I'm working with an agency (M) that has TA enabled on their radios via the concentric switch at the top. They are telling me that the radios can receive but not transmit while on TA.
The first time this happened I suspect it was a bad radio. Testing the radio found a much higher TX power than it's programmed for. An audio test (tuning to the problem channel with TA enabled) resulted in a lot of static. I could barely hear my coworker. Changing the mics didn't help and the radio is going in for repair. (The radios are programmed for 5W and this was outputting 7.5+. Normally we don't consider an extra 1.5 or so to be an issue, but I thought maybe the radio got damaged with the extra power)
Recently this happened again while they were coordinating with another agency, S. M was using the TA function on S's repeated channel. When they'd go off TA they couldn't transmit because of an incorrectly programmed TX frequency. This has since been fixed. But the RX is correct as is S's PL tones in M's radios. M could hear S, but not the other way around.
Other stuff:
-Both agencies are VHF. These frequencies are 150-160MHz.
-Both agencies have their own repeater. M are experienced users and I'm confident they are using their radios correctly.
-M's radios are very new, ~8 months.
-M's repeater uses a DPL and S's uses a PL. These are programmed correctly.
-I connected another of M's radios to a modscope. As far as I can tell, the radios are entering TA correctly (changing between Tx and TA frequencies).
-My boss said that TA changes the PL/DPL tones but the modscope didn't show any changes. Unsure if Motorola's documentation supports this.
-I've read that DMR radios on TA can interfere with radios using the repeater, but this issue is radio-to-radio, not radio-to-repeater so I don't know if this applies or not.
-I know that TA is usually enabled by a channel programmed with Rx=Tx and I've read that numerous times while researching this. We do that for our city. In this situation I did not, I think because I wasn't aware of this issue.
-TA range is about a mile, depending. If M and S were on a scene I don't think they'd be over a mile apart.
Does anyone have any insights? Clearly it isn't working, but that doesn't tell me WHY it's not working. Even if M had the wrong Tx frequency for S's repeater, the TA should still work because it operates on the output frequency of the repeater.
The first time this happened I suspect it was a bad radio. Testing the radio found a much higher TX power than it's programmed for. An audio test (tuning to the problem channel with TA enabled) resulted in a lot of static. I could barely hear my coworker. Changing the mics didn't help and the radio is going in for repair. (The radios are programmed for 5W and this was outputting 7.5+. Normally we don't consider an extra 1.5 or so to be an issue, but I thought maybe the radio got damaged with the extra power)
Recently this happened again while they were coordinating with another agency, S. M was using the TA function on S's repeated channel. When they'd go off TA they couldn't transmit because of an incorrectly programmed TX frequency. This has since been fixed. But the RX is correct as is S's PL tones in M's radios. M could hear S, but not the other way around.
Other stuff:
-Both agencies are VHF. These frequencies are 150-160MHz.
-Both agencies have their own repeater. M are experienced users and I'm confident they are using their radios correctly.
-M's radios are very new, ~8 months.
-M's repeater uses a DPL and S's uses a PL. These are programmed correctly.
-I connected another of M's radios to a modscope. As far as I can tell, the radios are entering TA correctly (changing between Tx and TA frequencies).
-My boss said that TA changes the PL/DPL tones but the modscope didn't show any changes. Unsure if Motorola's documentation supports this.
-I've read that DMR radios on TA can interfere with radios using the repeater, but this issue is radio-to-radio, not radio-to-repeater so I don't know if this applies or not.
-I know that TA is usually enabled by a channel programmed with Rx=Tx and I've read that numerous times while researching this. We do that for our city. In this situation I did not, I think because I wasn't aware of this issue.
-TA range is about a mile, depending. If M and S were on a scene I don't think they'd be over a mile apart.
Does anyone have any insights? Clearly it isn't working, but that doesn't tell me WHY it's not working. Even if M had the wrong Tx frequency for S's repeater, the TA should still work because it operates on the output frequency of the repeater.