Motorola DTR700 Portable Digital Radio 900Mhz

[speedway_navigator]

As I said it did clean up ok, gonna do some more, this week.
Just was odd, it has never occured in the many many many years that I've had them. Maybe the heat and humidity this past month.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Ours did too, Jeff said it has something to do with the plastic used for the cases, he's a chemistry professor so he can give more details.

 

[n1das]

Motorola has released another firmware update for the DTR 600/700/720 models. The DTR720 is not sold in the USA and I assume it is the Latin America version.

The CPS was also updated to include the new features. The latest CPS rev is R07.02.

DTR700 Digital Two Way Radio - Motorola Solutions

DTR series radios are now more reliable than ever - enabling interference free, private communications to help your team stay focused while keeping communications private. With its slim and rugged design the DTR700 digital two-way radio is IP54 rated and operates at 900 MHz.

www.motorolasolutions.com

I found this while browsing Motorola's site for new stuff.

Motorola DTR600/700/720 series two-way radio Firmware Update info 31-Oct-2019

DTR600/700/720 two-way radios firmware to be updated from:
Firmware Version R01.00.02 or R01.01.00 to R01.02.01
Codeplug Version R01.00.00 or R01.01.00 to R01.02.00
Keypad Version R01.00.01 or R01.00.02 or R01.01.00 to R01.02.00

R01.01.00 provides new features and capabilities listed below:
1. Scan - radio stay on a channel is able to scan for other Public groups channel and Private groups which has the same hopset/profile ID.
2. Group Caller ID - radio receiving screens will display the Caller ID/Name for group calls.
3. Fixed issue with long channel name for home channel.

R01.02.01 provides new features and capabilities listed below:
1. Text Message - radio able to receive text messages and send text messages to other radios with pre-programmed text messages.
2. Remote Monitor (DTR700 & DTR720 only) - radio configured as Manager Mode is able to remotely monitor and listen to the environment of the other radio for 30 seconds provided the target radio is in the range.
3. Remote Disable (DTR700 & DTR720 only) - radio configured as Manager Mode is able to remotely enable or disable other radio provided the target radio is in the range.
4. Call Alert - radio able to pre-alert a specific radio in range to call back.
5. Rental Timer (DTR600 & DTR720 only) - radio rental company able to set rental period to radios and radio will be disabled when rental period expired.
6. Ringer Tone and Volume - radio able to set specific Ringer Tone and configure the loudness of the Ringer Tone that sound while receiving text message or call alert.
7. OTA Contact Cloning - radio able to add or delete contacts to or from another radio wirelessly without connecting the radios by cable.
8. Fixed issue with call failed after back and forth private calls to a radio.

There is no mention of any fixes for the strange lockup behavior I have encountered a few times.

Looks like I will be doing another update to the firmware in my DTR700 fleet tonight.

I successfully updated the firmware in my DTR700 fleet. I played around with the Manager Mode features. Remote Monitor, Remote Disable, and Remote Enable all work as advertised. I found the Manager Mode features in the DTR700 also works with the legacy DTR410/550/650 models. I tested the DTR700 Manager Mode features with one of my DTR650 radios. I was able to remotely monitor and remotely disable and enable the DTR650 from my DTR700, and vice versa. The DTR700 Manager Mode features appear to be backward compatible with the legacy DTRs.

Now for the BAD news. One of my DTR700 radios exhibited the occasional strange lockup behavior that I posted about earlier. The firmware update did not fix this behavior. I was out and about with the wife today and we were using a pair of DTR700 radios and mine locked up and played dead for a few minutes. The radio appears to be brain dead except for the display which appears normal. There is no response from the keypad or PTT or any buttons and no transmit or receive. It does send an acknowledgement to another radio talking to it to allow the other radio to continue transmitting but nothing is heard out of the dead DTR700. Pressing and holding PTT several times over about a minute eventually caused the radio to reset and reboot itself and then everything was OK after that.

