ASTRO25 FPP... disable?

[rjvalenta]

I am part of a local fire department, and I'm a ham... the fire department uses the statewide trunking system and we are authorized to program our own radios, we have keys and all. Someone else at the department got a radio and put the two worlds together, and I it would be great to do the same and have FD and ham in one radio.

I have the codeplug from my friend's XTS5000 which has all the FD channels, old VHF I/O channels to scan and all the standard ham frenquencies, ham repeaters from all over the state, and all the ARES channels... and I found a VHF XTS5000 on eBay with FPP... and it's now mine. the new radio is connect to the computer, I read the blank codeplug off, i put 2mCall and local NWS in CPS and send to the radio... i can receive fine and can transmit on 2mCall just fine... added 2mCall directly in to channel 3, worked great.

so then i went to drag and drop my friend's channels to the new radio... no luck. i searched around the web and found a post that said FPP enabled codeplugs can't drag and drop in or out of non-FPP codeplugs... oof... that's going to be frustration with 43 zone of various channels in the codeplug i'm trying to import...

and in my searching i'm seeing posts that say the trunked channels wont work on an FPP radio... what? that can't be right... the empty codeplug on this thing has 1 blank trunking system and 1 trunking personality... and... i go in to zone/channel info - can't change the channels from Cnv to Trk.

i read more... the first 15 zone need to be FPP... ok... so i'll add some more zones... get over 15 and still can't add anything as trunking... which kinda defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

SO - how do I disable FPP enough to use trunking on this radio?


thanks in advance

Richard

 

[KE4ZNR]

I am part of a local fire department, and I'm a ham... the fire department uses the statewide trunking system and we are authorized to program our own radios, we have keys and all. Someone else at the department got a radio and put the two worlds together, and I it would be great to do the same and have FD and ham in one radio.

I have the codeplug from my friend's XTS5000 which has all the FD channels, old VHF I/O channels to scan and all the standard ham frenquencies, ham repeaters from all over the state, and all the ARES channels... and I found a VHF XTS5000 on eBay with FPP... and it's now mine. the new radio is connect to the computer, I read the blank codeplug off, i put 2mCall and local NWS in CPS and send to the radio... i can receive fine and can transmit on 2mCall just fine... added 2mCall directly in to channel 3, worked great.

so then i went to drag and drop my friend's channels to the new radio... no luck. i searched around the web and found a post that said FPP enabled codeplugs can't drag and drop in or out of non-FPP codeplugs... oof... that's going to be frustration with 43 zone of various channels in the codeplug i'm trying to import...

and in my searching i'm seeing posts that say the trunked channels wont work on an FPP radio... what? that can't be right... the empty codeplug on this thing has 1 blank trunking system and 1 trunking personality... and... i go in to zone/channel info - can't change the channels from Cnv to Trk.

i read more... the first 15 zone need to be FPP... ok... so i'll add some more zones... get over 15 and still can't add anything as trunking... which kinda defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

SO - how do I disable FPP enough to use trunking on this radio?


thanks in advance

Richard

Is your Trunking System 700/800Mhz?
If so you are out of luck as the XTS 5000 is single band only which means you are limited to VHF frequencies only which means no 700/800Mhz.
FPP on the XTS radios was half arsed by Mother Moto and is more pain to use than what it is worth.
If you want FPP+trunking save your sanity and buy a multi-band APX such as the 8000.

 

[MTS2000des]

One of the bummers is if your XTS has FPP, you can't drag and drop FPP personalities/zones into our out of. You can use channel picklist and import them one at a time, but as mentioned the way FPP was implemented in this product line kind of sucks., and typical of Ebay radios, whored out flashes with incompatible features create interesting quirks.

An APX8000 for the win.

 

[to2way]

An FPP radio has a set Zone/Channel structure of 15 zones with 16 channels .... hard stop
And channel assignments cannot be moved within Zones.....so its a double-edged sword

 

[nokones]

At the minimum, there is a way to delete the FPP zones down to just one Zone and Zone 1 will have to be dedicated to FPP. Also, the conventional personalities 1-17 have to be dedicated to FPP. I have deleted several FPP radios of Trunking Personalties and Talk Groups and replaced them with conventional personalties, and zones and channels.

