Kenwood NXR-810 Programming

[100pcttn]

Good morning, first time poster here! So please forgive if I'm in the wrong forum!

Need a little help here that I'm not getting from my dealer. I'm in a manufacturing environment where we have been running analog two-way Kenwood radios, the new NXR-810 repeater, and a Zetron 48 repeater manager for a phone patch. Dealer sold me on the new NXR stating that I could run both the older analog only radios, as well as the new NX-320's I bought. So far they haven't been much help in programming this for me to run like that. I've figured out how to program the repeater with a digital channel, but in repeater mode it won't allow scanning so I could run the repeater on that channel as well as the analog. Ready to forgo the phone patch nowdays, so am I missing something, but couldn't I remove the Zetron from the mix, and set the new digital channel in duplex mode where it could be scanned? Or does that eliminate me from using different tones (codes) for the different groups as I currently do so that no one hears unnecessary traffic? As you can see...I know "just enough" about this to be "dangerous"!

Thanks for any help or assistance you may give me.

 

[mmckenna]

Sounds like you want to use it as a 'mixed mode' channel. This would allow the analog to analog radios to work, and allow the repeater to pass NXDN to NXDN traffic.

Not sure if that is what you really want. While it will allow both types of radios to access the repeater, it still keeps analog radios separate from the NXDN radios.
You can put the 320's in mixed mode, also, and that will allow them to talk with analog radios, but the analog radios will not be able to decipher the NXDN traffic.

 

[100pcttn]

So I need to make the repeater channel a "mixed mode" in my programming, and that will give me both worlds working together? Boy I certainly hope so, as we currently have a collection of about 150 radios running loose around here, 98% of which are the old analog type. I'll play with my programming some more on the repeater and see what I get! Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.

 

[mmckenna]

Yeah, give that a try. I'm running a Kenwood NexEdge system in full digital mode, using the NXR-900s, so my stuff is a bit different. I can certainly pull up the documentation if that doesn't work for you.

 

[100pcttn]

Ok, so I just tried it....and my problem is this: I need to be able to transmit digital to the radios that can receive digital, and analog for the older ones. I'm wanting to start utilize digital wherever possible in an attempt to gain back some of the coverage area I lost under narrowbanding. I don't have a good grasp of the differences in duplex mode and repeater mode. Maybe a quick summary in simple man terms would help me?!! If the NXR-810 would allow scanning on a repeater channel....my problems would be solved! I'd have channel 1 do what it's doing now for the analog units, then create a channel 2 for the digital units, and set the 320's to scan the frequency in both modes.

Any ideas to help out a poor lost soul here?

Thanks.

 

[KD8BIW]

In order to do what you want, you would need to program 2 separate channels. Both of them would be set up for mixed mode, however, Channel 1 would default to analog, channel 2 would default to digital. The radios have the ability to tell what mode they are receiving, and respond in the same mode. So if 98% of your radios are still analog, channel 1 would be set to default to analog, but would still be able to receive digital. When you want to talk digital, switch to channel 2. This forces the radio to transmit digital, but it is still mixed mode so if you forget to switch back to channel 1 and an analog radio calls you, you'll still hear it.

As for the repeater, just set it up in mixed mode and that is all you need to do with that, it will take care of itself. The phone patch would not work in digital, as the DTMF in digital is encoded in one radio, sent OTA in NXDN digital data to the next radio, and re-generated inside the receiving radio. There are no actual tones sent over the air.

Hope that helps ya!

 

[100pcttn]

Thanks for the info...but that last paragraph is where I get lost! On my programming options for the NXR-810, I can select "mixed" mode for channel type, but I still have to select either "ANALOG" or "NXDN" for transmit type, and that's where I seem to hit the brick wall on solving this issue!! Either selection will lock me in on the signal type coming out of the repeater.

Thanks for any info you can throw at me!!

 

[ramal121]

Transmit type is for either the local mic or from the external access through the rear connector. Setting the channel as mixed mode and repeat is all you have to do there, whatever mode comes into the receiver will be repeated as such. Using the help function of the program software explains this quite plainly.

As for your request from the other thread:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2991846/NXR-710_810_FPRG_K_Ver150_EN_20120215.pdf
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2991846/NXR-710_810_FUNC_K_Ver150_EN_20120215 (1).pdf

 

[100pcttn]

Thanks ramal121. I'm browsing quite heavily thru those help screens and am getting some good info! But when I tried it this morning with a couple different radios, I noticed that using an existing analog radio to hit the repeater in mixed mode, still caused the repeater to transmit that signal back out as a digital signal, confirmed by me opening the squelch and listening to the sound of a digital transmission.

I figure a few more posts of my dumb questions and I'm going to get kicked off this forum! But I'm finding more help here than I've ever got from the dealer and most certainly from the manufacturer! Just trying to utilize the equipment we have purchased here as best as we can, and hopefully gain back some coverage we lost under the narrowband transition. i'll check out those links and maybe find something in there that I'm overlooking.

Thanks again for your help and your patience!

 

[100pcttn]

Hey ramal121.....I'm reading thru those manuals you sent me the links to, and I'm thinking my trouble is going to be in the signal reset timer. I'm betting as I was switching between analog and digital signals trying to test the programming, I was working under that cut off timer limit. Gonna go play with that some and see how that works for me. Thanks again for your guidance!!!