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NXDN Kenwood NX-220 Help

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KC9RMU

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I am trying to program a new Kenwood NX-220 for the sole purpose of listening to these frequencies Scott County, Indiana (IN) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference that are running NXDN.

I have the Kenwood software (KPF-141D) and programming cable. I entered the frequencies listed and they appear to write to the radio but it appears they are muted.

If someone out there can help me I would appriciate it very much. I am not sure if this is something simple that I am doing wrong or maybe my lack of experience is to blame.

Please Help!

Chirs
 

mmckenna

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Sounds like you have the tones set incorrectly. Is the green LED lighting and you just are not hearing anything? Try setting one of your buttons for "MON" or Monitor. Press that and see if you can hear them. Or, just set the RX side to carrier squelch. That will tell you a lot about what is going on.
 

KC9RMU

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Yes that is correct, I have the radio setup to scan, and it will stop on the channel I have programmed in. I see the green light on top of the radio flash but I don't hear anything. I am not sure what you mean on the RX to carrier squelch. I have attached a screen shot of the programming screen to see if you see anything that needs to be changed. I will try to set one of the buttons to monitor and see what happens. I will post the results.

Thanks for your reply / help.
 

Attachments

  • 2014-06-20 20_53_18-KPG-141D  [ NX-220  [Portable]_ K VHF _ 136-174 MHz ] [ Data File _ kpg141d..jpg
    2014-06-20 20_53_18-KPG-141D [ NX-220 [Portable]_ K VHF _ 136-174 MHz ] [ Data File _ kpg141d..jpg
    53.3 KB · Views: 1,636

mmckenna

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So, are you talking about the analog channels or the NXDN channels?

If it's the analog channels, set the QT/DQT Dec to "none". This the CTCSS/DCS decode control. If the code isn't set correctly, the radio will not pass the receive audio to the speaker.

If it's the NXDN channels, try setting the "Ch Spacing (NXDN)" setting to "Very Narrow".
There are two flavors of NXDN:
Narrow, which uses a 12.5kHz wide channel, and Very Narrow, which uses a 6.25kHz wide channel. If the radio isn't set to the right one, it won't decode the audio.

Icom radios only do "Very Narrow" 6.25 channels. Most Kenwood radios will do "Narrow" 12..5 channels and "Very Narrow" 6.25 channels. I don't think the RR database reflects this, and it's important.
 

KC9RMU

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Ok I just changed it to Very Narrow per the attached screen shot. Lets see what happens. Its all the NXDN channels that I cannot hear. The 2 at the top are 1 simplex ham freq 146.500 and the other is a local repeater. I can hear the repeater ID every 10 minutes or so. The NXDN stuff is what I want to monitor.

Thanks Again
 

Attachments

  • 2014-06-20 21_27_17-KPG-141D  [ NX-220  [Portable]_ K VHF _ 136-174 MHz ] [ Data File _ kpg141d..jpg
    2014-06-20 21_27_17-KPG-141D [ NX-220 [Portable]_ K VHF _ 136-174 MHz ] [ Data File _ kpg141d..jpg
    53.8 KB · Views: 1,211

mmckenna

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Looking at the RR database for Scott County, it doesn't show which version they are using. When you drill down you can find the actual FCC license data. Looks like the county licensed for both narrow and very narrow NXDN, so no help there.

Narrow NXDN - 12.5KHz channel, voice and data = 8K30F7W
Very Narrow NXDN - 6.25KHz channel, voice and data = 4K00F1W
 

stevelton

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Icom still only does very narrow only. You beat me to the idea of checking the FCC license! Darn that they licensed both
If you still cant here it, its possible they are encrypted. I know on the Icoms, if you listen to an encrypted transmission with the radio set the way the OP has his currently, you will see a received signal, but not hear anything. If you enable encryption for that channel, then you will hear the sound of the speech inversion, letting you know for sure then that they are ENC. Not sure if the kenwoods do that same or not, but worth a try if you still arent getting anywhere.

If they are ENC, then you are out of luck.

