Batboard

It is my understanding that this radio cannot be flashed so as to be both analog and digital so......
If the radio were already digital, (1) can it be flashed to work analog for the time being, (2) what happens to the digital flashing already programmed,
(3) would it have to be reflashed to digital later to operate on the new system once it's in place?
I know it seems like a big waste to go thru this but the alternatives are limited.

How complicated.......it shor ain't like the "old days"

Sure it can. I have both analog only and digital/analog xts2500's. I have a purchasing option to field upgrade the analog only radio to digital/analog.
Now this is only for the xts2500, the MT1500 radio, according to Moto., is not field upgradeable. The way you buy it is the way it stays.

So let's see if I can confirm my stupidity here. Are you saying that if this radio is digital only, it stays digital and cannot be changed?

There is a root truth behind this XTS2500 question, but the analog / digital issue concerns trunking systems, not modulation. All P25 digital radios are required by the standard to have basic analog modulation capability for interoperability.

The XTS2500 as intruduced was designed to be compatible with two types of trunked systems, Motorola 3600 baud control and P25 9600 baud control which Motorola markets as Astro25 trunking or Smartzone 6.X. Of course, to add to the confusion 3600 systems can be analog only, digital only, or mixed mode, whereas Astro25 is P25 voice only.

The XTS5000 was also designed to support both 3600 and 9600 systems. The difference being that you can have both types of systems in an XTS5000 at the same time and switch between them. The XTS2500 was sold to operate on your choice, but only one type of system in the radio at one time.

The word is that Motorola will be changing their marketing of the XTS2500 so it will support both at the same time. It isn't clear if that will be retrofittable to earlier shipped radios and if it will require a firmware upgrade, a flash, or just a new version of CPS.

This makes it much clearer. It will be interesting to see what cost are attributed to any changes necessary.
As always......this board is informative and I appreciate the input.