The lockup happened after I got out of my car and right when I pulled the radio out of my coat pocket. We tested the radios only a minute or so earlier and everything was OK before getting out of the car. It was windy and cold and dry today. Very low relative humidity. I'm thinking the radio took a zap of electrostatic discharge (ESD) when I pulled the radio out of my coat pocket. If it actually is an ESD problem, i.e., has poor immunity to ESD, this is a hardware issue and something that might not be fixable with a firmware update.

 

[wd0jim]

I successfully updated the firmware in my DTR700 fleet. I played around with the Manager Mode features. Remote Monitor, Remote Disable, and Remote Enable all work as advertised. I found the Manager Mode features in the DTR700 also works with the legacy DTR410/550/650 models. I tested the DTR700 Manager Mode features with one of my DTR650 radios. I was able to remotely monitor and remotely disable and enable the DTR650 from my DTR700, and vice versa. The DTR700 Manager Mode features appear to be backward compatible with the legacy DTRs.

Now for the BAD news. One of my DTR700 radios exhibited the occasional strange lockup behavior that I posted about earlier. The firmware update did not fix this behavior. I was out and about with the wife today and we were using a pair of DTR700 radios and mine locked up and played dead for a few minutes. The radio appears to be brain dead except for the display which appears normal. There is no response from the keypad or PTT or any buttons and no transmit or receive. It does send an acknowledgement to another radio talking to it to allow the other radio to continue transmitting but nothing is heard out of the dead DTR700. Pressing and holding PTT several times over about a minute eventually caused the radio to reset and reboot itself and then everything was OK after that.

The lockup happened after I got out of my car and right when I pulled the radio out of my coat pocket. We tested the radios only a minute or so earlier and everything was OK before getting out of the car. It was windy and cold and dry today. Very low relative humidity. I'm thinking the radio took a zap of electrostatic discharge (ESD) when I pulled the radio out of my coat pocket. If it actually is an ESD problem, i.e., has poor immunity to ESD, this is a hardware issue and something that might not be fixable with a firmware update.

One of my DTR700 locked up yesterday just as you described. I too have the latest firmware. I ended up pulling the battery to reset it.

 

[n1das]

One of my DTR700 locked up yesterday just as you described. I too have the latest firmware. I ended up pulling the battery to reset it.

Pressing and holding the power button several times for several seconds at a time or pressing and holding PTT multiple times will eventually cause the radio to reset. A software watchdog timer probably expires and forces a reset. The behavior appears to be due to a software crash. It does not appear to be ESD related like I thought earlier.

You should complain to your Motorola dealer and request that they forward your complaint to Motorola. This is the ONLY way to get Motorola to respond to their customers. Motorola will not respond at all if you try to contact them directly. All reports of problems or requests for enhancements have to come through their dealers. I don't like it but that's how Motorola chooses to do business.

I forwarded my report(s) of the lockup behavior to my Motorola dealer who then forwarded it to Motorola. Hopefully Motorola will debug this and fix it with a FW update. The lockup behavior was there with the earlier firmware. It may have been there from day one but I didn't notice it right away.

 

[BK168]

Pressing and holding the power button several times for several seconds at a time or pressing and holding PTT multiple times will eventually cause the radio to reset. A software watchdog timer probably expires and forces a reset. The behavior appears to be due to a software crash. It does not appear to be ESD related like I thought earlier.

You should complain to your Motorola dealer and request that they forward your complaint to Motorola. This is the ONLY way to get Motorola to respond to their customers. Motorola will not respond at all if you try to contact them directly. All reports of problems or requests for enhancements have to come through their dealers. I don't like it but that's how Motorola chooses to do business.

I forwarded my report(s) of the lockup behavior to my Motorola dealer who then forwarded it to Motorola. Hopefully Motorola will debug this and fix it with a FW update. The lockup behavior was there with the earlier firmware. It may have been there from day one but I didn't notice it right away.

Any replies from Motorola or the dealer? I am interested to know the answer.

