Personalities vs. Zone/Channels

[jdomke1]

I'm struggling to find an answer to my confusion regarding the usage of Personalities. I've gone into my Astro 25 Portable CPS and creates zones/channels for all my 256 channels. I originally just created one personality assuming that since I'm using just one channel plan for all my channels/zones I wouldn't need more. As I go through some tutorials for CPS I keep seeing what looks like the need to setup personalities for each of my channels. I fail to understand why and since all the tutorials in CPS are using Flash which is not longer supported, I'm stuck wondering if I missed something. I'm using conventional only on a XTS 5000 with no special features apart from button/swith assignments. Sorry for my ignorance. The last time I programmed a radio it was a MT1000 using RSS and I don't recall it being that difficult.

 

[Mr_Boh]

Personalities are just that - you are creating a "personality" - a set of definitions for the conventional frequency, like conventional vs digital (ASTRO), what scan list to use, etc - pretty much everything short of the frequency itself, which you then list out. Then from those personalities you add the frequencies to the zone/channel assignments. They are sort of unrelated so that you can use multiple personalities to make up a zone for the user. The one weirdness with all of this is the fact that scan lists that you assign to personalities are made up of zone/channel assignments, so for those it's easiest to make a blank scan list as a placeholder then come back and modify it as you needed.

You shouldn't need to make each frequency have it's own personality unless something needs to be different (for example, a scan list). If otherwise most things are the same except like frequency and pl/dpl you should be able to make one personality that covers multiple frequencies. That said, I have seen plenty of codeplugs where folks have had to make a new personality for each frequency.

Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[GTR8000]

A personality defines certain parameters that channels share, such as whether they are analog or digital, and what scan list should be assigned to a particular channel. If all of your channels are analog, and you only need a single scan list no matter what channel you're on, then one personality will probably suffice. However if you wish to break up groups of channels per scan list, such as Zone 1 Scan List 1, Zone 2 Scan List 2, etc. then you'll need to create multiple personalities with the different scan lists assigned to each, and then in the zones assign each channel to the proper personality. As far as creating an individual personality for each channel in each zone, that's a bit much and almost certainly not necessary in your case.

 

[jdomke1]

Ok, so help me understand what I hear you saying. I have some analog and digital channel zones, so I need different personalities for each. I can also have more than one scan list so I will need different personalities for each of those as well. Can you assign more than one personality to each zone or channel? I.e. I have both analog and digital I would like on the same scan list? Also, will I be able to see each scan list on my radio? Right now I just hit the Scan button and it asks if I want to scan, yes, or no. Will it now ask me which list to scan? Just imagining all the possibilities. Thanks.

p.s. what I've done so far is read my radio, which was set to factory defaults. I then exported, imported to Excel, then copy pasted all my channels from my excel channel plan file. It took several attempts as I learned how to properly format the file for import. Thankfully I do IT for a living and understand what it was looking for finally. I got everything in and tested the radio the other day, it worked on both simplex and duplex channels. What I need to go back to now is formatting using my digital channels with the added NAC info. I wish my organization had a codeplug for me but I'm not finding one, despite being told this radio is fully supported.

 

[GTR8000]

Don't overthink it. You need one personality for each set of channels that share the same parameters, as I've described above. At the minimum you would need one personality for analog channels, and one personality for digital channels. If you want more than one scan list, then you need a personality for each scan list. Personalities are assigned per-channel, not per-zone. You can have multiple channels assigned to different personalities within the same zone, however only one personality per channel. Same with scan lists, one scan list per personality. When a channel assigned that personality is selected on the radio's channel knob, that calls up the particular scan list associated with the personality. You can add channels from any zone/personality to a scan list, however the scan list itself will only be active when a channel assigned to that personality and scan list is selected. The radio will not ask which scan list you want to scan, that is pre-determined by the channel>personality>scan list relationship.

 

[NVAGVUP]

GTR Is spot on. In my example, I have 6 conventional personalities. The channels within those personalities have "like" characteristics. (EX analog or digital. Clear or encrypted, 700 or 800 MHZ, etc)

In the screen shot, you can see the channels for the 8C CONV A personality (800-Conventional-Analog)

Also per GTR, Zones have no direct relationship to personality. A zone can contain 16 members from a single personality, or 16 members from 16 different personalities. See additional screen shot for reference. This zone contains members from 2 different personalities.

Once you get the hang of it, it is a slick way to organize/structure the channels/talkgroups within a radio.

 

[jdomke1]

Thanks guys... makes more sense now. I like the way CPS displays for you NVAGVUP. Mine are tabs across the top, perhaps a setting I need to look for.

 

[KK6ZTE]

Thanks guys... makes more sense now. I like the way CPS displays for you NVAGVUP. Mine are tabs across the top, perhaps a setting I need to look for.

That's because he's on APX CPS while you're on Astro Portable CPS. No way to make it work or look like the APX CPS.