Batboard

does anyone have any documentation or links on how connectplus works?

gopher wrote:does anyone have any documentation or links on how connectplus works?

Got the Motorola System planner version 1.0 for that. Current 2/11 but I've not looked to see if updated. It's a 2 MB PDF. PM your e-mail and I'll be happy to shoot it to you.

Dave

I just took a course on this very subject.

Connect Plus is a controller-based trunking format. It's closer to SmartNET than LTR.

The XRC 9000 site controller is the heart of all of it. It supports the XPR series and MTR 3000 repeaters. You basically need the XRC 9000 site controller, a network switch, and however many repeaters you want to have in the site (up to 15 I believe).

Everything plugs together via ethernet. Subscribers are authenticated by serial number. There is NO encryption available for it at this time (you cannot use the integrated "Privacy" options of the radio).

One time slot of one repeater is used as the control channel. Multiple sites can be networked together to form a "SmartZone"-like wide area trunking network. Simulcast and voting are not supported.

It's incredibly easy to set up and make work, especially if you are only doing a single site. Enhancements are coming down the line.

Oh yeah, and to NOBODY's surprise I'm sure, the XRC 9000 is nothing other than another manufacturer's industrial PC running Motorola's software.

A super expensive industrial PC, at that.

What is the price in usa of the xrc, licence and board for the subscribers?

In USA you need cleareance from Motorola to sell a connect plus system?

mr.syntrx wrote:A super expensive industrial PC, at that.

Hmmmm, sounds like the MIP5000 and the $2600 PC that you can build from newegg for $500

You could get quite a nice machine from Newegg for $38k

Is it possible to interface an analog gateway directly to an XPR4550 radio set up as a control station in a Connect Plus system?

I have a contact at Motorola who says pin 14 on the accessory connector does indeed output baseband receive audio, while another says nope, you need the EchoBox for that. I'm curious what I will find once I arrive on site to do some tests, but I would like to know ahead of time.

Or would this be down to accessory pin programming in the CPS?

Thanks.

No problem.

We have XPR4550 radios connected to remote adapters. It has full RX/TX audio as well as PTT and COR outputs on the rear accy connector.

RFguy wrote:No problem.

We have XPR4550 radios connected to remote adapters. It has full RX/TX audio as well as PTT and COR outputs on the rear accy connector.

OK, fine. Are those XPR4550 configured with the adapter board for Connect Plus? That's where the rub comes in. Apparently several of the accessory pins are consumed or otherwise made unavailable by that expansion board.

Thank you.

boteman wrote:

RFguy wrote:No problem.

We have XPR4550 radios connected to remote adapters. It has full RX/TX audio as well as PTT and COR outputs on the rear accy connector.

OK, fine. Are those XPR4550 configured with the adapter board for Connect Plus? That's where the rub comes in. Apparently several of the accessory pins are consumed or otherwise made unavailable by that expansion board.

Thank you.

800MHz SmartNet radios as well. No COR/TalkGroup Detect. For reals. Make a business case. If it lines Motorola's pocket, they might do it.

escomm wrote:

boteman wrote:

RFguy wrote:No problem.

We have XPR4550 radios connected to remote adapters. It has full RX/TX audio as well as PTT and COR outputs on the rear accy connector.

OK, fine. Are those XPR4550 configured with the adapter board for Connect Plus? That's where the rub comes in. Apparently several of the accessory pins are consumed or otherwise made unavailable by that expansion board.

800MHz SmartNet radios as well. No COR/TalkGroup Detect. For reals. Make a business case. If it lines Motorola's pocket, they might do it.

Yep, we ran into that last month. The Big-M dealer was all set to bring over an XPR4380 configured for Privacy Plus but couldn't get COR out of it. It worked fine in conventional mode, but not trunked. He met with the guys right over here in Plantation and mentioned it to them. I'm not holding my breath, but he is hopeful. We shall see.

It's documented on the pin-out diagrams that I have seen and I assume the CPS offers it in the accessory connector screen, so why is Big-M so intransigent? The saving grace is that since the TRBO line is current and still developing there is hope that they might fix their junk.

Remember when Americans had a sense of craft? Good old days indeed.

There are companies around the place who have made excellent money selling bridge products due to the lack of COR signals out of any of /\/\'s trunking radios in trunking mode.

They use these down my way to gain access to trunking talkgroups outside the ~30% coverage delivered by the "statewide" SmartZone OmniLink system by hooking them up to portable repeaters.

http://www.rstradio.com/smartbridge.php

I never woulda thunk it, but the answer to my original question is:
pin 19 = Talkgroup activity, and it really, really works!

The story is that the Connect Plus 1.1 option board for the XPR mobiles consumes most of the accessory pins, so the only one remaining is pin 19. Since that is a programmable GPIO pin, you program it for Talkgroup Activity and it outputs an active low logic signal when the thing is receiving a signal. I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself, but there it is.

PTT and the audio lines go in the usual places.

Hope this helps.

Upon further review, there are two parts to programming the accessory pins on an XPR mobile outfitted with the ConnectPlus 1.1 option board.

Step 1 in the radio CPS is to program the pins in the radio to "generic function x" where you have up to 6 generic functions available for selection. For example, set pin 21 to "generic function #1".

Step 2 in the option board CPS is to map the generic function number that you assigned in the radio to a specific function, such as PTT or COR. Go to the dropdown listbox for Generic function #1 and choose "COR". Now accessory pin 21 is mapped to the COR function.

From what I saw looking over a shoulder at the CPS screens, all the same pins are available as without the option board, not just pin 19. ConnectPlus 1.1 is the first revision to provide programmatic access to the GPIO pins.

***
Furthermore, COR (referring to digital receive activity--go figure) was introduced into the REPEATERS in firmware 1.07 when operating in digital TRBO mode. In analog mode they still call it "PL/Talkgroup detect", not that I give a crap about the name of it, that's just what Big-M chose to call it to confuse the issue. I don't know what good it does to provide COR out of the repeater since you can't get baseband audio out of it in TRBO mode. More confusion.

boteman, did you have success with this or are you still running into issues? We are looking into doing the same.

It is done. Because the radio shop wouldn't reprogram the radios I got out my handy pin removal tool and struggled the wires over to the proper pins.

You know, because it was a "full service" radio shop. I guess I'm living in the past when people took pride in their workmanship.