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New Antenna requires Radio Alignment?

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SCPD

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Would switching out an antenna on an XTS5000 require me to realign my XTS5000?

Using the non-affiliated scanning method (hidden talk group), I have been having hit and miss problems with receiving audio. I've noticed that when I switch batteries, it has problems receiving for the first day and then all of a sudden it is gone. For the last week, for two different times that I was paying attention, I've noticed that my XTS5000 has been missing audio around 11:30AM central when I can verify that audio was being broadcasted.

The building I'm in doesn't like radio signals really at all but they installed a cell repeater and someone more experienced with signals said that the 800 trunking system might be taking a ride through that repeater and I figured that if my alignment was a little off that may be the reason as I stopped switching between batteries (which was the other cause).

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mmckenna

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Some of the cellular in building bi-directional amplifiers are wide enough to cover 800MHz systems. Many years back NexTel installed a bunch of BDA's in several of our buildings, and they helped with our trunked system coverage.

As for the coverage issue, I'd want to ask about the antenna you swapped in. Where did you get it, and what brand is it? Some of the cheaper antennas are not tuned well, or at all, and yours may not be resonate at where it's supposed to be. Having an antenna that is far enough out of whack might just degrade your received signal enough to cause issues. The other thing that can be problematic is that the signal from the trunked system coming through the BDA's and the signal coming directly from the radio site could be creating some canceling issues.

Sort of hard to narrow down without seeing it in person. You might try a different antenna to see if that helps. Either that, or go find the BDA and pull the plug on it and see if things improve (insert appropriate disclaimer here).
 

SCPD

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The description for the antenna is "Motorola NAF5037A & 8505241U03, 800 MHz standard flexible whip antenna for XTS, PR, XPR, and MT series 2-way radios" and was purchased online at NAF5037A 800 MHz Whip Antenna

I now have at least 4 antennas between my radios so know which one was the original is going to take some work. I can mention that the signal is great except for every now and then, usually once a day as it happened as I made this post. One thing I did try after I made this post was switching to a different trunking system channel (I believe any channel off of the system would work) and turning back to the original channel may also help.

Being a programmer and also having basic radio knowledge, I can understand a lot but I'm still limited on a few things. I will look into testing different antennas. I won't be able to touch the BDA since I am just a contractor in a building (unless that was humor, in which I caught it haha). One other thing I wondered about was if anything in RSSI Thresholds could be adjusted that would help.
 

IAmSixNine

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Try a different battery.
I had a XTS5000 come in from a local FD that was having a horrible time affiliating with the system. I thought it was an antenna issue. However i "accidentally" found out it was the battery.
I left the radio on at my desk over night and the next day it was dead so i used one of my test batteries and it worked flawlessly. Charged up the battery the user gave me and sure enough, no affiliation.
WHY? I never did figure that out. But by simply swapping out batteries it fixed his reception issues. Or TX issues, i stopped testing it after that because it went back to working properly.
 

SCPD

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Try a different battery.
I had a XTS5000 come in from a local FD that was having a horrible time affiliating with the system. I thought it was an antenna issue. However i "accidentally" found out it was the battery.
I left the radio on at my desk over night and the next day it was dead so i used one of my test batteries and it worked flawlessly. Charged up the battery the user gave me and sure enough, no affiliation.
WHY? I never did figure that out. But by simply swapping out batteries it fixed his reception issues. Or TX issues, i stopped testing it after that because it went back to working properly.
I'll have to give this a try once I am in the building on Monday. Seems to happen the same time every day but it could be the time of day OR could be because I turn it on the same time everyday and it happens after so long. The weird thing is that it ONLY happens in the building, nowhere else in the city.
 

mmckenna

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The description for the antenna is "Motorola NAF5037A & 8505241U03, 800 MHz standard flexible whip antenna for XTS, PR, XPR, and MT series 2-way radios"

Good, that's what you are looking for. There are some truly crappy aftermarket antenna out there.

I won't be able to touch the BDA since I am just a contractor in a building (unless that was humor, in which I caught it haha). .

Yeah, it was a joke. But honestly, we had a NexTel BDA system in one of our libraries with multiple antennas on each floor. We had one of the locations in the basement start causing issues to one of our 800MHz trunked channels out of the blue one night. Took a while to narrow down which one it was an disable it. We could't wait for NexTel to get around to sending someone out, and we have a clause in our cell site leases that require they shut down any system that causes interference to our systems. Since they were not responding….
 
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