Possible to make scan list bigger?

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steve_eo
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Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by steve_eo »

I know that RSS only supports 10 talkgroups so RSS would be useless in programming the scan list. But I wonder if it is possible to make the scan lists longer? Can the radios code be modified to do this? Is that a feasible thing to do? Has anyone tried?
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Post by bellersley »

There is/was a "hack" floating around that let you extend the number of channels in a Talkgroup scan list on the XTS3000 and Astro Saber to do the same as conventional (15+1). It was posted on here a few years ago, but was removed pretty quickly. I've got no idea where you could find it, except to say that it is out there, perhaps somebody knows how to do it.
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Post by Josh »

bellersley wrote:There is/was a "hack" floating around that let you extend the number of channels in a Talkgroup scan list on the XTS3000 and Astro Saber to do the same as conventional (15+1). It was posted on here a few years ago, but was removed pretty quickly. I've got no idea where you could find it, except to say that it is out there, perhaps somebody knows how to do it.
Astro Spectra is also a hackable candidate. It will ONLY work with DOS programmed radios, CPS has thus far been unhackable in the regard.

-Josh
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Post by compuman81 »

Josh wrote:
bellersley wrote:There is/was a "hack" floating around that let you extend the number of channels in a Talkgroup scan list on the XTS3000 and Astro Saber to do the same as conventional (15+1). It was posted on here a few years ago, but was removed pretty quickly. I've got no idea where you could find it, except to say that it is out there, perhaps somebody knows how to do it.
Astro Spectra is also a hackable candidate. It will ONLY work with DOS programmed radios, CPS has thus far been unhackable in the regard.

-Josh

CPS has been done too. that'll probably be harder to find
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Post by wavetar »

bellersley wrote:There is/was a "hack" floating around that let you extend the number of channels in a Talkgroup scan list on the XTS3000 and Astro Saber to do the same as conventional (15+1). It was posted on here a few years ago, but was removed pretty quickly. I've got no idea where you could find it, except to say that it is out there, perhaps somebody knows how to do it.
It was posted in the batlounge for sure, but I just checked & couldn't find it. Maybe it was lost when the board was hacked last year?
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Post by Pj »

I tried it, and either I really screwed it up or it was a incompatiable thing for my radio, but it caused the radio to act up at times...so I went back to the old way.
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Post by Elroy Jetson »

RSS R09.05.00 FILES

ASTROP.ODB (XTS 3000, Digital Saber)

Address Type OLD NEW
00098634 Conventional 0F 0F (No Change)
00098638 Subfleet 0A 0F
0009863C Priority 0A 0F
00098640 Talkgroups 0A 0F
00098644 Conventional Voting Scan 0A 0F


ASTROM.ODB (Digital Spectra)

Address Type OLD NEW
00097B24 Conventional 0F 0F (No Change)
0009BB28 Subfleet 0A 0F
00097B2C Priority 0A 0F
00097B30 Talkgroups 0A 0F
00097B34 Conventional Voting Scan 0A 0F




There it is. Note...if you know your hexadecimal codings, you will note that the changes are from 10 to 15 entries per list.

I do not know what would happen if you were to enter a larger hex number, like 10 (hex 16) instead. Would it work? I can't even find out.


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Post by RADIO43 »

Anyone have the CPS Directions?????
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Post by bellersley »

Elroy Jetson wrote:RSS R09.05.00 FILES
I do not know what would happen if you were to enter a larger hex number, like 10 (hex 16) instead. Would it work? I can't even find out.
Elroy
It won't take it, been there, done that.

One thing though.

Go into all your scanlists, and delete all scanlist members BEFORE doing this hack. After you hack the software, RSS will only let you put in the usual 10 entries, but programming the scanlist in the radio will give you all 15. Note: If you read the radio after putting in 15 scanlist entries, the RSS will chop off the last 5 and you'll have to do it again when you reprogram the radio.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but at least it works. I've verified this works just fine on an XTS3000, Astro Saber and Astro Spectra, all with the latest firmware.
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Post by Josh »

bellersley wrote:
Elroy Jetson wrote:RSS R09.05.00 FILES
I do not know what would happen if you were to enter a larger hex number, like 10 (hex 16) instead. Would it work? I can't even find out.
Elroy
It won't take it, been there, done that.

