Question regarding XTS 1500 prgramming and MDC Call Alert

[dmremtp]

Hello everyone, I'm new to radio reference and I'm hoping you guys can give me some advice. My service recently purchased quite a few XTS1500 radios, and while trying to program them we found out they are not compatible with our current radio system configuration. We operate on a UHF repeated system using Quick Call IIB for alerting radios and use MDC for radio identification. The XTS 1500 will not allow Quick Call and MDC on the same conventional personality.
This wasn't the end of the world for us as I was able to configure our system to use MDC Call Alert to alert the radios. For the most part it works fine with one exception. There are 2 radios on each truck that I have set up to alert and transmit with the same identifier. With both radios alerting at the same time they are trying to acknowledge the alert at the same time resluting in feedback over the system. Occasionally the system does not receive the acknowledgement from either radio even though both alert. I'm guessing this is from the 2 radios competing with each other.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve this process? Thanks

 

[MPFD535]

Could you add a letter at the end ? Are the trucks only 3 numbers for example 455A and 455B?

 

[RKG]

Could you add a letter at the end ? Are the trucks only 3 numbers for example 455A and 455B?

If you do that, you could then program your console to page to "455F", which would hit both units (as well as any other unit the first three digits of which were "455") and no acknowledgment would be sent or expected. ("F" is an MDC Stat-Alert wildcard.)

Alternatively, you could give both radios unique "primary" MDC IDs, but then give them both the same 3-digit "secondary" ID. If the console then paged to "Exxx" (where "xxx" is the common secondary ID), both radios would decode the page and, again, no acknowledgment would be sent or expected. (MDC commands addressed to IDs starting with "E" are considered "group" pages and reach all units with the addressed secondary ID.)

 

[dmremtp]

Right now I have my trucks set set up in this manner. Medic 1's MDC alert is B001, Medic 2 is B002. So it would be easy enough to change each individual radio for Medic 1 to 001A and 001B. If I understand correctly, if I go this route I program my console to page 001F; then it will alert all radios with the 001 prefix. Do the radios still try to acknowledge the alert with this set up?

RKG, with your alternative suggestion, do I use the secondary ID or the variable ID in the MDC set up? The variable ID field only uses 3 digits, that's why I was wondering.

Thanks, Dave

 

[dmremtp]

Sorry, I read the reply I again and saw the answer to my question about whether or not the radios will try to acknowlege the alert.

 

[RKG]

. . . RKG, with your alternative suggestion, do I use the secondary ID or the variable ID in the MDC set up? The variable ID field only uses 3 digits, that's why I was wondering.

Thanks, Dave

The group call ID in Astro 25 CPS is called "Variable ID."