Motorola LTR

[vamedic826]

I am purchesing a Moto LTR Trunking system this yeae, and I am asking is there any advice that the experts out here would give and Tips, Tricks to have programmed or installed or in general any suggestion that will make this go as smoth as possiable?

[wavetar]

It would be very helpful to know what type of repeaters & controllers you are planning to use, as well as what field radio models, in order to give proper advice.

[vamedic826]

Ok sorry about tht I hope this helps.

8 Channel LTR Trunked System with MTR3000S,
UHF Band,
About 350 HT-1250ls Hand-Held Radio's
75 CDM 1550ls+ Mobile Radio's,
Motorola MIP5000 4 Channel Dispatch Console.

[vamedic826]

Anyone?

[desperado]

Programming is going to depend on the controller. Never seen a Motorola LTR controller but we use the Trident units on our LTR system and they work well.
Your infrastructure is going to consist of a number of repeaters for the channels needed, a receive multicoupler with window filter and a transmitter combiner for connecting the repeaters to the TX antenna.

You will have 2 antenna's, one for TX the other for RX. When you order the combiner and multicoupler you will need to provide the manufacture with the frequencies you are using and they will tune the window filter and combiner at the factory.

Run good cable on both TX and RX between the repeaters and the combiners. LMR400 need not apply here, use hardline. I advise fsj1 for RX and fsj4 for TX. If you are going high on a tower, a TTA (tower top amplifier) is advisable for receive. It's not for boosting receive (although it can) but serves to overcome the loss of the receive signal in the RX antenna line down the tower. Most are adjustable in gain, don't get nuts and crank the gain up all the way. LTR uses a data word for channel assignment and is then standard analog FM. Lots of RX gain can cause interference issues from co-channel users if you are hearing into their coverage areas. So unless you have FB8 licenses (regional coverage frequencies) as opposed to FB2 (standard coverage areas) not getting crazy with gain settings is important. Best bet is have the full system design in hand when talking to the folks about the multicoupler and TX combiner. This means the antenna model, repeater model, cable you are using on the tower. Antenna height, full cable length (down the tower, in the structure, through the lighting suppression and over to the combiner networks) if the cable will be different IE 1 5/8 on tower and ldf4 in building, this will be important to tell them as well. They will set everything and you simply install it. Unless you have RF engineering experience, don't try saving money with buying untuned components and doing it yourself. The money saved will be eaten up in time screwing with the system and ultimately buying more parts for it.

As far as LTR specific programming. Distribution of home channels for users is important. LTR unlike Smart X systems doesn't have a control channel per say. Each channel in the system can be assigned as a home channel. It's advisable have a round robin approach with home channel assignments. The home channel is where it's assigned users will get channel assignments and that home channel must be up for that to happen. If you assign everyone the same home channel, and you have that repeater fail, everyone will be off the system. If you round robin, only the users on that home channel will be effected.

Home channels are assigned by user group. I assume you are going to be selling air time. So customer A would have home channel 1 customer B would be channel 2 and so on until you reach the number of channels and then repeat. Multiple customers can have the same home channel, if the channel is busy, they will be assigned a different channel so it's not like a community repeater which if in use would not allow another user on until the channel clears. But if the home channel is down, that can cause issues.