One thing though.

Go into all your scanlists, and delete all scanlist members BEFORE doing this hack. After you hack the software, RSS will only let you put in the usual 10 entries, but programming the scanlist in the radio will give you all 15. Note: If you read the radio after putting in 15 scanlist entries, the RSS will chop off the last 5 and you'll have to do it again when you reprogram the radio.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but at least it works. I've verified this works just fine on an XTS3000, Astro Saber and Astro Spectra, all with the latest firmware.
Maybe my R9.05 is different but I don't have any problems reading the radio and then adding 15 talkgroups to the scan list without it chopping anything off.

-Josh
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Post by bellersley »

Josh wrote: Maybe my R9.05 is different but I don't have any problems reading the radio and then adding 15 talkgroups to the scan list without it chopping anything off.

-Josh
Interesting. So if you program all 15 entries through RSS, you can dump them to the radio, they're still there, then read with RSS and they're still there again?

My version of 9.05 has been hacked up a lot, so it's possible it doesn't like something I did.
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Post by Josh »

After doing the software edit, re-reading the radio didn't "magically" make the lists bigger.

I had to manually delete all of them and then add them again, which wasn't the most fun thing I've ever done. The re-added scan lists will allow 15+1 modes (+1 being the selected mode). Then I programmed it into the radio.

Now, I was told that I had to manually delete the added scan-list members from the list before re-reading otherwise some errors would pop up so for a long time I was hesitant and simply edited old codeplugs and then programmed them.

One day, I decided to try my luck and read the radio straight up and in doing so, all my list members remained. I reprogrammed them again, they remained.

That's my procedure, if you do it differently then your results may very well vary.

-Josh
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Post by steve_eo »

Thanks for the RSS mod tips on increasing scan list size to 15+1. A 50% improvment is great.
What I'm wondering now is has anyone ever thought of modifying the firmware (I'm assuming that is legal since it seems ok to mod RSS?). What I was thinking of trying to do is use two or more scan lists that would be linked together in the firmware to appear to be one.
So you could still use RSS to program all the talkgroups you want per zone. Then when the firmware gets to the end of one scan list, there is a link to the next one where it continues it's scan. Naturally the zones would be setup the identically in all other respects except the talkgroups and scan lists would differ.
If this hasn't been done, has anyone tried changing the firmware to support any other function? Or maybe it's just too bid of a task for what it's worth.
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Post by motorola_otaku »

Elroy Jetson wrote: ASTROP.ODB (XTS 3000, Digital Saber)

00098640 Talkgroups 0A 0F
00098644 Conventional Voting Scan 0A 0F
On mine, the addresses for these were one off. They showed up at $9863F and $98643, respectively.
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Post by steve_eo »

Anyone have the 9.03 directions? Is there a search string that I could use to find the right locations?
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Post by motorola_otaku »

motorola_otaku wrote:
Elroy Jetson wrote: ASTROP.ODB (XTS 3000, Digital Saber)

00098640 Talkgroups 0A 0F
00098644 Conventional Voting Scan 0A 0F
On mine, the addresses for these were one off. They showed up at $9863F and $98643, respectively.
Well, that didn't work. "General protection fault detected." Tried resetting everything back to their original settings, no go. Tried Elroy's original hex addresses, no go. Oh well, reinstall and try again.

Astro Mobile worked like a champ, however. I loaded an archived codeplug and the extra 5 scanlist slots were already there, without having to delete and re-add the lists.
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Post by motorola_otaku »

steve_eo wrote:Anyone have the 9.03 directions? Is there a search string that I could use to find the right locations?
For ASTROM.ODB:

979FC: 0F (no change)
97A00: 0A --> 0F
97A04: 0A --> 0F
97A08: 0A --> 0F
97A0C: 0A --> 0F


For ASTROP.ODB:

98548: 0F (no change)
9854C: 0A --> 0F
98550: 0A --> 0F
98554: 0A --> 0F
98558: 06 (didn't change)


Tested both with archived codeplugs, both show 15-member scanlists across the board EXCEPT for Conventional Voting Scan, due to the fact that I don't have any 9.03 codeplugs capable of voting scan to test.
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Post by Victor Xray »

Elroy are you the original creator of this hack?

