Batboard

I heard today that by 1Q06 the XTS2500 will be available in 900 mhz, and that shortly thereafter the MTS2000 will go away for good.

Anyone else hear rumors to that effect?

Maybe.
I know that many system that us the MTS2000 in 800mhz are already switching over the XTS2500(such as all the UC systems), as type to type the XTS2500 is cheaper.

As for on 900mhz, I would think that most would switch to the new Pro line with the MTX's.

I can't think of too many 900 mhz system anyway and I'm not sure if Motorola would go for the small market that a XTS2500 would have over the MTX in what is a small market anyway with the lose of many SMR systems.

Cam

Does anyone know if the XTS2500 900MHz model will work in the 33cm amateur band? I was considering a GTX, but would much rather use the XTS!

rmiles wrote:Does anyone know if the XTS2500 900MHz model will work in the 33cm amateur band? I was considering a GTX, but would much rather use the XTS!

Yes they will. I have even seen them with FPP and P25. The FPP will NOT work in the ham band, but the P25 will.


Jim

n7maq wrote:Yes they will. I have even seen them with FPP and P25. The FPP will NOT work in the ham band, but the P25 will.
Jim

Awesome!! Now if I could only find one.

rmiles wrote:

n7maq wrote:Yes they will. I have even seen them with FPP and P25. The FPP will NOT work in the ham band, but the P25 will.
Jim

Awesome!! Now if I could only find one.

They seem to be rare on the used market.

Jim

I had a brief chance to test one a few weeks ago. Although it did P25, I had nothing to test it with in digital mode (we're waiting for a
guy in our group to sort out his 900 Quantro power problem) but the analog audio blew away anything I'd tried previously.

And before anyone asks, no, can't currently get any more units but we're absolutely pursuing it. But I get the first one.

Cam wrote:I can't think of too many 900 mhz system anyway and I'm not sure if Motorola would go for the small market that a XTS2500 would have over the MTX in what is a small market anyway with the lose of many SMR systems.

Cam

Down here in H-town, a lot of refineries and industries use 900 Smartnet systems. And before someone says the Astro25 line is too much radio for a commercial user, I have personally seen a UHF M3 XTS2500 in use on a UHF Smartnet plant system.. by a contractor, no less.

And then you run into oddities like this, so anything's possible.

n7maq wrote:

rmiles wrote:

n7maq wrote:Yes they will. I have even seen them with FPP and P25. The FPP will NOT work in the ham band, but the P25 will.
Jim

Awesome!! Now if I could only find one.

They seem to be rare on the used market.

Jim

They were available and plentyful at Dayton last year (2008).

That's where I got mine.

ka8ypy wrote: They were available and plentyful at Dayton last year (2008).

That's where I got mine.

Any idea who the seller was? I've never had an opportunity to get to the Dayton show but would LOVE to purchase one.

rmiles wrote:

ka8ypy wrote: They were available and plentyful at Dayton last year (2008).

That's where I got mine.

Any idea who the seller was? I've never had an opportunity to get to the Dayton show but would LOVE to purchase one.

Yeah, well anybody figure out where please PM me. We just stuck a 900
Quantro up in San Jose, CA in mixed mode but can't do
anything other than analog until we find the appropriate radios.....

rmiles wrote:

ka8ypy wrote: They were available and plentyful at Dayton last year (2008).

That's where I got mine.

Any idea who the seller was? I've never had an opportunity to get to the Dayton show but would LOVE to purchase one.

Batdude had them, drawer only (no mic, speaker, bracket, or power cable), unsure if he has anymore. Send him a PM and see.

ka8ypy wrote:

rmiles wrote:

ka8ypy wrote: They were available and plentyful at Dayton last year (2008).

That's where I got mine.

Any idea who the seller was? I've never had an opportunity to get to the Dayton show but would LOVE to purchase one.

Batdude had them, drawer only (no mic, speaker, bracket, or power cable), unsure if he has anymore. Send him a PM and see.

Are you talking about an XTL (mobile) and not an XTS (handheld)?

JPOPatents wrote: Are you talking about an XTL (mobile) and not an XTS (handheld)?

XTS2500 handheld. I'm never seen Batdude offer one, but if anyone has one they would not mind parting with, please PM me.

