GRE PSR-500 Firmware Release Thread

[LEH]

Well I uploaded the CPU 0.2 and DSP 0.3 last night. Now to see how well they do today.

Maybe it will help the VA STARS issues I (and others) still seem to be having.

 

[SCPD]

Analog 800 MHz interference, especially in close proximity (within a mile or so?) to what appears to be CDMA cell sites, gives a lot of grief to any 800 MHz transmission I'm trying to receive, whether an 800 MHz Motorola Type II Smartnet analog system or a simple 800 MHz repeater. This problem occurs in my static environment, as well as mobile--see a tower coming and the reception goes down the tubes. Activating the attenuator may in some limited circumstances help, but in most cases the noise, and in some cases chuffing, is still there. The attenuator may indeed even loose the desired signal. My thoughts have been that this is a front-end problem in the receiver, but had hopes that the DSP might tighten this up, and dubiously, the CPU upgrades might have helped. Alas, not.

I do note that the CPU 0.2 upgrade reduced the chuffing significantly, but not completely. DSP 0.3 had no effect, either with or without the other. Interference still is there. I have NO such problems with the BCD396T. Attached is a zip of a short wav file that causes me headaches, just for your consideration.

That does sound like cell telephone TDMA type interference. If it is any solace I gather the professional radios also have problems or there would not be the *huge* NEXTEL rebanding effort going on. I think the PSR-500 is more sensitive than the 396, and that is probably why you hear it more on the PSR-500.

 

[KC1UA]

That does sound like cell telephone TDMA type interference. If it is any solace I gather the professional radios also have problems or there would not be the *huge* NEXTEL rebanding effort going on. I think the PSR-500 is more sensitive than the 396, and that is probably why you hear it more on the PSR-500.

This is the most sensitive scanner at 800 MHz I've used to date, and this seems to be the trade-off, unfortunately, which would stand to reason. I've noticed that this issue also causes the "talkgroup but no audio" to occur when trying to listen to a weaker CC using multi-site STAT. I wonder if that was causing some confusion with regards to that issue.

I also noticed somewhat of a reduction in this after applying the first firmware updates. All of the P25 I listen to here is VHF-HI conventional. It sounds absolutely superb.

If rebanding actually ever occurs , hopefully the interference issue will diminish. As earlier stated, even the best radios are interfered with at some level by it, and thus the project. All of the MOT radios I manage at work (MCS2000, XTL2500, XTS2500, XTS5000, MTS2000) are bothered in some way, so it's no small wonder a consumer grade receiver, especially a sensitive one like the PSR500, is. I'm not knowledgable enough on the subject, but I doubt that firmware upgrades could eliminate such a problem. I would think that would be a hardware issue.

 

[SCPD]

My earlier problem with the LED on and no audio is partially related to the LED. Nothing wrong with the LED it just draws your attention to the radio and you wait for audio. The 796 and 2096 were stopping on the same TG's with no audio.

So to quote others her Awesome Radio GRE. It gets better each day.
Les

I am glad you noted the above which I think may help some. With the alert modes on the PSR-500 we now know the moment trunking occurs regardless if we are catching the end of a call, or a quick ker-chunk (no audio) of a user's microphone. In these cases it seems as if the radio is not decoding the voice. I have found the same that if I watch the Pro-96, that I can see it is indeed trunking to the voice-channel too, it is just not beeping at me so I do not notice

 

[troymail]

This is the most sensitive scanner at 800 MHz I've used to date, and this seems to be the trade-off, unfortunately, which would stand to reason. I've noticed that this issue also causes the "talkgroup but no audio" to occur when trying to listen to a weaker CC using multi-site STAT. I wonder if that was causing some confusion with regards to that issue.

I see this alot --- the control scanner does a good job getting the CC data well enough to switch to a frequency/talkgroup of interest but the voice itself fails to decode.

This was a huge problem on a couple of systems when I first got the PSR500 using the factory CPU/DSP. The updates that came out this week greatly improved this problem (and I mean greatly). I could not hear these systems at all until this update came out. However, there are still occasions where I see a voice channel/talkgroup displayed and hear no voice.

I think the problem is - as others have cited in this thread (or another) is that there either isn't any voice or the voice frequency is too weak to decode. This problem seems worse sometimes because we're watching so closely and the LED might be configured to light up the room (so you don't have to be watching when the time comes). Interesting, as was mentioned, other radios sitting side-by-side with the PSR500 during these times alot sometimes "stop" but don't get any voice either. Unfortunately, everyone doesn't necessarily have a 2nd radio to do these types of comparisons.

It would be nice if there was some way for the radio to display some type of message to help diagnose the problem (like some more detailed signal strength or some decode info) that could be passed along.

As for those with systems that just do not decode, keep the faith and post as much info as you can so GRE can extract that nugget of information needed to make a firmware change that will solve your problem (you know they're listening). Be specific as possible!

 

[SCPD]

CPU 0.2 and DSP 1.0 = good

CPU 0.2 and DSP 0.3 - Decode rates on my weak site are not that good (30-72) compared with DSP 1.0 (86-96). I am missing transmissions on the 500 that the 996 is receiving (same as DSP 0.2). Switched back to DSP 1.0 and now getting all transmissions and decode rate back up to 85-95.

