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A couple Qs programming Astro25 radios

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merlin

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I should have stayed with MOTO, been away too long.
Programming a 700/800 Mhz Astro with 2 P25 systems, in scanning, will this scan both systems or just the selected ?
These are neighbor systems, part of the same infrastructure.
Method to my madness is using an XTS5000 to monitor only these systems.
I will want to target one of the agencies that use both systems, that can come later.
73s
 

Tech21

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Unless, the xts5000 are capable of multi-system scanning, you'd only be able to scan one system at a time.
 

GTR8000

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The XTS 5000 is capable of Multi-System Talkgroup scan. It can scan one system at a time, or both, it all depends on how you setup the codeplug.
 

merlin

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The XTS 5000 is capable of Multi-System Talkgroup scan. It can scan one system at a time, or both, it all depends on how you setup the codeplug.
I figured it was more codeplug related. I just dug up the dozen or so guide documents so have lots of reading yet.
If it needs specific firmware, looks like I have that, the software is already installed and ready to go.
73s
 

merlin

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In your "Scan List" you need to enable "Multi System Scan". It should be just to the right of "Scan Type".
Thanks, that helps. Problem I am having is not finding programming guides. The tutorials bundled with the software are flash and that won't work on my puter. all I can find is the help in the CPS.
If there are any document numbers for this, it would help me search my stockpile.
TNX 73s
 

a417

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Thanks, that helps. Problem I am having is not finding programming guides. The tutorials bundled with the software are flash and that won't work on my puter. all I can find is the help in the CPS.
If there are any document numbers for this, it would help me search my stockpile.
TNX 73s
Flash may be deprecated, but it can still be made to work. What issues are you having with flash?
 

chrismol1

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You'll need change the scan system search time to something applicable, the default is what 3 seconds? Thats 3 seconds on each control channel. I had 3 different systems doing this, it works but it is not great. I like to keep it to 2 systems only with a system search time of 1-2 seconds. You will miss short transmissions but I suppose big incidents will require more airtime and then it will work out for situational awareness
 

merlin

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Flash may be deprecated, but it can still be made to work. What issues are you having with flash?
The window pops up "you need adobe flashplayer version 6 or later......" . I have installed and uninstalled so many flash players now, you can be very certain this will not work. Now please don't tell me Motorola doesn't have documents in programming guides. I probably have them if they exist, just buried deep in zip files.
Took weeks to find Astro 25 stuff.
It took me about a year with Harris getting the gist from a .chm file to program a simple EDACS system, this CPS is 16 times more in depth. What I am wanting is a custom codeplug and don't even know where to start building a map(book).. I suppose, like Harris, I could print out the chm file and do the best I can. This is bigger than anything I have done.
Thanks for the input.
73
 

merlin

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You'll need change the scan system search time to something applicable, the default is what 3 seconds? Thats 3 seconds on each control channel. I had 3 different systems doing this, it works but it is not great. I like to keep it to 2 systems only with a system search time of 1-2 seconds. You will miss short transmissions but I suppose big incidents will require more airtime and then it will work out for situational awareness
Well, I have a skeleton codeplug I can refer to but don't have clues what needs to be changed.
This is 2 systems and something like missing short calls I can tweak later. the first part is getting a codeplug that works at all, and where to start with that.
73s
 

a417

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The window pops up "you need adobe flashplayer version 6 or later......" .<snip>
No problem, as a webdev in another life I used to utilize the Adobe Flash projector (which is standalone to browser, always was...until it was absorbed into the browsers and then subsequently deprecated). It's a standalone player that allows you to either browse to an .SWF file (flashbacks) or can access it via URL to play outside of a browser window. Where is the file you are trying to access located?

This informative Adobe eLearning blogpost talks about it. There is also an official webpage to the Adobe Debug Downloads that will allow you local access to all the flash content you have stored on your computer. Just because the browsers have declared Flash dead, doens't mean it is dead forever. Running a program like this in a sandboxed VM will allow you to preserve access to all of it, despite what ever nefarious things are in it.
 

ElroyJetson

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DO NOT ASK ME FOR HELP PROGRAMMING YOUR RADIO. NO.
I recommend dedicating a "period correct" laptop or desktop PC to the job of programming a legacy radio. If you need an ancient version of Flash to run with it, that version may cause conflicts if installed on a newer PC.

Any version of Flash can be found on the internet, or so it appears.

As for using the CPS to program trunking data, just remember that the essentials are the control channels and the talkgroup lists. You then tie them together in the system setup pages. Yes, there are an INCREDIBLE number of available fields to customize if you want to, (I think it's possible to have over a MILLION editable fields!!!) but the data that's really important shows up in the first handful of columns. And you can customize the CPS to hide columns you don't intend to edit or enter data into. Once you've done that it becomes much easier going forward.

There is no doubt that the learning curve for using the CPS to program trunking is a steep one. Spend time browsing every tab in every section,
and add just one feature at a time and tweak it until it runs right. Then add another. Repeat ad nauseum or until success is achieved.

Really, the CPS puts trunked systems together in generally the same way you build systems in GE's RPM software. But RPM gives you far less customization potential, really none on a channel by channel/group by group basis. That simplicity makes RPM easier to use, and RPM's big advantage is "one software package, many radios supported" while CPS has always been limited to just one (or a very small number of) model per release.
 

merlin

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I do have a 'bench' computer I use for programming the older radios, MaCom, Icom, Kenwood.
My main computer though has morphed into taking its place. Motorola and such, already set up.
For my background with ProGrammer and RPM, this CPM seems moot, I have come a LONG ways with it.
I like it a lot better than RPM, logical, and not so vague. I am doing mostly Astro25, don't plan on biting off more soon. Plenty to learn, but getting there quick, it isn't scary anymore.
Maybe my XP machine will play this tutorial, I'll give it a shot.
73s
 

ElroyJetson

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DO NOT ASK ME FOR HELP PROGRAMMING YOUR RADIO. NO.
Definitely the CPS is "feature rich" as are the radios, compared to the GE/Harris offerings. But I have to admit, I do like the RPM "one platform for all radios" approach quite a bit. I can write the same file to my portable P7300 and my mobile M7300 and my base CS7000 without having to make a single change to the file. Just select the correct radio type. That's very handy.

Motorola should have settled on a common subscriber platform and followed suit, long ago. But no...cloning from one radio to another isn't even easy (or possible in many cases) unless the two radios are essentially identical. Even then I've sometimes has issues sharing files between two radios that ARE identical in every way except for serial number and one other (seemingly random) variable. And then there's the problem of version levels. There's no going back to a previous CPS release once the radio has been programmed with a newer one. The dreaded "radio too new for this application. Please update." message is maybe the one I hate the most of all.
 

wa8pyr

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Motorola should have settled on a common subscriber platform and followed suit, long ago. But no...cloning from one radio to another isn't even easy (or possible in many cases) unless the two radios are essentially identical. Even then I've sometimes has issues sharing files between two radios that ARE identical in every way except for serial number and one other (seemingly random) variable.

That's my biggest gripe about Moneyrola; even the tiniest variance in feature set requires a completely different codeplug. I have to maintain so dang many codeplug files because of that...

Harris, as you noted, is much easier; I simply maintain one codeplug for each "family" of radios (XG, XL, etc) per agency and I'm good.
 
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