3600 Baud Trunking System

[Einstein]

I have always heard that a Astro XTS 5000 with Smartzone 9600 baud trunking is backward compatible with a 3600 baud Smartzone system. I have seen another model radio on this sytem flashed with Q575 3600 Analog or Digital Band Trunking with Smartzone and this particular unit works fine. The radio I am testing is a Astro 25 9600 baud, Smartzone XTS 5000 which cuts off one side of the conversation approx. 40% of the time. Radio has been aligned, and programming checked several times. Any input on this question would greatly appreciated.

[bellersley]

Are you authorized on the system? Reason I ask this is because on an XTS5000 radio, even if the system is a SmartNet system, the radio will still require an affiliation to hear anything. Using the TX Inhibit switch will prevent the radio from actually transmitting an affiliation, but the radio's CPU will still "think" it's affiliating and therefore won't RX any traffic while it's "trying" to affiliate. It will initially try to affiliate when you first turn it on or change the channel, and it'll try periodically while it is sitting on the channel. However, if a voice comm happens, the radio will try and affiliate immediately after that comm has terminated. The downside to this is that while the radio is trying to affiliate, you won't receive any voice traffic. Each affiliation attempt takes 5-10 seconds.

I'm not sure that's what your problem is, but it certainly sounds like it could be. Of course, if you are an authorized user on the system with TX ability, none of this would apply because the radio can successfully affiliate.

[Einstein]

Thanks for the reply. Yes this unit is authorized to be on the system and does affilliate. I tried board swaping beginning with the VOCON board with the same programming and the radio is now working. I will try to see what happened with the original board, possibly with the audio section but these intermittent glitches are not always forthcoming. Everything tested and aligned properly with the original board. The more complicated they make these things the more that can and will go wrong.