Thanks for the replies, everyone. I only heard the noise once and that was it. There's no obvious pressure / thermal damage on the battery, and it didn't feel any warmer than normal. Battery is Motorola OEM, not aftermarket. At any rate, I'll definitely be keeping a closer eye on it the next time it...

Hi all, I'm setting up a small fleet of XTS radios with MDC, including paging options. I've found that when the transmitting radio does not receive an ACK from the targeted unit, it will retry the page several times before giving up (five in total, in this case). I'd like to reduce this retry number...

So I'm currently sitting next to my IMPRES charger while it's reconditioning a Lithium battery for my XTS 2500. A couple minutes ago I heard a single, somewhat loud snap / pop noise that I think came from the unit. No obvious odors, smoke, or visual indicators of any problems. This was near the end ...

Not to muddy the waters any further here, but I have an XTS2500 with Q52 Q53 FPP in the flashcode, and my Direct Frequency checkbox is greyed-out, but also checked, strangely. I am able to freely change PL on my Direct/Talkaround assignments without any issues. Radio is R12, if that helps. Sounds l...

Direct Frequency Enabled is greyed out because you have FPP in your flashcode. Not to muddy the waters any further here, but I have an XTS2500 with Q52 Q53 FPP in the flashcode, and my Direct Frequency checkbox is greyed-out, but also checked, strangely. I am able to freely change PL on my Direct/T...

Hi all, I noticed recently that the color of the silicone gasket surrounding the battery terminals on my XTS radios is different -- one is green, while the other one is blue. Is there any significance to the color difference? Does the color indicate a different band or revision? Just wondering if an...

This might be a dumb question, but given that the software ADP flash option is so cheap, what's the appeal to going with hardware ADP? Does it have something to do with the strength of the algorithms on hardware vs. software?

bezking wrote:That's GE-STAR signaling. It was available as an option on some Motos, the MTS come to mind.

Interesting. No way to decode it on my XTS, I presume? Are there any software programs out there that will decode GE-STAR?

So I was listening to some of the local public transit channels the other day, and I noticed that I kept hearing a form of signaling that I'd never really heard before. It sounds sort of like MDC, but different enough that I'm pretty sure that's not what it is. It sounds like there are two distinct ...

The passive antenna system sort of works, but there are some big buts. You need to look at the coax cable loss between the donner antenna and where your re radiated antenna will be. You will not be able to go very far from the second antenna and still have the passive system work. You will also nee...

Thanks again for the followup, Bill. The updated info you posted is actually rather encouraging, as the building we're trying to do this fill-in coverage for is only about 1000 feet away from the repeater as the crow flies, and should have line of sight on the transmit antenna (I need to confirm thi...

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies so far. To address what's been discussed: BDAs are definitely out, owing to budget constraints. I'd love to go that route, but it's just not realistic in this case. Voting is possible (and has been talked about for future work), but at this time is probably not s...

I'm looking to improve transmit / reception in the basement of a building where currently, our portable units can sometimes hear the repeater, and rarely break squelch into it. I've been reading up on Radiax and its deployment in situations like this, and it looks like something that might work for ...

Sorry -- just to clarify, that should read as impedance mismatch, not impedance match. Still, that's probably only one of many problems with this idea...

Out of curiosity, is there an adapter for using 2 prong motorola accessories on a 3.5mm jack cell phone? While I have no idea if there exists such an adapter (and I'd have to guess not), you may want to check the characteristic impedance of the mic element that jack is designed for before you start...

A few years back, one of the engineers over at PolyPhaser wrote a series of articles on lightning protection for QST. The articles have a wealth of information, and were written to be accessible for any skill level. Definitely worth checking out, in addition to what has already been posted in this t...

Not to dredge up old topics, but has the LIberty gotten any closer to being purchased by mere mortals? I dunno about you guys, but I wasn't born with GSA schedules in my hands I think I would trade my XTS gear for the Liberty based on the programming software alone...

Weird, I found myself having this same problem just the other day, and somehow, after messing with the CPS for several minutes, I fixed it... except I have no idea what I did to fix it. Could you post what you did to solve the problem, by any chance?

I agree with you for the most part. However, on 2M and 440 MHz, 99.9% of Hams are still using 1957 era FM, though their radios are of a modern design. This way, there is no development of the art, other than maybe 0.1 percent who are using D-Star, a mode that will never catch up to P25. Keep in min...

Yep, it's the warranty date code not the actual manuf. date for reasons stated above. That sort of begs the question -- is there any way to get the actual manufacture date from the battery, maybe from the Impres data? Especially for Li-ion chemistries, charge capacity loss has a strong correlation ...