With FPP codeplugs you will need to learn how to use the Channel Picklist to minimize your workload when it comes time to move channels and zones around in a FPP codeplug radio. You either overwrite the channel positions with the new channel information or you can add to the "End" of that Zone or Zones. You cannot Insert or Move, but you can delete.

As for the Trunking personalties, yes they can be changed to conventional personalties. But as for programming Trunking personalties and Talk Groups, I will not get involved with that type of programming and you should consult with the System Administrator in that regard. There are some Part 90 rules and regulations governing programming of Part 90.20 Public Safety Pool freqs into a privately owned radio device.

I assume that you have a VHF Highband Portable Radio with the letter "K" as the fourth character in the model number. I be more than happy to help you with the deleting of the FPP zones and personalties and the Trunking personalties and talkgroups so you can program conventional zones and channels.

Let me know if you would like my help.

 

[N4KVE]

I seem to remember if the Astro 25 radio has FW 9, or newer it can’t have trunking, & FPP in the same radio. Either get rid of FPP in the FC, or like Eric said, ”time for an APX”.

 

[nokones]

I seem to remember if the Astro 25 radio has FW 9, or newer it can’t have trunking, & FPP in the same radio. Either get rid of FPP in the FC, or like Eric said, ”time for an APX”.

Gotta check the Flashcode for the Features.

 

[wa8pyr]

At the minimum, there is a way to delete the FPP zones down to just one Zone and Zone 1 will have to be dedicated to FPP. Also, the conventional personalities 1-17 have to be dedicated to FPP. I have deleted several FPP radios of Trunking Personalties and Talk Groups and replaced them with conventional personalties, and zones and channels.

Ditto. I’ve got a VHF XTS5000 with FPP that I deleted all but the first FPP zone from. Took awhile but it got done.

 

[kayn1n32008]

SO - how do I disable FPP enough to use trunking on this radio?

Trunking and FPP can not be in the flash together with ASTRO25 equipment. It's one or the other.

 

[nokones]

Trunking and FPP can not be in the flash together with ASTRO25 equipment. It's one or the other.

You must be an Amateur Radio Operator because you are obviously in the know on FPP radios regarding Trunking capabilities.

By the way, I have three of these radios with the same Flashcode.

 

[mikewazowski]

I seem to remember if the Astro 25 radio has FW 9, or newer it can’t have trunking, & FPP in the same radio. Either get rid of FPP in the FC, or like Eric said, ”time for an APX”.

Trunking and FPP can not be in the flash together with ASTRO25 equipment. It's one or the other.

100% correct. After FW9, Motorola removed the ability to have trunking and FPP in the same codeplug.

XTS5000 FPP and Trunking question - Batboard

 

[N4DES]

SO - how do I disable FPP enough to use trunking on this radio?


thanks in advance

Richard

To answer your direct question, to change the FC that would remove the FPP and ease your pain, you would need the unmentionable software to do this that would create a whole new codeplug in the radio. Then you should be able to top drag your friends codeplug into the radio. Trunking/FPP has never played well together in the X series radios, but some have worked around it depending on what FW version is in the radio.

 

[rjvalenta]

the statewide trunking system is both 800 and VHF, depending on where you are... from my home my department radio hits 800Mhz towers, from the department the same radio uses VHF towers.

sadly i returned the radio to the eBay seller who completely understood that while he displayed all the available flashcode options, one of the ones i needed was disabled by the one i got for fun. the good news is that i reached out to vent to another radio guy in our department and he had a VHF XTS5000 he's not using anymore since... getting an APX... either way, i now have a radio that combines both worlds.

if and when i have the funds to upgrade to an APX8000 i will cover all the bases. i dont know when APX8000 will hit it's EOL and field support ends... but now that i'm seeing APX Next start to show up in nearby districts, maybe my wait won't be long...

thanks all for the input!

 

[kayn1n32008]

You must be an Amateur Radio Operator because you are obviously in the know on FPP radios regarding Trunking capabilities.

By the way, I have three of these radios with the same Flashcode.

View attachment 185018

I am, search for the Akardam Flashport code decoder, and it will tell you exactly what features are included in that flash, it has P25 Cai at a minimum

 

[K2NEC]

Platform: XTS5000
Flashcode: 5000040000023

Q806: ASTRO IMBE Digital Operation
H14: Enhanced Digital ID Display
H37: SmartNet Systems Operation
Q446: Fireground Voice/Channel Announcement