Long ago, Shaun r0f posted this but the thread was nuked by Alex, who said something about the original creator of this hack didn't want it published here.

Same thing on the Batlounge. When r0f posted this hack there, John K4WTF removed it, telling me "The post was put out of public view at the request of the person who came up with the original mod."


I'm just VERY curious as to why this post can remain here NOW but was yanked in the past in two different places.
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Post by The Pager Geek »

I released it to r0f in a private forum... he released it to the world without a "courtesy" notify asking to do so. F him, but as for the info... I don't care. It's common knowledge at this point...
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Post by Victor Xray »

Paul Harvey wrote:And now you know......





The Rest of the Story
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Post by bellersley »

Elroy Jetson wrote: I do not know what would happen if you were to enter a larger hex number, like 10 (hex 16) instead. Would it work? I can't even find out.
Well, I tried putting in 20 scanlist members. The RSS takes it and shows 20 members no problem. When you try and enter them through the radio, it stop at 16 entries. When I enter 20 entries through RSS, something interesting happens.

The first 15 show up in scan list program mode no problem. Entry 16 shows as solid blocks across the screen, 17 shows "CHAN 20" (which is the name of the channel in the 20th entry), 18 shows " v ", 19 shows a blank screen and 20 shows a blank screen as well.

Interestingly enough, reading the codeplug back from the radio shows all 20 entries in the scan list no problems.

So it seems you can't go over 16 in conventional or trunking.

This was tried on an 800MHz Astro Saber, Firmware
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Post by motorola_otaku »

bellersley wrote:Well, I tried putting in 20 scanlist members. The RSS takes it and shows 20 members no problem. When you try and enter them through the radio, it stop at 16 entries. When I enter 20 entries through RSS, something interesting happens.

The first 15 show up in scan list program mode no problem. Entry 16 shows as solid blocks across the screen, 17 shows "CHAN 20" (which is the name of the channel in the 20th entry), 18 shows " v ", 19 shows a blank screen and 20 shows a blank screen as well.

Interestingly enough, reading the codeplug back from the radio shows all 20 entries in the scan list no problems.

So it seems you can't go over 16 in conventional or trunking.
I'll bet what's happening is you're overrunning the allocated space in the codeplug for an individual scanlist, and the display is showing the raw code that exists outside the space.

What needs to happen now is, someone needs to find that space in the codeplug, stretch it out as needed, and correct the checksum. (Has the checksumming method for Astro codeplugs even been documented yet? I've never seen it if it has.)

What might cause a problem is how the firmware allocates memory. If it says "you have xxx bytes available for scanlists" and you overrun that, you may well end up bricking the radio.
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Elroy Jetson »

I have to say that the scan list limitations are the one thing about Motorola radios that I really think is substandard.


I have a VHF M/A-Com Jaguar 7100ip now, as well as a VHF Astro Saber. Comparable radios, fully digital, competing products, etc...


I've put 35 channels into ONE scan list on the 7100. I think it'll do 50 or more. It seems to have no defined limits on how many
channels (or trunked talkgroups) can be in a single scan list. And there can be many scan lists as well.

Motorola needs to allow the same thing. Because sometimes, 10 groups or channels (or even 15) simply isn't enough.

Quick example: Scanning every VHF marine channel, or every railroad channel. There are dozens of each.

So, despite the fact that the audio quality of the Jaguar 7100ip is FAR inferior to the audio quality of the Astro Saber, if I'm going
to be out at the port and scanning for marine activity, the 7100 is the radio of choice as it'll allow me to scan ALL the marine channels
in a single scan list. On the Astro Saber, I have to pick the 16 channels that are most likely to be active and that's that.
I can only make additional scan lists and use them separately.

