all night long trying to get this tone set working. I always imported the codeplug file from the previous software then programmed the pager. One would think this shouldn't be a issue. Well I decided to roll back the firmware then upload the latest back into the pager and create a brand new codeplug from scratch. Well I now have full function of my analog paging tones again no issues at all. When I tried loading the old codeplug back in I lost the pager tones again. reload the fresh codeplug back in and it restored functionality. Channel announcement still is broken but starting with a software created codeplug for each new upgrade may solve some issues.

 

[troymail]

Although I love the pretty colors the new G4 firmware provides I can't deal with the signal loss and scanning to new TG's in the middle of a transmission..Does anyone have a link to the original firmware..I think its V0.90-0.14A_R11P.....Thanks.

Try this one

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tk3epytra7gdgkk/AADfzf2bqL-PiJiV6FYdDIJNa?dl=0

 

[KX4KDH]

This firmware release seems to address the problem I had when monitoring my local 800 P25 conventional system. It would lock up, tell me to reboot, and give error code 05108. I went from R00 to R02, and this has cleared up.

 

[kruser]

G5 Lives!

Just an update that the loss of reception problems my G5 experienced since installing the latest FW has been fixed.

There is a vibrating alert motor in the case. Right next to that motor's counterweight is the short and tiny RF cable that connects the G5's removable antenna socket to the RF board. There is also a cable retention clip that this cable should route through.
My cable was not in the retention clip and the end that connects to the inside end of the SMA connector was found just hanging loose in the radio.
It appears the vibrating motor counterweight may have hit this cable and caused it to separate from the antenna connector.
Once it was reconnected, full reception was restored in my G5!
Of course I made sure to route the tiny rf cable through the retention clip so the vibrating alert motor could not knock it loose again.

All is working fine and with the latest FW!

 

[IAmSixNine]

kruser - Great follow up, thank you for letting us know what the issue was and how to fix it.