Steven
 

mmckenna

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At least on the NX-410s, NX-210's, NX-700 and NX-900's, there are two options. You can have the radio mute if the encryption code doesn't match, or you can have it feed the speaker, even if it can't decrypt.
 

racingfan360

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So the more 'brute force' method of determining if it's narrow or very narrow is to program in the frequency twice and set one entry for narrow the other for very narrow. I'm fairly sure it will only stop scanning on the correct NXDN type. But to confirm, Icom only does very narrow 6.25kHz.

The other possibility for this is that it's maybe trunked. Again even if you've programmed up the right freq and modulation it will stop the scan but not open the squelch.

If you're not having any luck it would be helpful to make a recording of the nxdn carrier on the freq in question and post it for me to look at/listen to. To do this, set up an analog channel (yes analog) with QT set to none. You should hear the nxdn carrier white noise with a Tx. You can actually hear the difference between nxdn narrow, very narrow and trunked (but can't hep with encryption)

I think if it is encrypted you should still be able to decode GID and UID (anyone able to confirm this?) if you've the nx200 setup to decode this and you've got a display version of the nx220. Again if true it'll tell you some of the story. You won't get GID or UID decode on a trunked system without the right key (ie legit access to the system !).

Jim
 

KC9RMU

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I am still not having any luck with the narrow or very narrow, very narrow seems to not do anything at all, I scanned all night long without seeing it stop on any channel or any voice at all.

I can set everything back to analog and do a recording, let me know what works best as far as what type of video or recording you need.
 

racingfan360

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Ok so the fact that it part decodes (ie it stops scanning) when set to NXDN narrow suggests to me it isn't Icom (they only do very narrow 6.25khz). Also NXDN Trunking is a variant of Very Narrow. I'm guessing it's encrypted, but let's work through this.

When you listen via analog, does it sound like any of these samples?

Trunk
Zippyshare.com - NX4800 Trunk Sample.wav

NXDN Very Narrow
Zippyshare.com - NX4800 Sample BEC.wav

NXDN Narrow
Zippyshare.com - NX9600 Sample GP2.wav

If it turns out to be encrypted NXDN Narrow the only way we'll really tell is to get a sample via a scanner with a discriminator tap or catch a sample and decode with software called DSD+.
http://forums.radioreference.com/digital-voice-decoding-software/280577-dsdplus.html

Also does your NX220 have a front panel display?

Jim
 

racingfan360

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ok sorry....I'll wake up.

I missed your earlier post with the video. That sounds like a lot like Icom IDAS Trunking which uses NXDN9600 Narrow (not very narrow). Icom IDAS conventional uses very narrow only.It also happens to be the system I have pretty much no experience of. I'm quite sure your NX220 won't be able to decode it.

But you may still be able to decode this using a discriminator tapped scanner, or if you have a clean signal with a cheap dongle, feeding your PC running DSD+. It may still be encrypted in which case you'll be able to decode it but it will be garbled.

If you want to pursue decoding via a PC running DSD+ drop me a PM and I'll see where I can help (as we'll be going a bit OT for a Kenwood forum).

Jim
 

slapshot0017

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Jan 5, 2013
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ITU Region 2
So, are you talking about the analog channels or the NXDN channels?

If it's the analog channels, set the QT/DQT Dec to "none". This the CTCSS/DCS decode control. If the code isn't set correctly, the radio will not pass the receive audio to the speaker.

If it's the NXDN channels, try setting the "Ch Spacing (NXDN)" setting to "Very Narrow".
There are two flavors of NXDN:
Narrow, which uses a 12.5kHz wide channel, and Very Narrow, which uses a 6.25kHz wide channel. If the radio isn't set to the right one, it won't decode the audio.

Icom radios only do "Very Narrow" 6.25 channels. Most Kenwood radios will do "Narrow" 12..5 channels and "Very Narrow" 6.25 channels. I don't think the RR database reflects this, and it's important.

YOU ARE THE MAN!!! I was having that issue today on my railroad and thank god you mentioned this i was so scared the radio was broken!
 
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