DSP 1.0 is still the best for me. DSP 0.3 doesn't seem much better than 0.2.

CPU 0.2 looks good

Thanks for trying, GRE.

Dave

It seems that the only thing the DSP change does is to alter how it receives the Proj-25 systems, so if you stay at DSP F1.0, you are not loosing any of the good CPU updates. I think this is great that GRE is giving us the choice to use what is better for each of us. Sounds like a win-win.

 

[SCPD]

If rebanding actually ever occurs , hopefully the interference issue will diminish. As earlier stated, even the best radios are interfered with at some level by it, and thus the project. All of the MOT radios I manage at work (MCS2000, XTL2500, XTS2500, XTS5000, MTS2000) are bothered in some way, so it's no small wonder a consumer grade receiver, especially a sensitive one like the PSR500, is. I'm not knowledgable enough on the subject, but I doubt that firmware upgrades could eliminate such a problem. I would think that would be a hardware issue.

Scott, Exactly I have a friend who has access to the XTS3000 and XTS5000 and finds the same thing. I know the firmware can not change the receiver's front end (well yet, hehe at leat not at consumer prices) but I think GRE did make a tweak in the first CPU upgrade with the squelch timing to help the radio latch onto a control channel in a high RF environment.

 

[Landman]

For those of you having trouble with 800 MHz interference from cell sites I have found a couple of ways to help. First of all there is the good ole global attenuation which many have tried with success while driving through high RF areas. I found that attenuation works well as long as the tower site you are monitoring is not too far away. Case in point: I have driven through Baton Rouge a few times on Interstate 110 which is an elevated freeway near downtown with at lease four cell sites that are within a few hundred feet of the roadway. The towers I was monitoring are also in the downtown area. I just set global attenuation and all was well. I had only very small gaps in coverage as I passed right next to the cell sites.

I did find one more method that is effective when the site you are monitoring is further away, you drive near cell sites, and attenuation would make the signal too weak. What I do is hold the radio in a horizontal position on the car seat next to my thigh (below window level to use the metal body of the car to help block RF) and grasp the top half of the antenna with a few fingers. Holding it this way provides enough attenuation to block out most of the cell site interference without attenuating it too much and blocking out the control channel as well.

I have driven over half of the state of LA with this scanner using only an Antennex 3 1/2 inch long 1/4 wave 800 mhz antenna. This scanner has outperformed everything else I have owned in 23 years in this hobby. I like the hot receiver. It just needs to be attenuated at times to work in a high RF environment. When the scanner's own attenuator is too much then try method number two. It has worked well for me.

 

[kikito]

Well, so far, the latest updates (DSP 0.3/CPU 0.2) are the best and most *solid* performers for my area and on our P25 VHF Trunked system.

I like all the improvements and fixes so far and especially being able to see the CC in use during scanning.

I've been switching firmwares and trying all combos of DSP and CPU and just when I was ready to post that the original firmware seems to work best for me, the new updates came out. It hasn't been easy deciding what version performs better but I feel pretty good about the latest releases.

I still have the weird issue with STAT mode. It seems that the scanner just doesn't like certain frequencies in the first and second slot of the list but shuffling around the frequencies or leaving slot 01 empty or with an alternate CC that's not currently used seems to be a good workaround and it works flawlessly otherwise.

Thanks GRE and everyone involved and helping make this scanner so great!

 

[kikito]

In the past couple of hours after my last post, I was getting the symptoms of one of the problems some of us were having originally. The jumping between VC and CC or just no audio while a TG was showing. Well, lo and behold, I just heard a dispatcher telling some of the units that she couldn't copy them (again) and that she could see they were transmitting and the unit or radio ID was showing but no audio, which is exactly what I was seeing.

Just goes to show that sometimes, like most of us know, the system and units themselves have problems too. And these are $5K+ radios! So let's not discard or forget that sometimes there are imperfections and factors all around and not just problems with our scanners.

P.S. They have been doing periodic checks with several of the units in the past half hour...

 

[Landman]

I concur 100%. I had exactly the same thing happen. When a digital transmission has audio but it is garbled it almost always seems to be a mobile unit and not the dispatcher. The dispatcher comes back with, "Unit with Traffic 10-9, you were unreadable." This tells me that it was the mobile unit's radio not hitting the tower and not my scanner messing up.

What is weird is that at the beginning of some transmissions it flips back and forth between talkgroup and VC frequency on the display for a couple of seconds and then unmutes and I hear audio. The weird part is that when it does unmute I hear the entire transmission. Nothing was cut off at the beginning during the display's strange behavior. This only happens occasionally. Because I am hearing all of the transmission it makes me wonder if the users radio took a couple of seconds before giving him a talk permit tone after he pressed the PTT. Also because I am hearing all of the transmission and the transmission is clear with little or no distortion this display flipping behavior is probably an issue with the system and not with the scanner.

 

[Statevillian]

Chicago Metro Area Report........

