Xts3000 conventional astro Talkgroups

[Randy's]

In an older Xts3000 I programmed a small 5 channel 3600 bps mixed mode trunked system as conventional. 90% of the traffic is digital so I just programmed the 4 voice channels as astro mode & made up a scan list with just the 4 channels. As far as following the conversation it does a pretty good job. I enabled the TG "display on receive" under the display & menu section. As long as you are monitoring one of the channels, The TG ID is displayed, but when scanning, no ID is ever displayed. Is there a way to have it display a TG ID while scanning? Thanks, Randy

 

[Mars]

Have you tried enabling the Scan ID Display box?

 

[Randy's]

Have you tried enabling the Scan ID Display box?

Thanks for the reply. Yes, but with that checked, it seems to display the active radio ID rather than the TG ID.

 

[Alpha]

There's another menu, I think it's in the "General Radio->Display" parameters, or possibly Astro System parameters, there's a "Talkgroups" tab that selects when and how long talkgroups are displayed before the normal caller ID display takes over.

 

[Notarola]

The place to go is the Advanced tab in Mars's picture. set the Alternating Display Time to 3 seconds or however long you want. Set the Temp Message Display time to 250 ms. Turn off the ID display in the PTT id screen. this should disply the TG info.

 

[Randy's]

The place to go is the Advanced tab in Mars's picture. set the Alternating Display Time to 3 seconds or however long you want. Set the Temp Message Display time to 250 ms. Turn off the ID display in the PTT id screen. this should disply the TG info.

Ok, I set the alternating display time to 3 seconds, the temporary display time to 250 milliseconds, & turned off ID display under the PTT id tab. Now when monitoring any of the channels it displays the the TG for only about 1/4 of a second, so maybe if I set the temporary display to a longer setting that it would be ok, but still when scanning, no ID is ever displayed. Randy

 

[Notarola]

If the TG display is 1/4 sec change the Temp Message Display to 3 seconds or what you like. I should have checked on my 3000 first. With scan Id dispaly enabled it should show the Ids in scan. It is possible that there is a firmware issue where the version of firmware you have dosnt support the ID display in scan. I dont think this is the case but ill look into it.

 

[kevlar1307]

If the TG display is 1/4 sec change the Temp Message Display to 3 seconds or what you like. I should have checked on my 3000 first. With scan Id dispaly enabled it should show the Ids in scan. It is possible that there is a firmware issue where the version of firmware you have dosnt support the ID display in scan. I dont think this is the case but ill look into it.

Hi all- my first post here- awesome forum! Im having this same problem on my xts2500. I've enabled id scan and tried a variety of settings to no avail. I would love to have it display talkgroup ids in conventional scan on my p25 system. I am using talkgroup 65535 so it well unmute on all talkgroups but still can't get it to display them. If anyone finds out anything i would love to hear from you! Thanks!

 

[Randy's]

If the TG display is 1/4 sec change the Temp Message Display to 3 seconds or what you like. I should have checked on my 3000 first. With scan Id dispaly enabled it should show the Ids in scan. It is possible that there is a firmware issue where the version of firmware you have dosnt support the ID display in scan. I dont think this is the case but ill look into it.

Host is R04.01.02. Thanks, Randy

 

[Mars]

Host R04.01.02 is from 1996-1997. That's 12-year-old firmware. I recommend you get a firmware update. Could be part of the problem.

If you need a firmware update, I have a few refreshes left on my iButton key. PM me if you're interested.

 

[Randy's]

Well I have another one with host R07.71.00, I just tried with the same issue. It displays the TG ID ok until you scan, then it's never displayed. I feel like I'm missing something somewhere. Randy

 

[Mars]

Why don't you just program your 3000 with the system key (no one here cares or will give you ****) and use the Conventional scan trick? I use this on my XTS3000 to monitor the exact same type of system you are monitoring, and everything works perfect.

- No chance of ever transmitting on a talkgroup
- No chance of your 3000 ever affiliating on the system
- You get all trunking features such as roaming, talkgroup patching, emergency ID display, multiselect
- No fuss or hassle.

If you need any help, send me a PM and I'll gladly help you get your codeplug configured to do proper RX-only trunking.

Again, no one here is going to suggest you're a criminal for using a system key. Just don't TX on the system.

If you need the system key for the system you're monitoring, I'll gladly make one for you and send it your way. The instructions for doing so are here: http://www.batlabs.com/syskey

Again, it is not illegal to monitor a trunking system. Scanners wouldn't exist if that were the case.

 

[kevlar1307]

Hey guys just my 2 cents. I have a xts2500 and have the system programmed in and do the talkgroup scan trick. Yes it works great! The other thing i do is have the voice channels and scan them conventional in zone two. Why do i do this? It is a relatively new system and i only know a couple talkgroups so when in conventional scan i can use TG 65535 and the radio will unmute on everything on the system. This is handy so that if i hear a talkgroup that i don't have i can log it and try to figure out the usage. The only problem is i can not get it to display the talkgroup number at all! So frustrating! I have heard someone say it will not work in scan only when parked on a channel but i have my doubts. Anyway it does work when not scanning. I use pro96com to log new talkgroups but only the main dispatch channels are used often. last week during a severe weather outbreak i logged 32 new talkgroups which most of them were just people changing thru their channels i think. I have no way to figure out what they belong to that's why i would like to display the talkgroup while in conv scan. Make any sense lol?

