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XTS2500 audio clips out

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SlipNutz15

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I've search the forums multiple ways before typing this.

I have an XTS2500 VHF and it seems that at the end of certain transmissions or noise thresholds the audio clips off and it takes approximately three seconds before the audio comes back through. Am I missing some audio setting that stops the radio from receiving transmissions over a certain volume threshold? I have set my AGC to the different parameters that I found online with the output and total settings at -3 and 12 with AGC turned on for all analog and digital. Should I turn this off for the analog settings or is there some other setting that can control this?

It either feels like it is clipping audio or is being forced back into scan. My scan settings are Pri1 is Selected Channel and Pri2 is main dispatch and then the rest of my scan list as programmed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 

ofd8001

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If this is being noticed while on a non-priority channel, it might have something to do with priority checking.

For example if your scanlist is something like this:

1-Channel 1 (and is the selected channel therefore Pri1)
2-Main Dispatch (your Pri2)
3-Channel X
4-Channel Y
5-Channel Z

If the radio is "listening" to #5 (Channel Z), it goes back to #2 to check for activity as well as #1. So that could be a reason for the skipping.

Having said that, my experience with Motorola radios is that checking for priority channel activity is a lot more frequent than every 3 seconds as you mentioned. Also the amount of time spent on checking for priority activity is very brief, unless there was some kind of unmodulated carrier. Priority channel sampling was very unnoticeable, unless some tones were involved, in which case I would hear the "skipping".

I'd probably check to see if the frequencies were exact and whether the bandwidth is correct (narrow versus wide).
 

SlipNutz15

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I'm pretty certain it's not the scanning issue. This is happening on the primary channel. I have that to check every 500ms. I know what the sounds like and I'm on Channel 1 which is Dispatch and its that channel that is doing it. All frequencies are NFM.
 

Mars_P25

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Are you using MDC IDs?

Sounds like your MDC DOS Mute is enabled with an extended period of muting time.
 

SlipNutz15

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More info/clarification. The audio clips out after random transmissions. It could be county talking or after a post-PTTID, there's no real rhyme or reason. My mute is AND/OR but it also did it with STD. I have DOS muting turned off because of units with post-PTTIDs.
 

MTS2000des

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If it happens when you are NOT scanning and only on one particular channel, it may be the carrier is exceeding the RX pass band. The XTS/XTL are very sensitive to over-deviated carriers, PL/DPL deviation being low/off frequency, and will mute out like that.

My XTS2500 VHF dislikes a certain local ham repeater that goes a hair outside of 4.9KHz on audio peaks (usually caused by someone using some turdy ham radio with super wide audio) and my RX audio clips. Other radios like my Icom iDAS F-3261 don't seem to care.
 

SlipNutz15

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Thank you. This channel in question is a simulcast repeated channel. It's the main channel we use in the county and rarely deviate from it so I haven't been able to see if any other channels are like that.

I did notice last night while using it, it clipped off and county was transmitting and it did not unmute until after they were done talking. As it knew there was traffic in the channel but could not unmute until their transmission was completed for some reason. Does that give anyone any ideas what to check in my CPS?
 

chief21

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I agree that the 'over-deviation' issue is the most likely cause. If the affected channels are set to the proper deviation in the CPS, it might be necessary to have your radio RX deviation adjustment checked by a technician with a service monitor.

I'll mention another possibility that recently solved a similar simulcast reception with my scanner. Check the AGC setting and set it to the opposite of what it is currently and see if that makes any difference.

John
 

SCPD

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Valid points made here. Check your squelch level in cps ensure it isn't below default 5 in the personalities regardless if your using pl or dpl. See if anything changes. Seen similiar before without going into too much detail so one more thing to check on the list to see.
 

SlipNutz15

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@chief21 - you think I should change my AGC settings to 12 and -3? I'll check that tonight and give it a try.
 

n2hbx

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Are your XTS channels programmed as narrowband? If so, and you're trying to listen to frequencies that for whatever reason haven't been narrowbanded, you will see this symptom.

Larry
 

SlipNutz15

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No, thee tore county system has been narrowbanded at least two years ago and all my channels are set as such.
 

SlipNutz15

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I'm not sure. I have a local radio shop I can take it to if needed. I want to see if these audio setting changes I made fix the problem first.

Thanks to all who have responded. I appreciate it.
 
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I had the same thing happen on a xts5000. I can't remember what the firmware version was when it was happening, as it was a few years ago. I got a firmware upgrade and it fixed my issue. As stated above an alignment is probably a good idea too.
 

SlipNutz15

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I had the radio aligned first to see if that was the issue; it was not.

I then noticed that my firmware was V8 and the newest was V20. I had the radio Flashed and it works perfectly now. I def was not on my game noticing which Firmware Version it was. WOW.
 
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