Could there be some interference on a frequency adjacent to the control channels involved in the boot loops that's messing up the data stream? An SDR would reveal that if there was.
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G4 Constantly Boot-Loops on Certain Site
- Thread starter Floridarailfanning
- Start date
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- Tags
- problem rebooting restarting
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It shouldn’t, anyways I’m going through StLouis in an hour, creating a new codeplug from scratch to see what happens
Ok Slater is fine, it will reboot on the MOSWIN St Louis Simulcast site once in a while, I didn’t get logs though
although it didn’t constantly reboot this time
My SLATER is solid, never an issue. Saturday MOSWIN was fine most of the day with only a couple reboots. Sunday it went back to rebooting more often. What I notice happening first is the signal meter goes from full bars (normal) to no bars and back again. The red light will come on the volume bar will come up without touching the knob, and then it will go into reboot.
yeah it must be something sent from the system that the unication doesn't like for some reason
Yep, I suspect the same thing as the possible cause of the G4 reboots.
If anyone has a scanner model that Pro96com supports, you may be able to spot a common string of bad data that is seen at each reboot or maybe an actual op-code packet that causes the reboot.
With the amount of data flowing from the control channel though, seeing a common string of data with Pro96com that is seen at G4 reboots may be near impossible unless you need a good excuse to do something to pass the time.
You probably could not fix anything from any findings but just maybe Unication would use your findings to replicate the problem and then fix it on the G4 models.
Who knows if it's just some random data strings or an odd opcode that the G4 does not understand that causes it to reboot. It may be neither.
For someone looking for something to do and wants to waste time, watching the control channel data could be a fun thing to do and hope you can spot something common seen just before the reboot.
I think it would be more like watching paint dry myself but it would be neat if somebody did find something and actually got Unication to look at it and fix the problem.
probably need to run a diagnostic log on the G4,
Yes, that's a great idea. I forget they have diagnostics built in to the device.
I messed with the diag info on my G5 before but that was it. I never really needed it for anything making it easy to forget it's there. I don't even remember what info it reports.
Thanks for the reminder that the G series have a diagnostic feature available.
I was driving in the north side of downtown STL today, MOSWIN on St Louis North Simulcast was almost impossible to monitor. Reboots, screen come on with no radio traffic. Radio traffic come on 1/2 way through a broadcast. then reboot again. Good thing I don't have to rely on my G4 to respond to anything.
That's amazing that the G5 handles that site 201 so darn well yet the G4 has these odd reboot issues.
I would like to think the firmware for both models is made from the same source so that may leave some odd hardware difference as the culprit.
I don't know anyone in this area that uses or needs a Unication for official use on the Slater or Moswin system so I always wonder if there are any users with the need.
Most fire heard on Slater still uses VHF analog channels for tone-outs so those users still use one of the Minitor version of pagers. The use of analog channels for tone-outs seems to be true not only in St Louis county areas but the Jeffco and St Charles areas as well. I've found the analog tone-out frequencies used for most of the fire agencies in those three counties. I've always wanted to log the tones for each and match them up with the house or apparatus being dispatched by tone-out but it looked like a bigger job than I wanted to tackle so I gave up on that idea.
I'm not sure how they page out or dispatch city fire and ems. I know they don't broadcast a call to each house and can selectively select which house(s) get a call but I never knew how they do that since going to the UHF analog trunked system many years ago now.
I do recall that city fire was very hesitant to move to a trunked radio system even when it was an analog system back in the day. They finally gave in and of course many changes have occurred to the radio system since then such as the move to a true digital system using P25.
Hopefully Unication will figure this one out.
N6ML
Member
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 1,277
I don't know for sure, but I've always assumed that the G4 and G5 use the same "main board" inside, and the difference between them is that the G5 has a secondary band radio module (and internal antenna) inside, where the G4 does not. I know that there have been different generations of the hardware (different CPUs, etc). If we have a G5 that works and a G4 that doesn't (the same firmware and programming), I think it's more likely that they're from different generations, rather than a G4 vs G5 difference. I would want to be sure that the programming is identical (preferably clone the profile) first, though.
I agree fully with the different hardware generations theory.
I've been inside my G5 several times before but I never paid attention and looked to see if it had a separate rf board for the secondary band or not. I do remember the VHF antenna inside my G5 though. It looked exactly like the internal antennas that Motorola used inside the Gold and Elite series of their alphanumeric pagers. Even the 930 MHz version of the Elite model pager had the same antenna as a VHF Gold that I'd opened up years ago. From what I remember, the antennas were all the same physical size no matter what frequency band the pager operated on.
I guess they didn't worry much about the antennas having a good match depending on the frequency. They may have used different components at the antenna input to give the antenna wire a better match for the pagers frequency.
If I ever open my G5 again, I'll plan on looking for an actual separate board for the secondary band.
If the G5 does have a separate RF board for the secondary band, I bet the connectors needed to connect it to the main board exist in the G4 models or at least the solder points for the boards connector(s).
That would make me wonder how hard it would be to turn a G4 into a G5. I'd imagine getting the model changed in the firmware would probably be the hardest thing to change providing the connectors are there and you could get just a secondary board as a part.
I don't think Unication is very keen on selling parts though. Maybe to dealers if the allow them to service the pagers but from what I've read here. it seems the dealers just send defective models back to Unication and don't physically work on repairing them.
If it is a hardware difference, the chances of fixing this problem via firmware may be very low to none depending on what hardware changes were made. As many of us know, not everything can be fixed with a firmware change!
I know 2 Illinois Volunteer departments that use unication G5 for calls. the city of st louis fire chief uses an iphone app for calls.
InspireWaukesha87
Member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2019
- Messages
- 93
My Unication G4 does the same thing on 700mhz P25 phase 2 system here in Wisconsin, so I tried messing with the code plug in PPS and the G4 still will reboot itself, it’s just that one system that causes it to reboot but everything else works great
I used to have that problem with a heavily loaded Unication. I think V1.31-11262020 finally fixed it. I'm not sure if this particular version was ever officially released. I haven't been keeping up with things like before, but I don't have the reboot-loop anymore.
Ben
Ben
I have a new G4D and had all kinds of out of range reboots in my amp with a fixed antenna and fixed location. I did revert back to older firmware and solved my problem. I never had that with my G4B the older models. It has been two weeks now without any reboots. When I used my older G4B in the amp I never had this problem, I hope this helps.
mdsxfire
EDBM
I have 3 G5’s that all have about 10-12 systems programmed in them,2 are 700/vhf and are programmed identically the other is 700/uhf they all have issues with only one (Somerset county,nj 700) system they freeze on TG and reboot constantly. It does seem like a data stream issue because the pager seems to lag very bad when showing the TG alias then going back to the main screen then once on the main screen the whole displays refreshes very slow. All 3 are running 1.31, and have no issues on other 700 systems I have programmed from New Jersey to Florida
No issues at all on the Somerset 500 system.
@Unication_Jordan
No issues at all on the Somerset 500 system.
@Unication_Jordan
BigLebowski
Member
I have the same reboot issues with my G4 on the Cocke County TACN sites only. I have half the east coast programmed in and only TACN gives me issues.
i got my first reboot on TACN near Cookeville the other day, its not every system, I can run MARCS forever and my home systems, its just something on certain systems it doesn't like
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