Astro Saber III Modat Signaling

[matrix2831]

Hi, any of you say what is the firmware offer Modat Signaling for Astro Saber III ?

 

[Magnus]

It is a flashcode option, it works on all normal firmware (not sure about the 9600 firmware branch)

 

[xpr8300]

You may experience muffled audio on the Modat enabled channels.

 

[Mars]

You may experience muffled audio on the Modat enabled channels.

The muffled audio is present in the R07.xx.xx firmware. In R05.xx.xx firmware, it sounds fine. But MODAT is still a useless, bastard option for skript kidd|es. It requires a dedicated MODAT channel to be in the radio, due a CPS bug requiring a channel to be available for MODAT emergency slaving. It's genuinely stupid.

 

[HA5BRG]

Hi there,

I have been searching the net for useful data regarding MODAT signalig in the last few days. I have searched RR, BatBoard and other sites suggested by my good old friend, Google.

Guess what? I've found nothing. So I have ended up here, as always And I have some questions about MODAT.

The first one is: is it forbidden to talk about this (like lab tools), or can I go on?

 

[Magnus]

You can reverse engineer modat all you want.

 

[HA5BRG]

How? I'll need some guidiance.

 

[cyrus]

The big question is why?

 

[Avery Johannssenn]

Here's a tone signalling chart made by Midian. http://www.midians.com/pdf/tone-signaling-charts.pdf

I should warn you that MODAT is a 7-tone signalling format. It only supports a 4 digit ID structure, so the 3 other tones carry data such as status, canned message and emergency. Hence this chart doesn't quite work.



Per 1 adam 12 on BL:

The first four tones are the System tones
1. System Code
2/3. ID "message only"
4. Repeat tone (parity)
5/6/7 are the actual ID code

For your listening pleasure:

 

[HA5BRG]

Why? Because I have never seen a MODAT-capable radio in my life. In my country the ASTRO / ASTRO25 series is unknown and non-supported by Moto dealers.

Is it possible to set up a call system between two radios with MODAT?

 

[motorola_otaku]

Is it possible to set up a call system between two radios with MODAT?

MODAT is a one-way signalling protocol: subscriber to infrastructure. No call alert, selective calling, or any of the other features supported by MDC or P25.

In the legacy Astro implementation (Astro Saber/Spectra, XTS3000) it only supported two things: ANI (unit ID) and emergency, and ONLY because LAPD had it in their old MX-series portables and wanted to carry it forward. Supposedly there was some status messaging implementation waaay back in the day (1970s) with external encoder equipment but I have never personally seen any of the equipment.

 

[Alpha]

The only way I found to play with some of the MODAT type features was with the rare European GP300 5-T display radios, which had several formats of 5-tone signalling. You could use a "user defined" signalling scheme, and dial in the MODAT tones instead of the standard ZVEI/CCIR/etc. tones. The only problem is they don't have the "repeat digit" tone that MODAT does, so it's not quite the same. However the GP300's would display the ID's and use them for selective calling.

 

[HA5BRG]

I had some GP300-5T models a few years ago but I sold them all when I switched to P25

 

[radioman2013]

A little history on MODAT, it is a one way tone signalling with acknowledge to a message format that was originally designed for cement trucks. It would send messages back to the office based on sensors placed in the cement truck. Like I am ready for a load, barrel turning, oil pressure and the likes. Motorola modified it for use in P.S. radio in the mid 70's for what I call the first go around of common inter-agency communications run by a Fed agency called LEAA . Which was supposed to be on VHF except in cities which were to be on UHF. I put hundreds of these systems in vehicles over the years, the largest user I am aware of was Health and Hospitals New York City EMS (predecessor to FDNY EMS Division). If interested, I could look around for the original service manuals I got in 1976 and post. All the agencies that got Motorola equipment under the grant got MODAT, those that got GE I believe got some form of G-Star.

"It requires a dedicated MODAT channel to be in the radio, due a CPS bug requiring a channel to be available for MODAT emergency."

Not sure about that, all the messaging took place on the actual channel being used, which made for some real anoying listening by the end of your shift,and this did include emergency messages.

 

[sjxts3000]

"It requires a dedicated MODAT channel to be in the radio, due a CPS bug requiring a channel to be available for MODAT emergency."

Not sure about that, all the messaging took place on the actual channel being used, which made for some real anoying listening by the end of your shift,and this did include emergency messages.

It's true... if MODAT if in the flash, then you need at least one personality set for MODAT signaling, otherwise you can't write the codeplug. You don't need to actually "use" that personality, but I believe it needs to be assigned to a zone and channel.

I found MODAT to be more annoying than interesting.

 

[Mars]

I never add MODAT to customer radios. It's useless, serves no purpose, confuses people during programming (emergency mode required) and I just know someone will start kerchunking a repeater with it looking for attention, just like a baby plays with it's rattle in the playpen.

Seriously, MODAT is :alec: No reason to use it. No radios decode the UIDs. Might as well burp into the mic and use that as your on-air signature; it equates to the same thing.

 

[Alpha]

Burping and Farting into the mic is MDC-20.