Motorola APX8000XE (authorized) on Harris Trunked P25 System

[mpaine]

Afternoon all,

Trying to get an APX8000XE (authorized use) working on a new Harris P25 P2 system for a proof-of-concept model that Moto radios can work on this type of system. I've been given the appropriate information by the system administrator (WACN, Sys ID, Ctrl Chl Frequencies) and added them into CPS and programmed the radio with them. Radio show OUT OF RANGE even while sitting 100 feet from the nearest site, well within the coverage area. Is there something finicky that has to be done to get the 8000s to work on Harris systems? 9600 baud trunking is enabled in this radio.

Thanks!

 

[Motoballa]

I don't wanna be that person but I would say contact the system administrator and ask for assistance. If you miss program a radio it could cause loads of issues.

I've programmed Motorola, Harris and Kenwood radios on my states Motorola P25 system, didn't have any issues with the Harris or Kenwood radios when programming to the system despite it being my first time even programming either of those brand of radios. I would like to say it would work the same vise-versa but I know Motorola tends to make things a tad bit more difficult..

 

[mpaine]

I spoke with them today. They use all Harris equipment so it's kind of one of those "if you can get it to work" situations, and they aren't too familiar with the Moto subscriber world. I've been told by them that when they program their Harris units, they just add the info I was provided and as long as the radio ID is authenticated in their UAS, it works like a charm.

 

[GTR8000]

Coverage Type should be set to Intra-WACN Roaming for a Harris system, not SmartZone. This will require you to have the Harris WACN hardware key (USB dongle), not a user-generated software key (if that's what you're trying to use).

All channels must be entered in the Control Channels list, since Harris can rotate through all of them.

Motorola Proprietary Features and Validate NAC Against System ID must be disabled in the ASTRO 25 section.

And of course the radio must have TDMA in the flashcode, assuming you're trying to program the Allentown system.

 

[mpaine]

GTR8000, thanks. I will check with the System Admins to try and get the Harris USB dongle to use the system key. Will the APX CPS accept that even though it's Harris?

All channels are loaded in the CC list, Proprietary Features and NAC against System ID is off.

Flashcode does NOT have TDMA enabled as I just found out (annoyed I didn't think to check that, just believed that this demo radio was loaded up), getting with the Motorola rep for a FLASHcode upgrade now.

 

[GTR8000]

The Harris WACN key will be recognized by APX CPS.

 

[mpaine]

Great, thanks for the info. I'll start there and see where I end up when I get back in touch with the admin.

 

[GTR8000]

I have to correct myself regarding the key. It's been a while so I probably mis-remembered, but likely you will need to obtain or create a Motorola ASK for that Harris system in order to correctly program the radio with APX CPS with Intra-WACN Roaming coverage type. Sorry about that!

 

[mpaine]

No problem! I think I got that part squared. I got Motorola involved today and they are going to work on getting the key made. Thanks for the help.

 

[speedway_navigator]

I got Motorola involved today and they are going to work on getting the key made. Thanks for the help.

Tech help or is a sales person going to sell you the 'works within 100' of a tower' and 'works on competitor system' options?

 

[mpaine]

Ha, tech help. Good people I’ve worked with a bunch before. Radio’s got the options it needs already.

 

[rescue161]

We have a lot of Motorola radios on the Harris system that I manage. Intra-WACN Roaming is not checked on our Motorola subscribers. Make sure that you have the correct Astro 25 Channel ID settings.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I helped a railroad PD get their APX7000's working on a Harris system a few years ago. Pretty much everything that has been echoed here so far. Need a Motorola created system key, Intra-WACN enabled, all site channels for the initial site as control channels (you can actually enable system wide scanning in the trunking menu and let the rest of the control channels dynamically allocate and fill up the flash memory over time instead of inputting multiple sites by hand in the control channel list). Make sure Mot Prop features and Validate NAC are disabled.

 

[mikewazowski]

Pretty sure you only need Intra-WACN roaming enabled if you have a system using multiple WACN's.

If the system only uses a single WACN, SmartZone & Omnlink should be selected. This gives you access to the Home WACN ID field.