Elroy
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Chrome69 »

anyone have a copy of this hack they can PM me with it or email me it to chrome69@gmail.com since no one wants out in the public?
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Pj »

Ummmmm, if you read this entire thread, you would be golden.
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Chrome69 »

so i am guessing i would edit the codeplug with what a hex editor?
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by jmmny »

Elroy Jetson wrote:I've put 35 channels into ONE scan list on the 7100. I think it'll do 50 or more. It seems to have no defined limits on how many
channels (or trunked talkgroups) can be in a single scan list. And there can be many scan lists as well.

Motorola needs to allow the same thing. Because sometimes, 10 groups or channels (or even 15) simply isn't enough.

Quick example: Scanning every VHF marine channel, or every railroad channel. There are dozens of each.
I wonder how the scan speed on the 7100 compares to the astro saber. The astro saber's scan time seems extremely slow at times. I too would like more members but it seems like I would also miss some transmissions because of how slow it seems to operate with just 15 list members.
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Hightower »

Nope, you have to hex edit the ASTROP.ODB - not the codeplug

Excellent work TPG and thanks for sharring it with the board 8)
Last edited by Hightower on Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Chrome69 »

I don't have that file i am using Astro saber & XTS3000 CPS R05.02.00
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Hightower »

It won't work with CPS, you have to use older RSS for this to work.

So far, nobody is releasing how to hack the CPS. Sorry
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Chrome69 »

ok thanks anyways...
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by bellersley »

Hightower wrote:It won't work with CPS, you have to use older RSS for this to work.

So far, nobody is releasing how to hack the CPS. Sorry
How does it not work exactly?

As long as you have a DOS RSS codeplug modified with the scanlists, reading/writing with CPS will NOT "delete" the hack. The only "gotcha" is that you cannot view, modify or anything with the scanlists in CPS. As soon as you do, you go back to the regular 10. It isn't a huge deal, you can always edit them manually in the radio.
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Batwings21 »

Hightower wrote:Nope, you have to hex edit the ASTROP.ODB - not the codeplug
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by tvsjr »

bellersley wrote:
Hightower wrote:It won't work with CPS, you have to use older RSS for this to work.

So far, nobody is releasing how to hack the CPS. Sorry
How does it not work exactly?

As long as you have a DOS RSS codeplug modified with the scanlists, reading/writing with CPS will NOT "delete" the hack. The only "gotcha" is that you cannot view, modify or anything with the scanlists in CPS. As soon as you do, you go back to the regular 10. It isn't a huge deal, you can always edit them manually in the radio.
And how exactly is he going to read the radio that he's already written with CPS R05.02 in any version of RSS?
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Hightower »

bellersley wrote:
Hightower wrote:It won't work with CPS, you have to use older RSS for this to work.

So far, nobody is releasing how to hack the CPS. Sorry
How does it not work exactly?

As long as you have a DOS RSS codeplug modified with the scanlists, reading/writing with CPS will NOT "delete" the hack. The only "gotcha" is that you cannot view, modify or anything with the scanlists in CPS. As soon as you do, you go back to the regular 10. It isn't a huge deal, you can always edit them manually in the radio.
How are you getting the scan list to stay at 15 when it's wrote with CPS? If I take a working RSS codeplug that has the scan hack, open it in CPS, never touch anything, just write it back to the radio and the 15 scan members are gone - only 10, and I can't add more via the keypad menu.

Here's what the scan block 4 from a s-rec written with RSS 9.03.00: 2553 16FF FFFF 0F04 0104 0204 0304 0404 0504 0604 0704 0804 0904 0A00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 A4

Here's the scan block 4 from the s-rec taken after CPS R01.04.00: 1B53 16FF FFFF 0A04 0104 0204 0304 0404 0504 0604 0704 0804 0904 0A00 95

As you can see after the RSS hack, the codeplug written to the radio contains the extra blocks for you to manually enter up to 15 scan TGs. However when the codeplug made by the hacked RSS is read and written immediately (without ANY changes) with CPS, the additional blocks created by the RSS are deleted by the CPS.