 

[n1das]

Any replies from Motorola or the dealer? I am interested to know the answer.

I am interested too. I have a fleet of 6 DTR700 radios and the MUC accessory for them. All 6 have exhibited the lockup behavior at one time or another. I have not heard anything at all and I am not expecting to either. I have a gut feeling that not enough DTR600/700 users have complained about it yet. If Motorola does anything to address it, we should see it in a firmware update. I am hoping it is not a hardware problem and is something fixable through a firmware update.

The behavior seems to be a random software crash. Aside from this little quirk, the DTR700 is a great radio.

 

[Hans13]

But that quirk makes it an unreliable radio. Mother M should address it. It's not like these radios are CCRs. It's a niche radio system to begin with and this is something major that would keep people from purchasing them.

 

[n1das]

I agree 100%. Motorola needs to address the lockup behavior. The best we can do is complain to our Motorola dealers about it so Motorola hears about it and decides to dedicate some engineering resources to it.

 

[AESFTW]

Currently running a fleet of about 35 DTR-700s, latest firmware loaded. None have exhibited this lockup behavior after about a month of use. This is my first time hearing about such a problem. Will definetly pay more attention and report back with any findings.

 

[n1das]

From a DLR thread in another forum:
Motorola Business Radio support line @ 1.800.448.6686

I may try calling Motorola Business Radio support and report the lockup behavior. I've experienced the lockup behavior enough times to be able to accurately describe it.

I want to push the DLR product team to update the firmware in the DLR1020/1060 models to add AGC to the transmit audio to clean them up. The DTR600/700 models have the best audio due to AGC added to the transmit audio. You can talk 6 inches away from the radio, 1-2 inches way, or practically eat the mic on the radio and the transmitted audio sounds about the same. The DLRs and the legacy DTR410/550/650 models don't have AGC in the transmit audio. The DLRs will transmit VERY BADLY distorted audio when you talk loudly or too close to the mic and makes other radios sound like they want to pop out of their enclosure. It.Is.THAT.Bad. I used the default mic gain setting in all of my radios during my testing. The DTR600/700 models have the best audio due to AGC in the transmit audio, the DLRs have the worst audio, and the legacy DTR410/550/650 models fall somewhere in between.

 

[n1das]

One of my DTR700 locked up yesterday just as you described. I too have the latest firmware. I ended up pulling the battery to reset it.

After experiencing a few more random lockups with my DTR700s and having to pull the battery once, I did a little experimenting. The random lockup behavior appears to be due to a software crash of some sort. I tried disabling the battery save feature in the CPS to see if that makes any difference. I have had the battery save features in other radios sometimes cause little quirks in the radio's operation.

The help file in the CPS warns that disabling the battery save function will shorten battery life on a charge by about 20%. So far after a week of playing around with my DTR700 radios with the battery save function disabled, no more lockups have occurred. The battery life on a charge is still acceptable. Time will tell if I experience anymore lockup behavior or not.

 

[n1das]

But that quirk makes it an unreliable radio. Mother M should address it. It's not like these radios are CCRs. It's a niche radio system to begin with and this is something major that would keep people from purchasing them.

I agree 100%. Motorola needs to address the lockup behavior. The best we can do is complain to our Motorola dealers about it so Motorola hears about it and decides to dedicate some engineering resources to it.

Currently running a fleet of about 35 DTR-700s, latest firmware loaded. None have exhibited this lockup behavior after about a month of use. This is my first time hearing about such a problem. Will definetly pay more attention and report back with any findings.

Motorola MOTOTRBO (TM) Products, Sales and Solutions

We specialize in Motorola MOTOTRBO™ products and we are a First Responder, Auxcomm, and Amateur Radio Operator or “ham friendly” dealer.

northgeorgiacommunications.com

I had an interesting conversation today with Ken at North Georgia Communications about the LEX L11 Mission Critical LTE device in the other thread and we got to talking about the DTRs and DTR700 in particular. I mentioned the lockup behavior I've run into and he said Motorola is aware of the issue and has been working on it. Ken mentioned that the issue has been fixed in later built DTR700s. I don't have any details or range of build dates affected. I assume the DTR600 has the same issue.

