MTS2000 NON-STANDARD PL? HOW?

ssybert · Post by **ssybert** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 6:17 am

hello everyone,

I've got an MTS2000 and need to program a NON-STANDARD PL Tone in it. When I type over one of t he standard ones such as 192.8 with something like 193.0 it tells me it's invalid. I've tried the ol' GP300 trick with the shift key... nothing. So far my Spectra accepted the non-standard tone and so did the cheap GP350. What gives? A radio this new can't do it? Anyone know how to make it accept NON-STANDARD PL tones? A way to hack the codeplug with Hex Workshop? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated as this radio is currently useless on the new system.

Thanks in advance,
Scott.

ssybert · Post by **ssybert** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:58 pm

Nobody?

I really dont want to have to sell this radio for some cheap junk that'll handle non-standard pl because this one wont.

OX · Post by OX » Mon Jun 09, 2003 5:41 pm

Haven't you ever heard "the freaks come out at night"?

Give the whiz bangs time to come home from work, bang the dog, smack the old lady around, down a few beers and then ponder the great questions on the batboard.

EKLB · Post by **EKLB** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 6:59 pm

In all honesty i dont see where 193.0 versus 192.8 would make much difference.

Most if not all good pl toned radios would respond within .5 cycles of the pl its programmed for anyway.

So if you using 193.0 then the radio most likely decodes and encodes other radios any where from 192.5 to 193.5 .

The .5 cycles being plus or minus of the programmed pl tone.

How ever i have in the past had an individual that his repeater was in fact programmed for 69.5 but his p1oo portable would not program the 69.5 but woulde accept 69.3 pl tone.

This radio and repeater both are still operating yet today as i post and he has not complained about non access problems to or from other radios even though they are set to 69.5 and his p100 is set at 69.3.

In your case id try programming .1 cycle up and down of the 193.0 and you may find that the radio will accept one of these if not the 193.0

Also id try the pl that is closest to the 193.0 pl whether its below or above the 193.0= just try the one the radio accepts closest to 193.0

Im willing to bet you will get good results if you can stay within .2 cycles plus or minus of 193.0 if in fact you are at 193.0 on your system.

Good Luck And I Hope This Info Does Some Good For You.

EKLB

ssybert · Post by **ssybert** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 7:50 pm

I shouldn't have used that 192.8 and 193.0 as an example. The non-standard PL I'm using is more than 4hz from a tone on either side of it. This was programmed intentionally to help prevent our system from getting hacked. we've had more trouble than you can imagine and I'm guessing it's from people with "standard" tone scanners built into their modified ham radios. I'm guessing this non-standard tone will keep most, if not all, of the rifraff out. The problem I'm facing now, as I've explained, is that my MTS won't take the non-standard tone. Thanks for the suggestion about trying tones on either side, but I've confirmed neither will work and thats the way we need it. Any help would be appreciated guys.

Thanks as always.

Scott.

Renamon · Post by **Renamon** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 9:05 pm

Just a thought:
You could always hex-edit the .odb file and change the closest tone to the one you want

i.e. 192.8 --->193.4 or whatever...

Like I said, just a thought.....

ssybert · Post by **ssybert** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 9:41 pm

Heh... Actually, I did try that. I changed the last tone... 254.0? to 199.0 and it did not work. The radio programmed successful, and the RSS showed Tone 199.0 came AFTER 250.4. BUT the HEX ID of the tone was OZ. I figured the only thing I was actually changing was what was displayed on the screen. Not the actual frequency the radio emitted for a tone. Does anyone know where in the ODB file the ACTUAL TONE FREQUENCY is stored? Like I said, I believe I changed the DISPLAY TEXT WHICH SAID 254.0 to 199.0 I dont think it actually had any effect on the radio becuse it did not work. Ugh.... Not looking good

Scott.

RapidCharger · Post by **RapidCharger** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:49 am

You may find some answers in this post:
http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=18005

But it seems to me like you're spending $10.00 worth of time on a $0.10 problem.

Where the heck are you that you're having hacker problems? What is it used for? Please don't tell me it's GMRS. The only radio hackers I've heard of either want to hack it because they can or hack it to steal something. In which case, I highly doubt a non-standard PL would keep either of those from doing so. Unless of course you set your PL to 60.0, that just might do the trick.