I have DSP 0.3 and CPU 0.2 loaded. Weekend testing on various systems. P25 promising! I set up the Starcom21 Statewide system and I programmed it like this.... 4 tower sites as 4 tsys and then one tsys with all the CCs of the 4 tsys in a separate scanlist with multisite 'roam' on and overall very much improved. I have had the same TGs with no audio but ID and lights flashing as I and others have been reporting. I am beginning o believe it IS picking up those very weak signals and it is hanging up the scanner. I am seeing this while the 396 didn't even decode the TG ID. They had techs on a couple of their own Motorola tech IDs today. Maybe they are addressing the dreaded simulcast site drop off issue, as well. Fewer dropouts with this 0.2 and 0.3 combo. Maybe a coincidence...maybe both the firmware and Motorola tweeking?... But there is a lot of improvement her in Chicago area. With latest CPU and DSP it has not impacted any other tsys or conventional objects that I can see. Naturally, some systems seem more finicky than others and you need to play with settings and Global ATT and location of the scanner and type of antenna used are big benefits or detractors. BIG THANKS to everyone here sharing the knowledge and for GRE getting out some effective firmware quickly. I am really getting into this radio. I know I don't have a handle on many expert settings yet. But I am learning and trying. I am not sure if anyone from Chicago Area had the opportunity to be a beta tester.......If one or more did, I would be asking what in the world they were listening to, what scanner they were using as a comparative, and what they were reporting back to GRE?... It's been one heck of a time figuring this thing out. Many of the solutions came from side by side comparisons with my Uniden 396 and then from those of you here on this thread and with GRE releasing updates! The 396 and 500 are awesome...each in their own way. The 500 is looking more and more like it was advertised to be.

 

[HBdigital1]

Sorry if this has been rehashed before, and I don't consider myself computer illiterate; but... could someone point me or inform me how to upgrade the DSP/CPU firmwares? I downloaded both from the GRE website, and also have installed the driver for the cable, and dowloaded the firmware download instructions, but beyond that, I cannot see where to go next. Did I miss something in the CD Manual, or is there a site within GRE which tells me what to do next? My unit does NOT load VS-6 right, but loads VS-2 instead, hopefully this might help. thanks!!

 

[DaveIN]

Did you run the updater's? It tells you step by step what to do. This wouldn't have anything to do with the V-scanner files, you can load them as described in previous post with PSREdit or Win500.

 

[Russell]

I am liking DSP U.03 in the Austin area. Much more stable even in weak signal areas. Definitely on the right track. I upped the Noise Threshold from 20 to 50 and dropped the HD2 Qualify Time (Digital) from 75 to 50. This combination seems to help in the "bad" signal area. I don't lose the audio near as much and the bouncing from DG to VC is markedly reduced (not eliminated). I am so very impressed with this radio.

Russell

 

[vanillajedi]

I am liking DSP U.03 in the Austin area. Much more stable even in weak signal areas. Definitely on the right track. I upped the Noise Threshold from 20 to 50 and dropped the HD2 Qualify Time (Digital) from 75 to 50. This combination seems to help in the "bad" signal area. I don't lose the audio near as much and the bouncing from DG to VC is markedly reduced (not eliminated). I am so very impressed with this radio.

Russell

I know this is slightly off-topic. But any other settings you wish to share for the PSR-500 and Austin? I just picked up a PSR-500 and listen to Austin and Williamson County all the time. At home it works well but I bring up to work all the time and 500+ computers in my lab cause quite a interference scenario...

 

[fmon]

I know this is slightly off-topic. But any other settings you wish to share for the PSR-500 and Austin? I just picked up a PSR-500 and listen to Austin and Williamson County all the time. At home it works well but I bring up to work all the time and 500+ computers in my lab cause quite a interference scenario...

Attinuate works for me around PC's. Set GLOB Att, then press the Att button. Should see GA on top line.

 

[vanillajedi]

Attinuate works for me around PC's. Set GLOB Att, then press the Att button. Should see GA on top line.

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

 

[Russell]

I know this is slightly off-topic. But any other settings you wish to share for the PSR-500 and Austin? I just picked up a PSR-500 and listen to Austin and Williamson County all the time. At home it works well but I bring up to work all the time and 500+ computers in my lab cause quite a interference scenario...

Very frustrating isn't it? I actually have the same problem the other way around. At work it works great, at home (the "bad" signal place), the damn thing works great sometimes and others it won't lock on at all - there's no ryhme or reason to it. Beyond the above changes I haven't been able to improve it much at all. Attenuate on/off makes no difference and internal or external antenna makes no difference. The CPU and DSP upgrades have done more to improve signal/voice quality than anything else. I'm hoping GRE will continue their good work towards resolving these problems.

Russell

 

[kikito]

I know this is slightly off-topic. But any other settings you wish to share for the PSR-500 and Austin? I just picked up a PSR-500 and listen to Austin and Williamson County all the time. At home it works well but I bring up to work all the time and 500+ computers in my lab cause quite a interference scenario...

At home, if I put ANY radio less than 2 feet from any computer, it'll cause interference and/or de-sensing. So I could imagine what 500 computers (it's that coincidence "500") could do to a radio...

It's also ironic that we have to turn off our cellphones because a 30+ million airplane might go down from it.....