My DTR700 fleet is among the first batch of DTR700 in the USA and they have a December 2018 build date. FL2WAYRF may have a more recent build of 35 DTR700 radios that already have Motorola's fix in place.

My DTR700 fleet seems to be working better with the battery save feature disabled. (The default in the CPS is ON) Time will tell if I encounter any more lockups.

 

[n1das]

After experiencing a few more random lockups with my DTR700s and having to pull the battery once, I did a little experimenting. The random lockup behavior appears to be due to a software crash of some sort. I tried disabling the battery save feature in the CPS to see if that makes any difference. I have had the battery save features in other radios sometimes cause little quirks in the radio's operation.

The help file in the CPS warns that disabling the battery save function will shorten battery life on a charge by about 20%. So far after a week of playing around with my DTR700 radios with the battery save function disabled, no more lockups have occurred. The battery life on a charge is still acceptable. Time will tell if I experience anymore lockup behavior or not.

Motorola MOTOTRBO (TM) Products, Sales and Solutions

We specialize in Motorola MOTOTRBO™ products and we are a First Responder, Auxcomm, and Amateur Radio Operator or “ham friendly” dealer.

northgeorgiacommunications.com

I had an interesting conversation today with Ken at North Georgia Communications about the LEX L11 Mission Critical LTE device in the other thread and we got to talking about the DTRs and DTR700 in particular. I mentioned the lockup behavior I've run into and he said Motorola is aware of the issue and has been working on it. Ken mentioned that the issue has been fixed in later built DTR700s. I don't have any details or range of build dates affected. I assume the DTR600 has the same issue.

My DTR700 fleet is among the first batch of DTR700 in the USA and they have a December 2018 build date. FL2WAYRF may have a more recent build of 35 DTR700 radios that already have Motorola's fix in place.

My DTR700 fleet seems to be working better with the battery save feature disabled. (The default in the CPS is ON) Time will tell if I encounter any more lockups.

I have been running my DTR700 fleet for a while with the battery saver disabled to help debug and understand the lockup behavior. My DTR700 fleet is among the first batch of them built in December 2018 and has the lockup behavior. The behavior is tough to repeat but happens on every one of them.

I am happy to report NO more random lockups have occurred after disabling the battery saver with the CPS. I have given my DTR700s some heavy use when my wife and I are out shopping to try get lockups to occur. My wife is not a ham but she absolutely LOVES using these radios when we are out shopping or doing whatever. She specifically DOES NOT want to use FRS bubble pack radios instead of the DTRs because the DTRs simply work so much better. (LOL) She is not a ham but fully "gets it" when it comes to using high quality radios to stay in touch during our day to day activities.

Disabling the battery saver in the CPS appears to be effective as a workaround. Battery life on a charge is about 20% shorter as Motorola warns in the Help file in the CPS. The slightly shorter battery life on a charge has not been a problem, even with heavy duty use throughout the day. The battery saver only affects the standby time.

My gut says there was a hardware issue in the early DTR600/700s that created the random lockup behavior, something that can't be fixed in firmware. All of my DTR700s have the latest FW after I updated them a while back and still had the lockup behavior. I suspect the issue was addressed by a chip change, i.e., through a revision of Silicon in later built DTRs.

If you have early build DTR600/700 radios and are encountering random lockups, try disabling the battery saver in the CPS.

 

[speedway_navigator]

When my wife goes shopping the last thing she wants is me being able to get a hold of her.

 

[county]

Ok- I too have been bitten by the Moto DTR/DLR bug. I’m a ham, but most of my friends are not. I’m done with FRS given how impressively these perform. My girflfriend was so impressed with these she‘s ordered some for her work, which needs on site reliable simplex to manage events hosted at small summer-camps (usually line of sight, no terrain obstruction, log cabin type construction, and end-to-end no more than 1/2mi).

