XTS/XTL nor XPR radios unmuting with QC-II Tones

[sfd745]

I have a problem with QC-II decoding on VHF Motorola radios, and I do not know what I am doing wrong. This is an issue on my XTL-5000’s, XPR 6550, XPR 4550, and XTS5000s.



The page is sent out on its correct frequency, the A/B tones are correct. It trips our minitor pagers no problem, as well as all of our Kenwood and Vertex radios.



The radios in question are:

• XTL5000 – Flash 500201-000000-6 (v.20.50.09)
• XTS5000 – Flash 580008-001486-4 (v.20.50.09)
• XPR6550 – R01.12.17
• XPR4550 – R01.12.17

Starting with the XTL / XTS:

• Radio wide Alert tones enabled for call alert auto reset
• Conventional personality set for Rx only, unmute standard, non-astro
• Signalling set to Quik-Call II, with the correct system number
• Decode is set to selective call decode with “AND” unmute type
• Quik Call II personality is set for a-b/c-d, PPT sidetone, with proper tones
• System pre-time is set at 250, in-call is set for auto w/carrier
• Channel is proper personality, proper channel, carrier squelch (tones are sent without pl)

The XPRs:

• QC-II signalling is call alert with voice
• A-b/c-d, auto with carrier, long sidetone, 250 pretime
• Codes are correct
• Channel is set as receive only
• No pl
• Signal system is set for correct QC-II
• Reference requency is default
• Signal squech is set for and
• Unmute is set for standard.

These radios have been tested with a service monitor generating tones with and without PLs, a TK-5210 generating tones with and without PLs, and with our dispatch center transmitting (without PL).



When the radios are on the regular channel, they hear the tones and voice. When the radio is unmuted on the page channels, they hear the tones and voice. They will not alert in any way shape or form, nor will they unmute. All of the Kenwood and Vertex radios, as well as the minitors work just fine, with several sitting next to these radios when they are being tested.



I have never run into this issue and have had XTS5000s work with QC-II paging before without issue. Any help and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[n3obl]

Has anyone tested the console to make sure the tone is proper frequency and level? If there not enough modulation it might not trip the radios.

 

[sfd745]

Console is fine. Like I said, the minitors and Kenwoods trip fine. We have approximately 20 Motorolas that will not trip via console, service monitor, or radio transmitting the tones. If it was just the XTLs or XPRs, I would say it was a firmware issue, but the fact its 20ish radios of different flavors (all the most recent firmwares) its got to be a programming issue, right?

 

[KevinC]

May or may not be your issue, but maybe the Motorola radios have a tighter spec and are less tolerant of an off frequency tone.

I saw something similar on a transition from XTS5000 to APX6000. The APX was less tolerant of the out of alignment Quantar.

 

[12dbsinad]

What are your tone frequencies? Are they really low? I see it time and time again distorted paging tones coming from the console especially with low tones to try and get the radios/pagers to trip in noisy conditions. The pagers and kenwoods are probably funnels compared the the M portables. If you have access to a service monitor, see how clean the tones are on the next call. A lot of "techs" set the tone levels by "yep, sounds good".

 

[sfd745]

The XTLs and XTSs have been tuned and aligned by me personally, who has been working on radios in both a professional and personal level for 13 years. The XPRs on the other hand were handled by a different radio shop.

I cannot speak for the distortion coming from the dispatch console, but I can speak to the complete, certified accuracy of my calibrated service monitor. None of the radios trip by that, nor from the TK-5210 or XTL5000 being used as backups. I have attempted both over the air tests, and direct connection from service monitor to antenna port.

The paging tones are in the 500 range, however, I have tested these radios with tones ranging from 500, to 1100 and 1900, and none of them are unmuting.

I have a clean, unprogrammed XTS5000 that I am going to try today. I have never seen this before. I have XTS5000s in service that work great for paging on a different system without any issues. The personalities are set up the same in those radios as they are this customers.

 

[Tech21]

Can you PM me your codeplugs?

 

[wa8pyr]

The XTLs and XTSs have been tuned and aligned by me personally, who has been working on radios in both a professional and personal level for 13 years. The XPRs on the other hand were handled by a different radio shop.

I cannot speak for the distortion coming from the dispatch console, but I can speak to the complete, certified accuracy of my calibrated service monitor. None of the radios trip by that, nor from the TK-5210 or XTL5000 being used as backups. I have attempted both over the air tests, and direct connection from service monitor to antenna port.

The paging tones are in the 500 range, however, I have tested these radios with tones ranging from 500, to 1100 and 1900, and none of them are unmuting.

I have a clean, unprogrammed XTS5000 that I am going to try today. I have never seen this before. I have XTS5000s in service that work great for paging on a different system without any issues. The personalities are set up the same in those radios as they are this customers.

What kind of repeater is in use? We use a Harris Mastr III and found that the audio bandpass filtering was affecting some of the lower frequency tones, and the "real" radios (XTS5000 and Harris XL200P) were not detecting those tones very well as a result. It wasn't a big deal as we were right in the middle of switching to a new tone plan using higher audio frequencies, but it did cause me to alter my programming schedule so I could do the agencies whose "old" tones were in the 300-600hz range first.

As @12dbsinad noted, also check the output level of the tones from the consoles; if it's too hot, it will definitely affect decoding.

 

[mpcpsrego1]

Your using "AND" unmute type on a CSQ frequency? My understanding with QC-ll is that you should be using "OR" on CSQ and "AND" with a PL/DPL. I program our XTS/XTL/XPR's this way for our volunteer FD and never ran into any problems and they properly decode and alert as they should. We run 2 paging channels one countywide set to "OR" on QC-ll with CSQ and one dept specific set to "AND" on QC-ll with a PL. The countywide is in a scan zone and the dept specific is not in a scan zone especially on the XTS, my experience is they won't open up if they are assigned into a scan zone or if scan is enabled while parked on the dept page channel.