JPOPatents wrote:

ka8ypy wrote:

rmiles wrote:
Any idea who the seller was? I've never had an opportunity to get to the Dayton show but would LOVE to purchase one.

Batdude had them, drawer only (no mic, speaker, bracket, or power cable), unsure if he has anymore. Send him a PM and see.

Are you talking about an XTL (mobile) and not an XTS (handheld)?

Sorry, I need to pay more attention some days. =-(

Batdude had XTLs, sorry for the confusion.

As for the XTS, I have seen a few (very few) show up on a certain auction site on occasion.

Dan
KA8YPY

NJ RADIO NUT wrote:anyone using a XTS2500 in 900MHZ ?
i briefly tested one, it sounded very different (is the word im looking for flat audio?) than UHF or VHF or even 800MHZ, is that what 900MHZ sounds like? or is it a setting in the radio?

In my experience P25 works great on 900MHz, it is noticeable better than the analog to me. It sounds just like P25 does on any other band. This is both direct, and thru a Quantar.

Jim

NJ RADIO NUT wrote:I mean in analog, not in P25

Did you notice it sounds different then any other band?
any settings to look over to make sure its set correctly? for example hear clear etc?

It's narrow band, so be sure that the other radios have Hear Clear set to the same as the 2500. If they are not Moto radios then turn H/C off on the 2500 and disable compandering on the other radio.


Jim

I'm still looking for an XTS2500 on 900 if anyone has a source. Thanks.

Some of the early 900 ham repeaters were +-5kc because they used converted 800 gear with wide receivers. One of the local repeaters in my area still uses a "hybrid" of +-3.5kc TX mod. (or so I'm told) to (supposedly) accommodate both types of equipment. There's a lot of strange stuff still out there.

(sorry i thought thats considered wideband)

It is, now. Back in "my" day, wide was considered +-15kc and narrow was +-5kc. I sometimes still revert to that way of thinking. Those were the days when some channels were 50kc wide! Perhaps you can persuade your repeater trustee to lower the modulation as in the example I gave. That local repeater here doesn't sound all that bad on my 12.5kc receiver and the audio level still sounds OK on a converted 800 Maxtrac (25kc). Not an ideal situation but it is a reasonable compromise.
Tom

This thead has strayed pretty far off the OP's original question.

Locked.

Unlocked at member's request 11/16/2010.

Thanks, Tom.

Anyone else playing with the the XTS2500 in 900 MHz? What about the XTL2500 in 900?

I've got both of them going on 900. The 2500 allows for FPP in the ham band. Another cool thing is I found that the tuning settings still work on the ham band. Most times it seems with other radios the tuning settings are all buggered up. Well this XTS2500 works per factory specs and deviation, warp and power output is all fine.

Had to tweak the mobile astro25 software to allow for 5 KHz on the ham band. It was stuck on 2.5 KHz deviation. I guess there's some narrowband law for commercial use.

I'm using both the XTS2500 and the XTL1500 on 900 ham and both program and work great. However my 2500 has FPP and will not edit frequencies in the ham band. How did you get your FPP to work?

Big BOB

Big BOB wrote:I'm using both the XTS2500 and the XTL1500 on 900 ham and both program and work great. However my 2500 has FPP and will not edit frequencies in the ham band. How did you get your FPP to work?

Big BOB

Codeplug modification. The FPP range is contained in the codeplug at blocks 82 and 83. 82 is your TX range(s), and 83 is the RX range. By default, they are:

TX:
896.00625 - 901.99375
935.00625 - 940.99375

RX:
935.00625 - 940.99375

I changed mine to:

TX:
896.00000 - 910.00000
915.00000 - 945.00000

RX:
915.00000 - 945.00000

0AAE6000 - 896.00000
0AD91980 - 910.00000
0AE85BC0 - 915.00000
0B43E940 - 945.00000


82: (RX Range)
00 00 00 08 00 05 00 01
0A E8 5B C0 0B 43 E9 40
4B C7

83: (TX Ranges... Note there are 2)
00 00 00 08 00 05 00 02
0A AE 60 00 0A D9 19 80
0A E8 5B C0 0B 43 E9 40
74 5B

Hope this helps.

