Kenwood NX300k Help

[maurycofire]

My department is in the process of switching our "beloved" Motorola HT1250's out for some new-to-us Kenwood NX300 and NX800 radios. These radio were purchased from a local police department and we are doing all the programming in house. So far, we haven't had many issues, but I am getting a lot of requests for a "pager" channel.

Our HT1250 radios had a channel that would allow the tone and initial dispatch to come through, but all other radio traffic was blocked and you could not talk. Basically, it was a pager. I have had a lot of my guys ask if we can have that same feature on our new Kenwood portables? I guess they don't want to hear all the radio traffic at 2 AM. Cant blame them there.

Anyone know if this is possible on the Kenwood radios or was that a Motorola only feature?

Thanks in advance.

 

[N5XPM]

My department is in the process of switching our "beloved" Motorola HT1250's out for some new-to-us Kenwood NX300 and NX800 radios. These radio were purchased from a local police department and we are doing all the programming in house. So far, we haven't had many issues, but I am getting a lot of requests for a "pager" channel.

Our HT1250 radios had a channel that would allow the tone and initial dispatch to come through, but all other radio traffic was blocked and you could not talk. Basically, it was a pager. I have had a lot of my guys ask if we can have that same feature on our new Kenwood portables? I guess they don't want to hear all the radio traffic at 2 AM. Cant blame them there.

Anyone know if this is possible on the Kenwood radios or was that a Motorola only feature?

Thanks in advance.

A selective call two-tone signaling can be programmed into these Kenwood.
I don't have the software, but look for "optional signaling" and use "AND" instead of "OR".
You will need to know the correct 2 tones to program this function.
Don't program a transmit frequency.

 

[mmckenna]

Set up a channel for the frequency/tone/etc.
Go to the 2-tone window and select the Decode (2-tone 1 or 2 through 4) tab.
Set up your call format (A-B) and set your tones in the A Tone (Hz) and B Tone (Hz) field).
Set up your Alert Tone (1 through 8), you can make your own tones under the Special Alert Tone window.
set your Auto Reset features and timer. (options are Off or anywhere from 1 to 300 seconds)

Go into Zone edit (bottom of the screen)
Select your Audio Control (Analog) to be QT/DQT and Optional Signaling
Go into Channel Edit from the Zone Info screen (it's the button down at the bottom)
Under "Optional Signaling (Analog), select your "2-tone 1" (or 2, 3, or 4 which ever one you set up) that you preconfigured above.

 

[maurycofire]

You are awesome! Thank you!!

 

[Ofdpt23]

I am running into a similar delema with my NX3200 series VHF radio from Kenwood. I am trying to set up the 2-tone alert system, but at the same time, I want it to be open air! I have two channels with two different A/B tones (one for fire and one for ems)...If I follow the instructions from mmckenna, but under the audio control , instead of "QT/DQT AND Optional Signaling" should I go with "QT/DQT OR optional signaling"??

If the "AND" makes it muted till toned, the "OR" should leave it open air, yes? Or am I totally misunderstanding this all? This is a little more complicated than my old 2180 Kenwood.

Thank you all for any help you may provide.

 

[mmckenna]

I am running into a similar delema with my NX3200 series VHF radio from Kenwood. I am trying to set up the 2-tone alert system, but at the same time, I want it to be open air! I have two channels with two different A/B tones (one for fire and one for ems)...If I follow the instructions from mmckenna, but under the audio control , instead of "QT/DQT AND Optional Signaling" should I go with "QT/DQT OR optional signaling"??

If the "AND" makes it muted till toned, the "OR" should leave it open air, yes? Or am I totally misunderstanding this all? This is a little more complicated than my old 2180 Kenwood.

Thank you all for any help you may provide.

That should do what you want.
OR means that the radio will pass traffic if the QT/DQT is correct -OR- the Two Tone is detected. I had a similar set up on a Motorola CDM-1250 used for fire station alerting. There was also a channel set up for -AND- signaling that they'd set it to at night so they'd only hear tone outs directed at them.

 

[maurycofire]

I never was able to get mine to work. I plan to work on it some more this week. I was using the 2 tones that were programmed into the radio from our dealer, but I don’t know if they are correct nor do I know how to find out. The guys who built the system are no longer around. I assume the dealer would know best, but as I mentioned they had programmed in the feature and it never did work. I’m starting to think our system may be too old for this to work? I’ll try and keep you updated if I get it working.

 

[mmckenna]

Best bet would be to read a known/working radio/pager and see what it's programmed for.

 

[Ofdpt23]

Thank you for all your help. By using the tips from this forum, I have managed to get my radio to do what I wanted to do. I will post for future reference for others what I ended up doing.

Under System Properties; systerms; Analog Tab: RX Options; audio control, set "QT/DQT or Optional Signaling"
Under same as before: MDC-1200; Call alert type: Set "Call Alert with Voice"


And then of course, set your 2-tone section to the tone frequencies you want alerted. I hope this helps.

Next thing that I am working on is trying to get the long LED light bar to light up/flash when activity is going on pre-set channels. I just watched a video showing this on youtube, however I have yet to figure out how to do this in the programming software. If anybody has suggestions, I would be most appreciative. Thank you again everyone for your help

 

[Ofdpt23]

Update: I have figured out how to do what I had mentioned in my previous post so I thought I would write about what I was talking about.

For those who do not know, on the NX-3200 series radio, which is the one that I am working with currently, there is a large lightbar that is on the top of the radio by the channel select knob. When switching through your channels, you can set up your radio to display a color on that bar in according to the channel you are on. For example, all my channels for my fire dept. display red, EMS channels blue, mutual aid as yellow, and VTAC state wide mutual aid as green.

For me to get this to finally function, there is a setting under Global Options, Basics, Audio/Indicator tab. Once you are in that section, on the right side, there is a section labled "Light Bar"...Under this, put a check mark on "Channel select". This will enable you to select different colors under the "Personalities" section under ID/Status List.

Theory, I want to say if "Speaker Unmute" is also checked, then that will make this lightbar light up when there is radio traffic on the different channels. I will experiment with that and report back. I hope this helps anybody else who is trying to program one of these radios.