7.70 firmware...does it or does it not....?

[Pj]

Ok, I have heard conflicting information on this.

The question of the day is:

Does the XTS3000/Astro Saber 7.70 firmware now require the radio to affilate to a TRS reguardless of system type?

[Josh]

Ok, I have heard conflicting information on this.

The question of the day is:

Does the XTS3000/Astro Saber 7.70 firmware now require the radio to affilate to a TRS reguardless of system type?

It does not.

[W2GLD]

FYI:

I have R07.71.00 in several ASTRO Sabers and XTS3000's and it does not require manditory affiliation either, only the newer series radio require this manditory affiliation type, models such as the XTS5000, XTS2500, MT1550, etc.

[bellersley]

There are ways around the forced affiliation, even on the newest of radios. Yes, this includes 9600 baud systems.

[tvsjr]

There are ways around the forced affiliation, even on the newest of radios. Yes, this includes 9600 baud systems.

Care to elaborate?

[Wicho]

There are ways around the forced affiliation, even on the newest of radios. Yes, this includes 9600 baud systems.

Care to elaborate?

I think he's talking about Elroy's thread on how to set up an XTS5K for scanning w/o affiliation.

Could be wrong, though. It wouldn't be the first time, just ask my wife.

[Einstein]

Since I don't have a 9600 baud system locally to try this on, putting the tx inhibit in the display and menu screen, and enabling it, inhibits transmit on a XTS 5000 3600 baud system.

[bellersley]

Care to elaborate?

Scan Hang Time: 0
Scan TX: Selected Channel

Park yourself on a conventional channel. It'll never get the chance to try and affiliate as it's not on the talkgroup long enough. There's some obvious limitations to this (such as the number of scanlists you can have) but if you're like me and only have one 9600bps system with 3 or 4 talkgroups you care to monitor, it works like a charm.

[tvsjr]

Care to elaborate?

Scan Hang Time: 0
Scan TX: Selected Channel

Park yourself on a conventional channel. It'll never get the chance to try and affiliate as it's not on the talkgroup long enough. There's some obvious limitations to this (such as the number of scanlists you can have) but if you're like me and only have one 9600bps system with 3 or 4 talkgroups you care to monitor, it works like a charm.

Have you tried TX Inhibit?

[bellersley]

On radios like the Astro Saber and XTS3000, you can program both positions on the concentric switch to be TX Inhibit. You can't do that on the 5k however. That's only really an issue on 800MHz. If it's a VHF or UHF system, you can always program bogus frequency information in the TX fields for both the channel ranges and the control channels. However on 800MHz, obviously those input frequencies are "hard coded" in the radio so that's another story.

On an 800MHz radio, you'd need to do some tweaking to make it not TX. You'd have to go into the alignment settings and play with the TX Power until it was negligible. You could also disconnect the PA. However, this would mean the radio wouldn't be TXing anytime soon, but if you never want to it wouldn't be a problem. On my MTS2000, I was able to adjust the TX output power down to the point that it barely registers on a monitor, and another radio can't hear anything from 5 feet away.

The big problem on a 5k radio (regardless of band) is that the radio must always be programmed for Auto-Affiliate. If the radio sits on the talkgroup for even a second after voice traffic, it'll try and affiliate. Even if you have TX Inhibit turned on, the radio's CPU will still "think" it's affiliating so it'll hold off on receiving anything until it's gone through the paces of trying to affiliate even though it isn't. During this time, the radio won't RX anything. This is why having the scan hang-time set to 0 helps, as it drops the radio back to a conventional channel before it has a chance to try and affiliate.