OT: M/A-COM M7100 questions re: programming, display & CGSel

[Johnny Grep]

I am about to get a M7100 remote mount radio that was last programmed with ProGrammer R20, and I have the almighty R17. Is R17 & R20 backwards compatible or am I going to have to create a new personality? Anything I should be wary of by doing this?

Also, how does the display work in Conventional mode - does it display the System Name on the 1st line or the ConvSet name? Does the 2nd line display the Channel Name or is it the other way around? Is there any way to change this?

I believe these radios can do CG Select (MPL), is this true or does it need the FPP feature?

I know this is a Motorola forum but this'll get more views than other forums

Thanks.

[RESCUE161]

I can only give info regarding Programmer 18. If I have a radio that is programmed with 18 and try to read it with 17, it will not read, but I can write a new personality with 17 and all will be fine. It just sucks having to do everything from scratch.

As far as the display goes, line 1 is the set name and line 2 is the channel name. I don't see a way to change it in 18.

Mine has FPP on it, so I don't know if it's just not showing up on my pers or not, but I can't find the option to do MPL.

These are great radios with a TON of memory. I have mine set up with 12 analog and 2 P25 conventional sets and each set allowed 64 channels. I'm not sure how many sets are allowed, but I'm sure it would satisfy everyone's needs.

[Johnny Grep]

I can only give info regarding Programmer 18. If I have a radio that is programmed with 18 and try to read it with 17, it will not read, but I can write a new personality with 17 and all will be fine. It just sucks having to do everything from scratch.

As far as the display goes, line 1 is the set name and line 2 is the channel name. I don't see a way to change it in 18.

Mine has FPP on it, so I don't know if it's just not showing up on my pers or not, but I can't find the option to do MPL.

These are great radios with a TON of memory. I have mine set up with 12 analog and 2 P25 conventional sets and each set allowed 64 channels. I'm not sure how many sets are allowed, but I'm sure it would satisfy everyone's needs.

About Line 1, is it the ConvSet Name or the System Name? Each system has a ConvSet associated to it (can't figure out why they did this though)...

About MPL, I think you need to set up option CG SEL in the menu, have you tried it?

[RESCUE161]

The sets are just that, sets of frequencies. The name on the top line of the radio is the actual system name. I guess they did it that way to keep conventional, P25 and trunked systems seperated. The system is like a zone in a Motorola radio and the set is like the personality.

As far as MPL, I've never tried to set it up. Sounds cool though.

[Johnny Grep]

CG SEL works fine on a P7100 (just tried it) but I haven't tried it on the M7100, as I cannot power it up. I think I'm missing the ignition sense wire. Where is it located? I have a yellow wire with a spade connector that comes out of the control head's DB25 plug. Could it be Ignition Sense?

[RESCUE161]

Yep, that's it.

[Johnny Grep]

I got it to work. CG SEL works as advertised; however where can one program the tone options in CG SEL?

I get 16 tones (randomly assigned it seems), then option 17 is NO TONE & option 18 is PERSTONE. I've looked everywhere in ProGrammer but can't find any menu to program CG SEL...

Also, the M7100 was keyloaded but I can't get it to TX in encrypted AEGIS anymore. It receives secure traffic correctly but cannot transmit (the PVT key gives me an invalid key tone). I selected DISP KEY in the menu and I believe it says something like "SYS KEY = 1?" (that might not be the exact message, I'd need to go take a look in the garage) - the "?" makes me wonder if something got corrupt in the programming. Unencrypted AEGIS works fine both ways, and so does P25 (btw P25 rules).

The tech who first programmed the radio wanted to dump a P7100's programming into the M7100 (which theoretically works) but might have wiped the key or screwed something up. I also suspect there might be a safety measure when the radio loses power that restricts encryption features. Any clue?