If it's a repeater, I have found it somewhat more difficult to access those which have a separate in/out tone, and especially DPL. But not a major obstacle for those who want in. If it isn't GMRS were're talking about, why don't you report it, call 1-800-tell-fcc. If it's gmrs simplex, you have to share, but doubt any action would be taken on that anyway.

ssybert · Post by **ssybert** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 10:25 am

The problem is not GMRS. It's a regular UHF repeater pair. A bunch of us are radio enthusiasts who share payment for space on a local repeater to chit-chat. Apparently there is someone in the area who gets off on keying over us, recording us and playing it back over our repeater. They even RECORD OUR VOICES AND PLAY THEM OVER OUR LOCAL PD'S REPEATER AS IF ITS US DOING IT! I've spoken to the police and the owner of the repeater. Neither care or are interested in helping us. We've switched repeaters and gotten this non-standard tone to try and put an end to this nonsense. I know it's not fool proof, but this may be all the deturent we need to make it stop. So far so good. For right now, this is what we're going to try. If it doesn't work maybe we'll all say F-it and goto LTR or something.

RadioSouth · Post by **RadioSouth** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 10:59 am

I know of a public safety agency that went to split PL tones for a similar
problem if your repeater has that feature. Back in the Icom U-16 days I know of more than 1 repeater that went DPL to avoid that problem, perhaps your hacker doesn't have DPL capabilities ? Just some food for thought if you haven't gone that road yet.

ssybert · Post by **ssybert** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 12:43 pm

Our little friend does infact have DPL capabilities. I figures he was scanning the tone on the output and applying to the input freq. to get access. We used a PL/DPL combination and he still got in. Since things are standards, it must have been pretty simple for him try everyone. Probably only took 30 min. or so. A Non-Standard will make things pretty damn tricky and cause him to loose interest all together. Next step is going to have to try and get a non-standard offset. Dont know if it can be done or weather or not the repeater owner would do it, but thats the only other thing I can think of after this... Other than specific unit MDC access or something.

RESCUE161 · Post by **RESCUE161** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 12:50 pm

Sounds like you have an idiot on your hands...

Even with the odd CTCSS, he will still be able to record and TX on the PDs channel. So you're only tackling half of the problem...

As ASTROMODAT put it, 'Go digital' and then there will be far less problems.

Get a 'fox hunt' team together, catch the guy and sue him for what it would cost to get the digital system up and running... hehehe

601 · Post by **601** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 1:09 pm

What about that inverted DPL feature, could that help?

RapidCharger · Post by **RapidCharger** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 3:13 pm

ssybert wrote:. Apparently there is someone in the area who gets off on keying over us, recording us and playing it back over our repeater. They even RECORD OUR VOICES AND PLAY THEM OVER OUR LOCAL PD'S REPEATER AS IF ITS US DOING IT! I've spoken to the police and the owner of the repeater. Neither care or are interested in helping us.

Oy Veah. That's some nasty stuff.
Welllll, I wouldn't worry too much about it because if they DF you, they'll find the perp. (Not you). The sad part is, it wouldn't matter who it is or what the PL tone is, anyone can record from a scanner on open squelch and then broadcast it anywhere they please. If they are transmitting on police frequencies, then apparently they have some capabilities. All it takes to get your tone is a little tone decoder from Ham Radio outlet. Another way I am told is to record it using cool edit although I haven't been able to get that to work myself.
It sounds like you'd be better off getting some scrambler chips put in. Sure, they could decode that too. But a better plan, albeit a more expensive one. The easiest thing to do is find someone to help you direction find this person and report them because what they are doing is like using a non intrinsically safe radio at a gas pump... It's only a matter of time.

Maybe it's nextel. Trying to get you to switch over. There were some systems in Florida that I believe were EF JOHNSON, and they could not be scanned (at all). I remember trying, and even using a frequency counter at the radio, and no sucess after a year of scanning every band while the person TX'd. How well do you know your radio shop? Could it be them?

One more thing to consider. Have you tried ignoring the malicious inferference? If they don't get any excitement out of what they are doing, then they seem to go do something else. I remember a time about a month ago, with a severe weather net on the ham bands, and some redneck came in and started cursing and interfering, all while we were experiencing some pretty big hail. The net just ignored it, pretended they couldn't hear it and magically, he went away. Or maybe the men in black came and hauled him off to the big house.

Where in New England is this taking place? I will be in R.I. in a day or 2 maybe I can do something.