The one downside IMO is inability (at least per the manual) to operate the radios on RX while in the charger. For 24x7 availability, a battery swap will be required and that’s a minor pain.. or a ‘night shift’ and ‘day shift’ radio. It’s too easy to ‘booger up‘ the battery door ‘catch’ on the 1020/1060 unless you reinstall it just right. The DTR700 battery is more user friendly to swap. Looks like there is a DLR DTR compatible ‘base station’ , the DB-1020/1060 offered by Cane Wireles. . wondered if anyone has used it.. and wonder if anyone is aware if the higher wattage charger for the DLR/DTR is ok to supply power for radio + charging (although again - manual sez radio must be off - so not holding much hope for that).

 

[alcahuete]

The one downside IMO is inability (at least per the manual) to operate the radios on RX while in the charger.

You shouldn't be doing that anyway. That's a great way to destroy the batteries.

 

[fireemt55]

You shouldn't be doing that anyway. That's a great way to destroy the batteries.

Not sure how true that is anymore. We have a fleet of DTR700's. I use mine all day, place it in the charger (still on) and it charges overnight. Pick it up in the morning and keep going, rarely ever reboot it. It was sitting in my charger for the last 4 months (on and receiving) and I pick it up in the morning and still works like a charm. Haven't had any battery issues. Probably not "ideal" or "recommended" but just my real-world experience, haven't seen any issues.

 

[alcahuete]

Not sure how true that is anymore. We have a fleet of DTR700's. I use mine all day, place it in the charger (still on) and it charges overnight. Pick it up in the morning and keep going, rarely ever reboot it. It was sitting in my charger for the last 4 months (on and receiving) and I pick it up in the morning and still works like a charm. Haven't had any battery issues. Probably not "ideal" or "recommended" but just my real-world experience, haven't seen any issues.

It's very much true. It will shorten the battery's life significantly. You aren't going to notice it over 4 months, but you certainly will over the lifetime of the battery. You will be replacing them much quicker than you normally would.

 

[n1das]

I have been running my DTR700 fleet for a while with the battery saver disabled to help debug and understand the lockup behavior. My DTR700 fleet is among the first batch of them built in December 2018 and has the lockup behavior. The behavior is tough to repeat but happens on every one of them.

I am happy to report NO more random lockups have occurred after disabling the battery saver with the CPS. I have given my DTR700s some heavy use when my wife and I are out shopping to try get lockups to occur. My wife is not a ham but she absolutely LOVES using these radios when we are out shopping or doing whatever. She specifically DOES NOT want to use FRS bubble pack radios instead of the DTRs because the DTRs simply work so much better. (LOL) She is not a ham but fully "gets it" when it comes to using high quality radios to stay in touch during our day to day activities.

Disabling the battery saver in the CPS appears to be effective as a workaround. Battery life on a charge is about 20% shorter as Motorola warns in the Help file in the CPS. The slightly shorter battery life on a charge has not been a problem, even with heavy duty use throughout the day. The battery saver only affects the standby time.

My gut says there was a hardware issue in the early DTR600/700s that created the random lockup behavior, something that can't be fixed in firmware. All of my DTR700s have the latest FW after I updated them a while back and still had the lockup behavior. I suspect the issue was addressed by a chip change, i.e., through a revision of Silicon in later built DTRs.

If you have early build DTR600/700 radios and are encountering random lockups, try disabling the battery saver in the CPS.

Lockup behavior update: NO more lockups have occurred since disabling the battery saver in the CPS. Disabling the battery saver appears to be effective as a workaround in early DTR700s. Ken Bryant at North Georgia Communications says Motorola is aware of the issue and has fixed it in new builds of DTR600/700 radios.

It's been a month and a half since my last post and no more lockups have occurred. The radios get almost daily use. Battery life on a charge is about 20% shorter as expected but not a big deal because the radio already goes plenty long enough on a charge.