 

[APX8000]

One of my tech guys said this: try using a Motorola system key for the system ID, set System Type to ASTRO 25 and coverage to Disabled. Enter the Home WACN, RFSS and Site. Enter all frequencies. Make sure you have the proper ASTRO 25 Channel IDs entered and checked. Uncheck Motorola Proprietary Features and Validate NAC against System ID. Check Phase 2 Voice Capable and WUID Validity Support. Let me know if that works.

Regardless, let us know what the final outcome settings are and how you got it to work. We are having a bit of an issue with a certain County telling us Motorola portables can’t be programmed on their system and I know one agency that figured out how to do it. But apparently they are not sharing with others due to some handshakes so others don’t.

 

[mpaine]

Folks, to follow up on this, I ended up getting the radio working flawlessly. Signal-Zero is correct with most of his initial steps. I'll quote them below:

One of my tech guys said this: try using a Motorola system key for the system ID, set System Type to ASTRO 25 and coverage to Disabled. Enter the Home WACN, RFSS and Site. Enter all frequencies. Make sure you have the proper ASTRO 25 Channel IDs entered and checked. Uncheck Motorola Proprietary Features and Validate NAC against System ID. Check Phase 2 Voice Capable and WUID Validity Support. Let me know if that works.

The other thing that needs to be checked is the iDEN channel assignment numbers. The Harris iDEN channels go in the Astro 25 Channel listing table obviously because all of the system channels go into the Control Channel list. In my case, my channels were listed as channel 1 and channel 9 in Harris RPM. I had them in APX CPS as channel 1 and channel 2. Since this was programmed as such, my radio would RX but bonk whenever I tried to TX. Changing the channel position to 1 and 9 fixed this problem.

Motorola needs to generate a system key and wacn key for the Harris system to proceed with anything in CPS. This was the biggest holdup. The only other thing is that the radio coverage needs to be set to Smartzone & Omnilink, rather than Intra-WACN Roaming or anything else (that's direct from M). Other than that, it works like a charm. To be honest, I can't even really tell that I'm on a Harris backend, audio is clear, signal is great, and the radio works as expected.

 

[N5XPM]

At one point the goal of P25 was so it didn't matter what "backend" the subscriber units were operating on. Glad you had success overcoming some manufacturer jargon adventures and lack of helpful documentation that made the P25 compatibility harder than it needed to be.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

At one point the goal of P25 was so it didn't matter what "backend" the subscriber units were operating on. Glad you had success overcoming some manufacturer jargon adventures and lack of helpful documentation that made the P25 compatibility harder than it needed to be.

Getting around the settings which are assumed to be standard is always the hard part. Once you get things set right, it typically works just fine but getting to that point takes lots of trial and effort. I see you are in Burnet County...where they've been struggling with getting Kenwood radios to function properly on the Motorola system to the point many departments ended up phasing their Kenwoods out after only about half of the planned service life.

 

[N5XPM]

Trial and error is part of getting most systems to work, but all parties need to be technically capable and truly interested in succeeding. I have observed that there are many agendas, some of which are not always obvious, which can make success elusive or impossible.
For the low level of usage in Burnet county, it might be cheaper to use a satcom solution alongside the analog conventional paging once the trunking infrastructure becomes EOL, especially with grant funding from years ago being spent.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Trial and error is part of getting most systems to work, but all parties need to be technically capable and truly interested in succeeding. I have observed that there are many agendas, some of which are not always obvious, which can make success elusive or impossible.
For the low level of usage in Burnet county, it might be cheaper to use a satcom solution alongside the analog conventional paging once the trunking infrastructure becomes EOL, especially with grant funding from years ago being spent.

Takes the work. I'm still of the opinion that the Kenwoods on the system were never programmed correctly even after all the programming changes which were made and that is one of the primary reasons for Kenwood's unsuccessful in the region. Especially since I can't take a single one of those Kenwood's and hook it up to a service monitor for a successful trunking function check.

The Burnet county sites handle nearly 300,000+ calls a month. Not heavy usage but considering all of the sites are only 5 channel sites, it's still a considerable amount of usage. The trunking infrastructure won't become EOL anytime soon... as all of the Western Counties sites were upgraded 18 months ago to GTR8000 setups which means...they are ready for Phase 2 trunking.