XTL2500 Maintenance Mode

[Dogwelder]

Welcome to the bane of my existence: The XTL2500 05 control head radio.

I've been having problems with a customer's ambulance. It is a dual head configuration in a newer Ford E350 or somesuch thing with the ambulance body. Ever since the installation, they have complained of the radio going into maintenance mode when they start up the rig. Of course this only happened occasionally and never in front of me or any other tech who visited them. Then one day, I saw it happen and I sprang into action! The first thing I did was relocate the power for the radio directly to the battery instead of the post that it was attached to inside the cab, and moved both constant leads for the control heads to the battery as well. I also moved both ignition sense leads to the same relay in the fuse panel behind the driver's seat. The problem went away, the customer was satisfied, and I went on to my next service call.


(The same service call comes in time and time again, with basically the same outcome....the problem goes away and comes back.)


A few month go by, and the customer calls again reporting the same problem. This time another technician took the call and discovered a pinched (read: crushed) rear control head cable. He also replaced the front control cable and....wait for it....the problem went away. But then, as you may have guessed, the problem came back.

Fast-forward to today, I replaced both the rear and front control cables, but about one in every five times of turning the radio on, the rear head would complain about a missing control head and boot up normally, while the front head went into maintenance mode.

Now here's where it gets interesting:

I completely disconnected the rear control head, and cycled the radio on and off. Of course the front control head first complained about the missing control head, then booted up normally. I repeated this process at least fifty times without incident. Clearly, I was on to something. For those of you not familiar with the xtl2500 05 head, there are not one, but two blue-colored ports where you can connect a control cable. One is right next to the power/speaker plug and the other one is directly next to the first one. I was always told it did not matter which side you had the control cable plugged into. I switched to the other port, and voila! The problem disappeared! I cycled that poor radio relentlessly, perhaps 150 times and it did not fail even once!


Can anybody shed some light on this phenomenon? Have I been getting lucky and choosing the right port on all my dual-head installations? Does it really matter which port you use or did I merely please the radio gods somehow today?

[Motoboy]

I have seen a similar problem, but a trip to the depot was my solution. The radio was under warranty and the customer had not yet switched over to the P25 trunked system. I had the cable plugged into the connector next to the power/speaker connector.

Pretty much the same thing, about every third time the radio was powered on, the rear head would go into maintenance mode. Swapped front and rear heads, and the problem followed the head.

/\/\b

[pfd radio]

I don't know if you squared this one away, it has been a couple of months since your post. I had two that would go into maintenance mode XTL2500 single remote head.

Back to the Depot - Firmware issue with a number of radios from a lot

Got the back - No Issues