Batboard

I have an xts5k vhf issued to me for work. the radio is a work radio, with a state wide trunking system programed into it. i have a valid RID and key. mostly i use the radio when around my home and work, but there was a vip in the state the other day, and listened to the motorcade talkgroup all day. from time to time, i would check to see what tower i was affiliated with and what type of signal strength i was getting. i make this a regular habit because i use a portable radio to monitor the system, but the system was built for mobile coverage. i'm always curious to see just how effective the portable will be in various areas.

so, i take a few days of vacation and head out to the far western part of the state, listening to the motorcade the whole time. when i got to my hotel, i looked at the tower i was affiliated with, as well as my signal strength. i frequently drop local freqs into my radio in rx only mode, well, because I'm a professional radio geek and like to listen to what i can. i went back to the state system and the radio displayed the out of range message. i thought this was a bit strange because sitting on my bed in the hotel room i had an rssi of 107 (max in our system is 161). my method of programing like this is, read the radio, edit what i want, write it back. i plugged the radio with my default "clean" codeplug, same issue, out of range. i waited about 10 min, still the same message.

i knew the name of the tower i was affiliated with, and looked it up on radio reference. i compared the cc freq to the list if freqs in the list in the radio, and it wasn't there. i put the freq at the end of the table, not knowing the tx freq, and plugged the radio. bam! system was back online, showing the same rssi and tower name as it did 20 minutes ago.

I guess my question is why did the radio "loose" the control channel data/freq? And why did adding in that one freq with the wrong tx freq seem to solve the issue?

You said that the site's control channel frequency was not in your programmed list.


Each site broadcasts the control channel of any adjacent sites. These sites are saved in to the radio in a "short hunt list". As you drive from site to site, each site is tellling the radio the control channel of the next site. This is how your radio was able to get on that site.

When your reprogrammed the radio, the short hunt list in cleared. So now the radio does not have the control channel for that tower ans does not look for it.

Once you put it in the control channel list in the radio it found it.

If you had full spectrum control channel search on, the radio would have found it and come on the site.

that makes sense. from time to time when i drive out to a more remote part of the state and turn the radio on, I get the out of range indicator verses leaving it on as i drive out of a known covered.

any idea why the original code plug would not include all tower sites? is there a limit to how many can be in a radio? its easier to ask forgiveness that permission, I kinda broke the rules by adding in the control channel, the purpose of me having a key is to add or delete talkgroups as needed. it seems strange the administrators would leave out tower sites out of the master code plug.

Could be the frequency changed, new site or limit to the number of channels the radio holds. Most admins try to only change templates every 2 years