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G4 - Accessing the Menu

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eorange

eorange

Secret Agent Man
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What's the best way to access the main menu when voice calls are coming in, due to the calls taking priority on the display? I've been switching to a quiet knob position which works fine, but I'm just wondering if there's another method.
 
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IAmSixNine

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I have to do that on mine OR hit the back key. The one with the arrow circling back on its self. But if the people are having short conversations this sometimes has to be repeated.

So your on the right track. Switching channels.
 
eorange

eorange

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Yep, same experience with the back arrow too. Not a problem.

I really am enjoying this thing - 100% LSM and distortion free. The P25 decode is nothing short of amazing.
 
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IAmSixNine

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I own 2.. But my dad will be getting the other one as a fathers day gift. I got him hooked on listening to the local FD and they are migrating from their 800 analog system to a new 700 P25 Phase 2 system.
Luckily they are still on analog so by the time Unication releases Phase 2 the local agency might be on the new system.
 
Johnnydollar2

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G4/G5 Accessing the Menu

I just set the #2 knob to be far less busy and switch to that, then change Zones on the main screen
 
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mharris

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It makes me sad that we still have to do this. It's very basic functionality to be able to access the menu, regardless if a transmission is coming through or not.
 
troymail

troymail

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Lately, I've been encountering severe trouble trying to get the radio to "leave" a fairly active system. Today, there seemed to be nothing I could do to get my G4 to switch off of the Philly Pa system even though I was a couple of counties west of Philly. I don't think it was receiving anything - in fact, it didn't record any voice calls for nearly two hours during my trip (recordings jumped from Philly PA directly to Carroll County MD - well over 100 miles of nothing).

I tried everything short of removing the battery (I was driving) -- mashing on the buttons, removing the antenna for several minutes, powering off and back on, removing external power, combinations of all of these... no matter what I did, the radio just kept showing supposed activity for talkgroups in Philly PA (with no voice). It was almost as if the screen updates had buffered in the radio and were catching up for the next several hours even though I changed off that systems entirely (or at least tried to).

Then, for a while, the middle of the screen (zone, system, talkgroup site info, etc.) remained completely blank. The top and bottom lines showed the time and other normal things but the main part of the display remained totally blank/black. Later, I noticed occasionally the display would momentarily flash some zone/system information but it wasn't receiving anything.

Eventually, it started receiving voice calls for the area I was in but the main part of the display continued to be blank. Finally, perhaps and hour after that, it started acting close to normal again.

All-in-all a fairly disappointing day with the G4. Obviously, I've pushed the thing well over it's limits.... glad I avoided I-95 on the drive home -- the combination of the G4 acting the way it was coupled with the traffic on I-95 would have resulted in someone getting hurt....
 
eorange

eorange

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So you were able to access the menu, switch Zones away from the Philly system, but the G4 ignored this and continued to lock onto the Philly system?
 
troymail

troymail

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eorange said:
So you were able to access the menu, switch Zones away from the Philly system, but the G4 ignored this and continued to lock onto the Philly system?
Click to expand...
Nope - no button pushes worked at all -- the radio was off in a world of it's own and had no interest in anything I wanted to make it do... I don't believe it was really locked onto Philly either -- no possible way from my location after removing the antenna and power cycling it - it just showed info about Philly talkgroup reception for an extended period of time like it was just a bunch of buffered screen updates.

Again, I will admit that my programming was pretty heavy and "non-standard" - 1824 (talk)groups in the profile, 11 trunked "systems" defined, 2 zones - the only one of which I used that has with 8 knob positions defined for trunked systems that contain between 27 and 64 talkgroups each.

The system allows you to do some heavily loaded programming but the radio just cannot handle all you can throw at it.... I'd really prefer it to stop me from overloading the programming rather than taking it and then performing poorly.
 
eorange

eorange

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Ah, I see. I've had my G4 for not even a week so I am pretty light on my total number of TGs...less than 70 so far.

The zone you were using doesn't seem that outrageous...wonder if it has something to do with the total # you have programmed, regardless of what you were listening to.
 
troymail

troymail

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I've been trying to determine what part of the programming is really causing the issues since I got the radio in March... still haven't pinpointed anything. I've considered the number of systems, number of total talkgroups, number of talkgroups assigned to a given knob position, recording being enabled, how busy any given system is - combination of all... just really can't say...

It's just not designed to do what I am trying to make it do - but having said that, I really don't undersatnd why the PPS lets me overload the radio.
 
Steve2003

Steve2003

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I have the same issues as well, I'm thinking of re-doing my programming so that ch-8 is set to something that rarely gets used so I can switch to it when wanting to switch zones/access the menu. Hopefully there is a fix for this with the phase-2 update.
 
troymail

troymail

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Steve2003 said:
I have the same issues as well, I'm thinking of re-doing my programming so that ch-8 is set to something that rarely gets used so I can switch to it when wanting to switch zones/access the menu. Hopefully there is a fix for this with the phase-2 update.
Click to expand...
Thought that would help me also but it didn't... it was as if the radio (specifically display) was way, way behind on updates and nothing I did solved it. I wanted the radio to essentially "dump" anything it had queued/pending and start fresh (i.e. power cycle) but that doesn't seem to work like you'd expect.

I'm somewhat curious what it would have done on a battery pull. I'll be taking a screwdriver with me from now on and the next time it happens, I'll try that.
 
ma8007

ma8007

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tumegpc said:
It would be nice to know what Unication is working on . Haven't heard much from them lately .
Click to expand...
Emailed David from Unication support and was told software update should happen within the next 60 days(I know you've heard it before)Also stated talkgroup hold is on the list to be added ..Let all cross our fingers
 
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