XTL2500 menu buttons customization

[wsykes41770]

Is there any way to customize the menu buttons on the XTL2500? What we want to do is program two of the buttons to go to the ADMIN and CWIDE (administrative and countywide) channels like you can on the radio in your car. I can't see any way of doing it in the CPS, but I am fairly new to programming these radios and am not an expert with this CPS. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[N4DES]

All you can do is program the functions noted in CPS.

What you can do is program these two locations in seperate zones, but the same channel assignment (e.g. A1 & B1) and use the Zone UP/Zone DN to toggle between them. I do this between my analog & digital assignments that are identical in my XTL1500 that I use for amateur. All the positions in the "A" Zone are analog and those in "B" are DIgital with everything else being the same. I use the Zone to toggle between them.

 

[wsykes41770]

Thanks. I didn't think about using the zone up/dn buttons. I guess that is the best way to do it. The channels I was wanting to program in there are actually in the same zone already. What we are trying to do is make it easier on the officers to switch between dispatch, admin and county wide. We were going to program the home button to go back to dispatch, have a button for admin and a button for county wide. The big problem we have is that we have too many precincts to do more than one template for each one. All of our dispatch channels are in one zone along with county wide. Admin channels are in another zone. I guess we could put county wide in the Home button and use the zone up and zone down keys to switch between admin and dispatch. Any other suggestions?

 

[mikewazowski]

Does the 2500 support One Touch buttons?

I'm not sure if One Touch supports Direct Channel operation but it's worth looking.

 

[wsykes41770]

I can't find anything that says it does, but I may just not be looking in the right place. We have decided to program the HOME button to County Wide and use the ZONE UP/ZONE DOWN keys to switch between Dispatch and Admin. Easy enough to do and is fairly similar to what we have now with the SPECTRAs that we currently use.

 

[RKG]

The feature you are looking for is called Mode Select (or MS1, MS2 and MS3). On the XLT2500 with an O5 head, it is available only on the orange button (usually used for an emergency function), and you only get MS1. However, if you add a DEK or a microphone with a keypad, you can program buttons for all three of MS1, MS2 and MS3.

The MS functions like old "radio buttons" in cars. Once selected on a zone and channel, a long press of the MS button stores that zone and channel. Thereafter, a short press of the MS button from anywhere else will jump you to the stored channel.

On XTS2500 and XTS5000 portables with full keypads, this feature is mappable to the "1", "2" and "3" keys.

 

[wsykes41770]

Thanks for the information. We aren't going to go to the expense of adding either a DEK or a mic with a keypad. It is just too expensive an option. We have over 1000 cars that we would have to outfit. Our workaround of programming the HOME key to County Wide and using the ZONE UP/DOWN buttons will work just fine. Thanks again.