 

[Mars]

Kind of makes sense, I think?

I would use a trunking scanner in search mode, or an old POS scanner with discriminator tap/4-level slicer, or 9600-capable scanner with cable/software to log the new 9600 talkgroups. (I don't have any 9600 where I am, so I'm not experienced in what software is available for doing what Trunker or Trunk88 can do on 3600 systems.)

But yeah...using a good radio like the 2500 or a 5000, to monitor digital trunking, set up properly, works awesome! I can only imagine how frustrating it is to monitor digital talkgroups while scanning the voice channels in conventional mode. Hard to follow conversations on a busy system.

To each and their own. That's what experimentation is all about. Unfortunately there's been a lot of negative responses and information handed out over the years on sites like batboard and radioreference. People like Bezking, who have no $%$@^%@$#% idea what they're talking about and just parrot what they've read on other sites over the years.

USE A SCANNER!!!! No thanks. Scanners don't work worth a damn. /Rant

 

[kevlar1307]

Yea i keep my 396xt hooked up to pro96com control channel decoder most of the time. Like i say i logged 32 new talkgroups the other day. Maybe someone knows more about trunking than i do but would a radio affiliate if they were just switching channels real slow? I know there was not any traffic on these channels except maybe 5 of them so that's what im thinking someone was just going thru the channels in their radio. Which is great for me. I need to get a logging program that will also record the voice as well. It would be nice if the control channel would spit out information on every talkgroup that was on the system without someone affiliating to it. That way we could just turn the decoder on and pop up a list of all available talkgroups. Well i guess i can't have it all just like the rssi and site id.

 

[Mars]

Yes, there are a few ways you'll be able to extract new talkgroups from the control channel:

- Local site affiliation
- Seeing talkgroup activity on a particular site
- If "new" talkgroup is part of a patch or multiselect

Users switching through channels will definitely cause an affiliation, however there's a timer in the radio called "Affiliation holdoff timer", which can be set to cause a set delay before affiliating. This saves battery life and preserves airtime (input of control channel) from getting hammered with unnecessary ISW packets as a user "plays" with the channel knob.

You're right about RSSI and site ID not being available through the conventional scan method, but that's an OK tradeoff for the fantastic audio and RF performance you'll gain by using your Moto instead of a ****ty scanner.

One other thing to keep in mind, is you can set up your site preferences in the Moto, so you give preference to a particular site (over others) if there's way more radio traffic on the tower, than say a neighboring tower with similar signal strength.

I spent the extra time tweaking my MTS2000/XTS3000/XTS5000 codeplugs so they have all the control channels, proper RSSI roaming values (more aggressive roaming) and site preferences. (I also set certain sites to "least preferred".)

Not to plug retardreference too much here, but perhaps there's some talkgroup information in their database which you can use? But if this is a new system, there might not be much out there yet.

 

[orangekitty56]

To each and their own. That's what experimentation is all about. Unfortunately there's been a lot of negative responses and information handed out over the years on sites like batboard and radioreference. People like Bezking, who have no $%$@^%@$#% idea what they're talking about and just parrot what they've read on other sites over the years.

USE A SCANNER!!!! No thanks. Scanners don't work worth a damn. /Rant

Amen to that. Scanners dont work worth a damn is putting it nicely!!

 

[kevlar1307]

Yea i used all the rssi values i found on here except i had to lower the 5A by alot. The radio would not even unmute with it. My county went with a non moto system. Im not sure what to actually call it r but we use mostly kenwood radios. The sites are linked via IP. Im just wondering if it's like smartzone in the aspect that certain talkgroups wont be active on a site unless there is a radio on that site on the talkgroup or if all traffic is simulcasted on all sites except different frequencies. It's a five site with each site having 4-5 channels although i think they have room to expand because i have found additional frequencies for the tower locations licensed but not in use. I guess i will just have to drive close to a remote site with my radio and 396xt and see if the radio missed any traffic.

 

[Mars]

To conserve RF and IP resources, a site (generally) won't rebroadcast traffic unless there's a subscriber unit affiliated to it.

System admins can override this behavior by forcing a talkgroup to broadcast on a site. The benefit to doing that would be for scanners and people using system radios to scan interagency/mutual aid talkgroups.

Where I live, we have one province-wide talkgroup which is supposed to be used by police/fire/ems to coordinate with each other. Well half the time these people are not on the talkgroup, and when the other agency is calling them, they don't hear it because they're not affiliated to it on the particular site. Then they say "We had it on scan!!!". Well unless the system is configured to rebroadcast, regardless of affiliation, no one will hear it on scan

We should start a "My system admin is a moron" sub-forum so we can chat about idiotic configuration issues. You can tell I've got a lot of rage built up from over the years

 

[Randy's]

I'm also in kevlars boat. I do have the system programmed as trunked & it does very well, it's a statewide system & you never know what agency you'll hear on it. So I also put it in conventional mode to see what all is active at any given time. It's a shame there isn't a 65535 talkgroup trick for a trunking personality. It's not a big deal, I've been scanning it for a few years now without any type of ID, just recently figured out it was possible. Thanks for all the input guys.