Anyone notice the XTS2500 doesn't have a hi/lower power switch/menu/button option? This is essential for ham use.

I had 15 minutes to kill and added it to the radio. I prefer the useless TMS (looks like a laptop) button. Who uses TMS?

To enable hi/lower power toggle on the TMS button, modify the codeplug as follows:

Block 32, offset 21. Change the data (TMS = A1) to 2A. 2A is the power button. Make sure you checksum this block before saving it.

Alternatively, you may opt to use a button for this feature instead. Here are the offsets for those:

OFFSET 9: TOP (orange)
OFFSET 13: SIDE 1 (purple)
OFFSET 15: SIDE 2
OFFSET 17: SIDE 3

If you wish to use the A/B/C switch, it's at block 20. Here's those offsets:

OFFSET 9: Switch Position A
OFFSET 10: Switch Position B
OFFSET 11: Switch Position C

--

If you wish to implement it into the SOFT MENU items, those are at block 22. They span from offsets 8-23. There's room for up to 16 SOFT MENU items. Again, power is 2A.

73 de w4jb

w4jb - thanks for the great info.

you may want to mention which version of cps you have done the mods to
as this may have an effect on the location addresses, or did my failing eyes
miss that?

fineshot1 wrote:w4jb - thanks for the great info.

you may want to mention which version of cps you have done the mods to
as this may have an effect on the location addresses, or did my failing eyes
miss that?

Regular CPS is not used to make these changes. You'll need to modify CPS (legalities?) to disable the encryption routine; codeplugs will then be dumped as s-records.

Modification to the codeplug requires checksumming and then writing back into the target radio. This is beyond the scope of what I can mention here, without violating the board rules.

If anyone is doubting the modifications I've outlined, I'm happy to post a video demonstrating a 2500 operating as described.

w4jb wrote:

fineshot1 wrote:w4jb - thanks for the great info.

you may want to mention which version of cps you have done the mods to
as this may have an effect on the location addresses, or did my failing eyes
miss that?

Regular CPS is not used to make these changes. You'll need to modify CPS (legalities?) to disable the encryption routine; codeplugs will then be dumped as s-records.

Modification to the codeplug requires checksumming and then writing back into the target radio. This is beyond the scope of what I can mention here, without violating the board rules.

If anyone is doubting the modifications I've outlined, I'm happy to post a video demonstrating a 2500 operating as described.

I was not doubting you, simply had the mistaken impression that you had modified cps in order to accomplish this.

I am now the proud owner of a 900 Mhz XTS2500 manufactured in August 2009 complete with tags. Now I'm ready to start programming the radio. Does anyone know if the Astro25 portable CPS needs to be hex edited like we have to do for getting MTX9250s on 900? If hex editing is needed, does anyone have a list of the edits? And yes, I have a subscription to Astro25 portable CPS.

Thanks all.

Yes. Use the documented method for calculating bandsplit values, then search AstroMob.exe and replace as needed. The offset locations change with each CPS version so a list of locations isn't always helpful.

motorola_otaku wrote:Yes. Use the documented method for calculating bandsplit values, then search AstroMob.exe and replace as needed. The offset locations change with each CPS version so a list of locations isn't always helpful.

Thanks - I know what to do. Since this is portable CPS, the file to edit would be patport.exe (at least with the latest version of CPS).

JPOPatents wrote:I'm still looking for an XTS2500 on 900 if anyone has a source. Thanks.

hi,

i have 1 unit of motorola xts2500 900mhz model iii
very good condition.

no use in our country (malaysia)

regards,
9W2KYR
Malaysia HAM

9w2kyr wrote:

JPOPatents wrote:I'm still looking for an XTS2500 on 900 if anyone has a source. Thanks.

hi,

i have 1 unit of motorola xts2500 900mhz model iii
very good condition.

no use in our country (malaysia)

regards,
9W2KYR
Malaysia HAM

I am the lucky owner of this radio now.. I have upgraded the FW to v16 and it's fpp and p25.. I did the mod for the 33cm FPP and I am enjoying the radio alot! I am in Austin where we're lucky enough to have several 900 repeaters, but none p25.. for now at least.. But this is an excellent radio for the ham band.. Thanks to n7maq for fixing it up for me..