MOTOTRBO Capacity Plus End User Training

[Jim1348]

As some here may know, I retired from traditional police work at the end of 2010. I am now at a quasi-federal LE agency. Our main system is an encrypted MOTOTRBO Capacity Plus system with 2 repeaters providing 4 simultaneous talk slots. We are also interop participants on a statewide digital trunked 800 mHz system. I have been tasked with training our end users on the MOTOTRBO Capacity Plus. Can anybody suggest some good, appropriate training for end users? Sure, I have Googled this and I have found some videos, but I am looking for suggestions on what fellow members here have seen that is good and current.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, it seems as if some organizations that I have been involved with are sorely lacking adequate training on their radio systems. I have heard cases of fire chiefs being told to switch to channel X. There will often be a long pause and then we hear, "I don't have that channel (or talkgroup)." Later, it will be determined that they DID, in fact, have the channel (or talkgroup) mentioned, but didn't know where it was or how to find it. I could go on and on, but I want to stay focused on what I originally posted.

 

[Mackinaw]

Perhaps you can infer some valuable points from my experience at a very large interop event recently where medical staff were given radios on a MotoTRBO Capacity Plus system:

The rental company that provided the radios created color-coded channel guides that you could put in your pocket which showed the various zones and channel names. While this may not be ideal for long-term users of a radio system, many users did find having a reference sheet was helpful. However, this kind of documentation is useless if the users have no comprehension of the relationship between zones and channels, or don't know how to switch zones! Yes, the hundreds of personnel given radios were never instructed on how to change channels or zones, and some found difficulty on how to turn on the radio. This lead to many cell phone calls between communications personnel and the medical staff in the field, wasting time (both ours and theirs) trying to guide users how to change channels or zones.

If you have the luxury of conducting in-person user training, put a radio in everyone's hands and have them turn on the radio and switch from an arbitrary channel in Zone A to another arbitrary channel in Zone B. This familiarizes them with the channel knob, and allows you to teach them how to use the Zone button (or switch, or whatever your preferred programming method is). Do hands-on training of any other features that are critical to your agency at that time, too - whether that be sending call alerts, messages, etc. And lastly, don't forget to tell your users that they have to charge their radios! (Yes, I've seen that overlooked one too many times.)

 

[mss-dave]

+1 for Mackinaw's post. Here's something additional I ran into training engineering staff to use XTS2500 radios on a smart zone system. If you have the top orange button programmed for emergency tell them first that is an emergency and not a power button. 16 Engineers, every single damn one of them tried to turn the radio on with the orange button flooding the system with emergencies before I had a chance to say another word......

Sent from Samsung G4 on Tapatalk

 

[clbsquared]

"Retention" is the biggest factor I have faced when training someone on a new radio. Some people understand it immediately and others...well...lets just say I'm surprised they were able to get their shoes on the right feet. I've even gone so far as to tape a laminated cheat sheet on the radio. They don't last very long but at least it's a quick reference for a little while.

 

[Jim1348]

.....However, this kind of documentation is useless if the users have no comprehension of the relationship between zones and channels, or don't know how to switch zones! Yes, the hundreds of personnel given radios were never instructed on how to change channels or zones, and some found difficulty on how to turn on the radio.....If you have the luxury of conducting in-person user training, put a radio in everyone's hands and have them turn on the radio and switch from an arbitrary channel in Zone A to another arbitrary channel in Zone B. This familiarizes them with the channel knob, and allows you to teach them how to use the Zone button (or switch, or whatever your preferred programming method is). Do hands-on training of any other features that are critical to your agency at that time, too - whether that be sending call alerts, messages, etc. And lastly, don't forget to tell your users that they have to charge their radios! (Yes, I've seen that overlooked one too many times.)

Thank you very much for your reply. I have dealt with the exact issue that you mention regarding zones and channels. I did radio training in the past and put an XTS2500 in the hands of some officers. Since we are a Capacity Plus user day to day, I assumed a certain level of knowledge. I was wrong, I learned, in making that assumption. At any rate one of the lieutenants, who was in my training, told me later they understood how to change channels. But, when I added in changing zones, I lost them. So, that is one of the things that I will focus on.

Another thing, even though it seems so elementary to us here, is to have them select a simplex channel and have them use it. I might even make a game of it. For example, have them switch their 400 MHZ XPR to simplex Talk Around 4 and call me from down the hall way. Then, with instruction on the XPR, tell them to go to a different zone and simplex channel on the 800 MHz XTS2500. It is so simple, but I think it might help.

The other thing that I want to improve a bit is etiquette. We have way to many user that will get on the radio and just start talking. They don't wait for acknowledgement from dispatch or the user they are calling. At the comm center I used to work for, you would probably get a MCD message to "call radio" and they would correct you wayward ways.

So, without being the "radio Nazi" all I am going to ask for this year is that they wait for acknowledgment. I really don't think that is asking too much, is it?

 

[RO_POL1]

I would recommend printing quick reference cards that you could hand out during radio training.

We had an annual class that ran about three hours. Everyone had a prep in hand and the trainer would walk you through all the functions.

We had 5 different profiles in the radio as well as 8CALL/8TAC, P25 7CALL/7TAC, those of which required going into the menu and the radio had to reboot into conventional mode. Getting it back into our primary TRS mode required more button presses, so as you can probably guess none of the conventional channels got used.

If you don't use those features, they're easy to forget.

It becomes an issue of recurrent training.

We tried to keep it simple so the features you need to access can be done under duress.

Every year we posted "how to's" on the bulletin board and handed out reference cards just to make sure officers and other personnel knew how to change to the "Event" profile which is only used twice a year for major events and there were still some who had issues.

Another thing that will determine your success in providing adequate training is assessing how much interest your trainees are willing to invest.

 

[Jim1348]

Getting some additional information will be helpful for me, too. I "cut my teeth" on conventional radio. (Think Micor and Syntor mobiled. The last conventional portable the county gave me was a Motorola HT1000, if anybody remembers those.) Yup, old fashioned analog narrow band FM. I transitioned to digital, trunked APCO P25 before retiring. The talkgroup scanning was a bit different, but a very nice system to use. I would have loved to have been able to scan both system talkgroups and off-network simplex channels, but I was told you lose priority, which I get.

Here, on our XPR portables there is no scanning. The mobile radios, used inside with an Astron power supply, have an "ALL" mode that seems to monitor all system talkgroups, but it doesn't behave like conventional channel scanning. What we seem to be running up against recently is contractor being assigned radio on a system talkgroup and they will tie it up for long key downs. During that time, other users will try calling us on a different talkgroup, and we don't hear it. I am assuming that the "ALL" mode is, in essence, a non-priority scan method. It doesn't appear as if we can lock talkgroups out of the scan list. In fact, I don't see a scan list, like I am accustomed to on conventional and P25 trunked systems. Is there any means for a more traditional talkgroup scan on MOTOTRBO Capacity Plus? I am assuming not, but I guess I really have no idea. Or, for that matter, if I could simply lock out, like the old nuisance channel delete, a busy talkgroup, that would help immensely.

 

[phonebuff]

While it's by no means complete and I have been asking Motorola to "improve" it for years now.

CPS can generate two versions of a "Customer Handout" by going to File / Reports and selecting a format.

It makes a good starting point for developing a handout specific to your code plugs.

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