Icom IC-R8600 & RT Systems...

[danbrew60177]

Hello everyone, I recently purchased an Icom 8600 and am really enjoying it. I've used RT Systems for other radios in the past and am, or at least I thought I was, fairly well versed in how their software works. I've run into a challenge and wanted to throw it out to the community to see if any of you can offer suggestions.

I've populated an RT radio file with some very basic info from RadioReference for my local area and am trying to send it to the radio. I've got the latest firmware on the receiver (1.34) and have updated the USB drivers on the dedicated PC I'm using to interface with the receiver. I *can* suck down the data from the radio into an RT file. Further, I can push back up the exact same file. The receiver works as I expect it to.

The problem occurs when I try to push a new radio file up to the receiver. I tried two methods - I am a premium subscriber on RR and had the download tool create an 8600 specific file. When I try to push that to the radio using RT Systems, it goes through its "CLONE IN" process and then either hangs at the end or fails and reports "ERROR". Ok, I sucked over the data from the radio and copied and pasted the data from my RR files to put into the file from the radio. Then I push that up to the radio. No joy. In an attempt to trouble-shoot, I manually added a few rows/records in the file that I pulled from the radio and pushed them to the radio - works fine.

So... it's something to do with my larger files, I think. The "larger" files have about 200, 250 rows. I'm using five groups and have applied unique names to each group. The group names are less than 10 digits. I've also perused through the file and can find nothing really unexpected in the file - errors in the mode, frequency out of band, etc.

I don't know that this will be my "final" file, but I'm just trying to learn how to interface with the radio from an RT Systems perspective. I've attached the RT Systems file to this post as a zipped file. Would greatly appreciated any pointers. I supposed I could just create new files and add ten rows at a time to the data until I find the offending record - I'm assuming that something in the datafile is not grooving to the radio.

Many thanks,
dan

 

[theoldcop]

I think there is a choice under the Communication tab and High-Speed must be selected.
Might be related to your issue.

 

[danbrew60177]

Thanks, I should have mentioned in my note above it is set to High-Speed. Weird that it allows me to push up a smaller file, but not this one. And my file isn't huge or anything. I suspect one of the rows have some broken parameters. Thought I would turn to the group to see if anyone would say, "Yeah, I had that same problem - took me 40 hours to figure it out..." lol.

 

[danbrew60177]

Well, figured it out. I had a few splinter channels included in the lineup for a local system. Still getting my arms around splinter channels and how to work around 'em. Did find a good reference here on RadioReference reviewing the issue. I'd like to listen in on the Palmetto 800 P25, so gotta hit the books a bit to figure it out.

 

[KC1UA]

I had the same issue trying to upload a file that only had 5 conventional frequencies in it, as a test run. I added frequencies to the file that was created when I did an initial download from the receiver. When I sent it back clone-in hung and I finally shut down the receiver and restarted it. Much to my dismay all of the changes I had made via the menu were reset.

I'm not happy with this software right out of the gate. It is extremely sluggish in response and the above is an obvious concern. I have tried it on two different Windows 10 PC's and noticed the same sluggishness, but only uploaded to the receiver with one.

 

[danbrew60177]

Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me, yet there should be some data entry logic - even when you are copying pasting data into the file. If the entry (freq, mode, whatever) is out of bounds, it shouldn’t attempt to send it to the radio. This problem would be even more egregious I’d you have multiple radios and multiple editions of the RT software. I could easily see sending dstar data to a non-dstar radio. Then what? You won’t notice until you try to send it to a radio.

 

[dmaria]

I don't have an 8600, but I do have the RTSystems software for the R30. It is the only software from RT that I have not been enthusiastic about. It takes 20 seconds to open on my iMac and 40 seconds on my MacBook Pro. The R30 software is also very slow to send the file to the radio. I suspect that the software sends all the channels, even if they are empty and that causes the slow transmission. Whatever database format they use for storing the files seems to be very outdated as 4000 channels should not take 20 - 40 seconds to load on a modern computer.

I own 14 different pieces of software from RT for the various radios I have. The R30 software is the only one I would not give stellar reviews to. I contacted the company about this issue and I was told that it was because of all the channels, and they didn't seem interested in doing anything about it.

I would imagine that the 8600 software is built upon the same software.

 

[KC1UA]

The slowness is annoying, but the fact that when it hung after an attempted upload and on reboot wiped all of the radio settings is far more disturbing. Maybe it was just "one of those things" but it was not a good start. The CS-R8600 is "cost prohibitive" given the already steep price of the receiver. I had hoped that Gommert would do an R8600 version of his existing R30 software. Maybe someday.

 

[N1FKO]

For what it's worth, my experience with the RT Systems software this weekend was the same as previously reported by others: after uploading the the radio all my settings were reset. It's also glacially slow.

Other complaints which I have reported to the author: when importing from RadioReference, modes like AM, FM are properly imported but others like P25 or DSTAR end up as FM. FM and FMN both become FM but there's no reflection of the difference in filter settings so the information is lost.

My understanding is that while overpriced, the Icom software actually works as intended.

 

[KC1UA]

I contacted tech support at RT and explained the reset and slow issues to them. As mentioned above they suggested "high speed" be used when making the file transfer. I was using normal speed. They also suggested the usual stuff, make sure the software is up to date etc.

As to the sluggish behavior they attributed it to the database structure.

I'll try it again and see how it goes before I make a decision to plunk down yet another $100 for the "native" software.

 

[wb4sqi]

I contacted tech support at RT and explained the reset and slow issues to them. As mentioned above they suggested "high speed" be used when making the file transfer. I was using normal speed. They also suggested the usual stuff, make sure the software is up to date etc.

As to the sluggish behavior they attributed it to the database structure.

I'll try it again and see how it goes before I make a decision to plunk down yet another $100 for the "native" software.

Scott,

Any improvement to the RT Systems software since November?

 

[AOR-262]

I use the WSC-R8600 software regular and over the past year I have emailed their tech. support a few times with video recording evidence of the issues I've experienced. They've been really good in acknowledging my email within a day or so and every issue I've had within a week at the most they've released an update to the software fixing the problem. Currently using release/version 5.00.16. Works perfect for me.