Quantar CAI Audio Drop Out Problem

[ASTROMODAT]

SUBJECT: Potential Loss of ASTRO® Common Air Interface (CAI) repeat audio

SYSTEMS AFFECTED: ASTRO SmartZone® 3.0, 3.5, 4.1 and ASTRO SmartNet® systems

MODEL and OPTIONS AFFECTED:
• T5365 Quantar® with one of the following options:
• X897 SmartZone 6809 ASTRO CAI Trunking
• X898 SmartZone IntelliRepeater (IR) ASTRO CAI Trunking
• X900 SmartNet 6809 ASTRO CAI Trunking

SYMPTOMS: When repeating Astro CAI audio from an Astro subscriber radio, the Quantar may intermittently not transmit Astro audio. This issue may occur when the station exits the hang time mode after a valid Astro transmission. When the Drop Out Delay (DOD) timer expires and the station begins the “Disconnect” portion of the call, if the station receives valid Astro Receive frames from the same Subscriber radio, or another radio in the same talk group, the Quantar will continue the previous call, but with no carrier modulation.

CAUSE: There is a small period of time (under 100mS) when the station is transmitting the “Disconnect” signal, and a new source of valid Astro voice data is received. The station correctly continues the call based upon the reception of the Astro voice data, but once the “Disconnect” signal has been transmitted, the DSP transitions to an idle state. The result is that the station is transmitting an unmodulated carrier. For stations that have System Enhancement Release (SER) 4Q01 and earlier software versions, this issue causes a loss of Astro Audio for less than one second. The station does recover the Astro audio for the remainder of the transmission. For stations that have SER 1Q02 and later software versions, the Astro audio is lost for the entire second transmission.

RESOLUTION: Flash upgrade software is now available for both IntelliRepeater (IR) and SmartNet/SmartZone Quantar/Quantro stations to resolve this issue. The SER 1Q04 software (V12.7) is available for downloading from the businessonline.motorola.com website. After signing in, one can download the Flash upgrade for a SmartNet/SmartZone (12.7_sn) or an IntelliRepeater (12.7_ir) station. When downloaded and unzipped, run the install.exe program to install the Flash software on the laptop computer that contains the RSS/FTP application to upgrade Quantar stations. This upgrade software is designed to work with all stations, no station backplane ID is required.

As an alternative to the RSS, Quantar Flash upgrades can also be performed with the DLN6455A Configuration Service Software (CSS), which was designed to service APCO 25 stations/Astro 6.X System releases. The Software Download feature of the CSS software will allow you to successfully flash any Quantar/Quantro station with the serial cable or with an Ethernet connection without the need for the CVN1077A DOS-based FTP utility software; however, it currently will not allow you to configure/service non-APCO 25 stations.