In the RSS codeplug, it writes the 0F and allocates 15 scan members with a modified 15 scan membercodeplug
In unmodified CPS, it writes the 0A and allocated 10 scan members with a modified 15 scan member codeplug

The CPS optimizes the RSS codeplug, gets rid of the trash it leaves, and cleans and optimizes it before writing it to the radio. What process are you using to keep the 15 scan members when using CPS?
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by newtomotorola »

I know this is a little old, but has anybody had any luck using cps 5.XX it would be really usefull to me and many others.

Thanks
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by Hightower »

The CPS determins how many scan members to add for programming when you select "Conventional" or "Talkgroup" in the Scan Type drop down menu. Somewhere in the CPS it's coded to add "x" amount of scan members when you select Conventional or Talkgroup. Why not chase this down in a debugger and when it instructs the CPS in conventional to add 15 scan members, mod the CPS to add 20 or whatever. Same goes for Talkgroups and trunking. I'm sure there's a limit to how many you can add however. The codeplugs in the Astro Saber and Astro25 radios are dynamic by nature, so there is no reason to have a limit of 10 Talksgroup scan members, unless they did this because the processor can only handle scanning/listening/filtering out 10 Talkgroups in the data stream.

Another thing to think about is when you change from Conventional to Talkgroup, some code instructs the CPS to delete 15 scan members and add 10 scan members. Could this code be noped out? Thus bypassing the instruction to "delete 15 scan members and add 10 scan members" thus keep the existing 15 scan members from conventional mode?

I'd like to have 50 scan members per zone. That'd work for me 8)
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by aaknitt »

Hightower wrote:I'd like to have 50 scan members per zone. That'd work for me 8)
I'm talking without any real knowledge here, but I will venture a guess and say that one reason they purposely limit the scanlist size in trunking systems has to do with the system resources that get eaten up by scanning on a wide area trunking system. Whenever you're scanning a talkgroup, you're pulling traffic from all of those talkgroups onto the tower site that you're affiliated with. If everyone had large scanlists and was always scanning wide-area talkgroups, it would eat up a lot of resources, especially on sites with few channels available. I just read the report on the performance of the ARMER trunking system during the Minneapolis bridge collapse, and one of the problems they had was tying up sites in areas far away from the actual incident because people were listening in to the wide area talkgroups. There were generally plenty of frequencies available in the metro area, but in the sticks where towers only had a few frequencies, they quickly became bogged down with all of the traffic on the wide area talkgroups simply because people were nosey and wanted to listen in.

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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by wavetar »

aaknitt wrote:
Hightower wrote:I'd like to have 50 scan members per zone. That'd work for me 8)
I'm talking without any real knowledge here, but I will venture a guess and say that one reason they purposely limit the scanlist size in trunking systems has to do with the system resources that get eaten up by scanning on a wide area trunking system. Whenever you're scanning a talkgroup, you're pulling traffic from all of those talkgroups onto the tower site that you're affiliated with. If everyone had large scanlists and was always scanning wide-area talkgroups, it would eat up a lot of resources, especially on sites with few channels available. I just read the report on the performance of the ARMER trunking system during the Minneapolis bridge collapse, and one of the problems they had was tying up sites in areas far away from the actual incident because people were listening in to the wide area talkgroups. There were generally plenty of frequencies available in the metro area, but in the sticks where towers only had a few frequencies, they quickly became bogged down with all of the traffic on the wide area talkgroups simply because people were nosey and wanted to listen in.

Andy
Scanning does not pull talkgroup traffic to a site. The radio does not affiliate with scanned talkgroups, it remains affiliated with the talkgroup chosen via zone/channel controls. This is why scanning in a multi-site system is inherently unreliable, the audio may or may not be routed to your particular site. In the ARMER system, people were actually sitting on the channel, not scanning it.

Unlike conventional scanning, where an actual practical scanning limit can be reached due to the fact the radio is scanning different frequencies, in trunking you're simply telling the radio to pay attention to the OSW's containing other talkgroup infomation.There's no technical reason why the scan list size should have any limit at all.
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Re: Possible to make scan list bigger?

Post by aaknitt »

Interesting. I stand corrected.
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