MC2500 Issues

[TheOCAstro]

Hello all, once again I need your expert advice, just set up a MC2500 with (4) cdm 1250s and Gai-tronics Remote adapters. I'm having problems with the following issues:

MC2500 will have a delay of up to and maybe over a second when sending out an alert tone, at the console you will hear two tone before the portable hear any so basicaly the portables are getting the third tone is this normal, programming or hardware problem.

When the MC2500 sends out a Call-Alert, Radio disable or Sat request page (bascically any page) the console cycles the pages so fast the portables arnt getting acknowleged, and the page fails, when the portables transmitt they show thier ID on the console so I know the radio is getting the ID packet, is this programming, hardware or a problem with the portable. (using xts 3ks) Also when the portables activate thier emergency button it takes about 5 to 6 trys for the console to ack the emergency, when channel is clear.

When setting up a unselect speaker to the MC2500 the audio was too low and distorted had to switch back to the console, tried both regular speakers and powered amplified speakers, looking to see how others have set up thier unselect speaker to see if I'm doing something wrong using the wrong equip. or its something in programming. PS: all audio on the console sounds great.

Appreciate any help you could give....................

[HumHead]

I ran into the same problems with an almost identical installation. The problem is that the MC2500 is sending the signaling audio before the CDMs and adapters actually have time to decode the tone keying data and get on the air.

In the MC2500 programming software there is a field for pre-delay. On my installation, between radio keying and repeater access, I found that I had to set it around 400 mSec in order to ensure that the signaling data was being reliably transmitted without getting cut off. Unfortunately, I do not have the appropriate software on this computer, so I cannot look at it to find the exact field. If you are unable to locate it, I can take a look on a different computer a little later.

I am not sure of the cause of your unselect audio problem. I would note that in the installation mentioned above, two out of three remotes had to be sent in during the first six months following installation for very low or distorted audio from the internal speaker. Oddly the handsets continued to function. Given that I had two units with the identical problem in a short period of time, I tend to suspect a design / manufacturing defect.

[TheOCAstro]

Yes, the installation is identical because I copied yours since you obviously know what your doing. (Thanks by the way)

Ok so would this mean that I would have to set the MC2500 to pre ID if I increase the pretime?? as it is now its set on post? and which pretime would it be the "Leading pretime" "Trailing pretime" or "RAC pretime"?

[MassFD]

I have also had problems using radio check with tone remote adapters, the portable would receive the packet but return the ACK so quickly that the base would miss it because of delays going from tx to rx.

this was with Zetron 4020 console and CDM 1250 radios using tone remote adapters from 3 diffrent manfacturers.

for it to work properly these events happen

(1) console sends xmit command
(2) remote adapter hears xmit comand
(3) xmitter keys

OK so far as the portable hears the packet

(4) console drops the guard tone
(5) tone remote adapter looses guard tone

this is where problems start, tone remote waits x number of ms before unkeying xmitter

(6) xmitter unkeys
(7) rx decodes pl or dpl

decode takes x number of seconds

(8) rx receives clipped ack from portable and sends it down the wireline to the console
(9) console hears clipped ack, it's corrupted so it does nothing
(10) entire cycle repeats 3 more times till console gives up.

the fix was to get custom firmware for the tone remote adapter that shortened the unkey after loss of guard tone (could cause problems later if line has dropouts)

build a timer that put the CDM into Carrier Squelch on xmit and held it for 2 seconds after unkey

I know some portables have programable ack delay but not all on my system have this feature hence the workaround

MDC can do some wierd things

[TheOCAstro]

Ok, at this point I'm willing to try anything, I will check and see if the XTS 3ks have a programmable ack delay and if they do, where should it be or where should I start trying to test higher numeber of delay or shorter??