XTS2500/5000 - Alphatag inconvinient limitations

[MotFAN]

Hi all!

I am got tired of 'cloning' (I mean drag'n'drop data between 2 copies of Astro25 software) XTL radios to XTS2500/5000. XTL to XTS4000 'clone' works smoothly, because XTS4000 can accept up to 14 symbols for Zone name and up to 14 symbols for Channel name (it uses 2 different lines like XTL). But XTS2500 and XTS5000 can accept only up to 12 symbols for both kind of names. But minimum acceptable symbol quantity for me is: 3 characters for Zone (2 characters for extremely short zone name + 1 for space), so for Channel only 9 symbols remains. It's absolutely not enough, because I should shorter each name. And they become unreadable and unclear. Finally I cannot understand some channels programmed some time ago.

Questions:

1. Any way to force radio to use second text line on LCD for Channel or Zone name? It's exist and used for Enc Key names, Caller ID, Site Search/Display status, etc., but absolutely unused in idle mode. Why?
2. Any way to use horizontal Scroll for Zone/Channel names?

P.S.
Pictures come from Google. One shows empty second line, but another shows radio with active Site D/S function (or something else).

 

[triptolemus]

No, and no.

The second line isn't absolutely unused in "idle" mode. The second line will display the radio alias if populated in CPS.

 

[Alpha]

What trip said, I typically use it for radio unit identification, for ham use, typically callsign and band.

 

[Avery Johannssenn]

Those images look familiar. I took them back in 2008 for an ebay listing.

The second line of text is simply the radio alias ID. Unlike softID, it's a local function, which is essentially a digital label for the radio. It doesn't get transmitted OTA. If you've enabled radio ID, that line will populate with the MDC/ASTRO ID of whatever radio you're receiving.

I too wish Motorola would've given us two lines for Zone/Channel, but what can you do?

 

[MotFAN]

So sad guys, so sad...

 

[tvsjr]

I thought XTS2500/5000 were 14 character, but maybe it's been too long since I've played with one. If you think those are bad, what do you think about Spectras? Or really fun radios like the Yaesu FT50 (4 character)?

 

[MotFAN]

Your forgot Visar. It's just 2 characters.

 

[foxtrotdelta]

I thought XTS2500/5000 were 14 character, but maybe it's been too long since I've played with one. If you think those are bad, what do you think about Spectras? Or really fun radios like the Yaesu FT50 (4 character)?

12 characters is the limit but it's profoundly better than those older radios!!