Batboard

Using a Model 3 XTS2500 that has field programming capabilities. I have multiple MDC's that need to be used. When I go into the personality to set the MDC it will not allow me to change it. Any ideas? Do I have to turn off the field programmable feature?

MDC is done by personality, the peronality has to be set up in the MDC section of the CPS.

The reason your MDC is doing that... I'm gonna take a wild guess and say your radio has firmware R10 or above and your Flashcode contains Q52 and Q53.. With that setup, which is the "new FPP standard", the CPS slaves all FPP channels to signaling system 1.

Whether it be MDC, QCII, DTMF, for all intents and purposes your stuck with signaling system 1 on any channel that is FPP.. Just one more reason to run a R09//Q52 radio if you want FPP with some freedom in your programming and run multiple signaling systems..


-Marc

IIRC from my own experience, you cannot select anything other than system 1 (and "1" for anything else that is normally selectable) until you hit personaility 255. After than, you can select anything, but those channels won't be FPP (FPP stop(s) ) at 255.

Does anyone know why motorola did this to the FPP functionality?

So the fix seems to be turn off FPP for the personality?

MattSR wrote:Does anyone know why motorola did this to the FPP functionality?

Likely because signalling features such as MDC are intended to be used in a predefined system with other similar radios. The situations where a user would want to be able to change frequency parameters on the fly usually do not have a means to decode and track MDC IDs. And those that do, probably only identify with one database. Since the darn FPP option was mostly created to comply with the NIFC specs for a forestry radio that doesn't care about MDC (among others, I know), thats what we ended up with.

So I am not able to turn off the FPP on the radio. When I created personality 242 I was able to change the MDC, which is a good start. When I tried making Z3 channel 4 that personality it will not allow me to change it. Any idea out there. I am drawing a blank

What are the specs on your radio? Firmware, Flashcode and what version CPS are you using on it? Thats a good starting point..


-Marc

Bizkitjmd1 wrote:So I am not able to turn off the FPP on the radio. When I created personality 242 I was able to change the MDC, which is a good start. When I tried making Z3 channel 4 that personality it will not allow me to change it. Any idea out there. I am drawing a blank

You need to understand how FPP works in an XTS with a valid configuration. To make it clear:

• You must have at least one FPP zone.
• You can have up to 15 total FPP zones.
• FPP zones are contiguous and start from Zone 1. So, if you had 4 FPP zones, they would be Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3, and Zone 4.
• Each channel in each FPP zone will be slaved to its own conventional personality, uniquely and exclusively.
• You may add additional, non-FPP zones and channels, up to the maximum channel capacity of your radio, but as above, only in subsequent zones.
• The first signalling and modulation system of any type (MDC, QCII, DTMF, Astro, etc) will be slaved to the FPP conventional personalities. No other personalities may use the first systems.
• Second, and additional signalling and modulation systems are available for selection by non-FPP conventional personalities.

So, if as in this case, you wish to use multiple MDC systems across the zones in your radio, you will need to adjust the number of FPP enabled zones in your radio. If, for example, you wish to use any MDC system other than #1 in Zone 3, you will need to reduce the number of FPP zones to a total of 2.

The CPS help files offer more information on how to adjust the number of FPP zones.

akardam wrote:[*]You may add additional, non-FPP zones and channels, up to the maximum channel capacity of your radio, but as above, only in subsequent zones.

Just for clarity... on 4MB XTS2500s, you will not be able to add channels above the FPP channels. A 4MB FPP-enabled XTS2500 is limited to 240 channels.