XTS5000: Latest Firmware Now Supports Live ASTRO Dialing!!!

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:39 pm

Just got our latest series XTS5000 portables in yesterday, and we confirmed this morning that the Model III keypad now successfully sends Data 12 packets in ASTRO mode! Works like a champ with our DIU3000 connected to the MRTI2000 for ASTRO interconnect on Conventional. I think this ASTRO live dial Data 12 feature just got enabled in the XTS5000 firmware about July or August of this past summer. We had been screwed up until now as we replaced most of our old XTS3000's with its replacement (XTS5K) about a year ago. Suddenly, we lost the ability to interconnect in ASTRO mode with this newer series portable! Pay more, get less?! Hats off to Motorola, though, as we bitched and moaned, and they came through! I call that Great customer support!

As far as I know, the ASTRO dialing should also now be enabled on Trunked systems.

Analog DTMF for FM mode is still a "Future" capability, but I keep hearing that it looks like this will never be implemented in the XTS5000 due to memory concerns, even with the 8 Meg capacity. But hey, who cares about legacy analog anyways? This is the ASTRO board!

Larry

Post by **/\/\y 2 cents** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:43 pm

wow...Now you can use your high tier, above the price book, i'm too cool for you radio like a fruity cell phone. It sucked having to do all that work and depress your thumb on the ptt while sequentially dialing the DTMF digits. STOP THE PRESS ON THIS ONE! What a worthless anouncement. Motorola commercial portables are becoming more like little girly cellphones everyday. Thanks for pointing out this glaring inadequacy. I think I'll buy a TEKK.

Post by **xmo** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:58 pm

I am going to take this opportunity to express a point of view - and that is that there are a few folks here who seem to lie in wait for a thread like this to offer an opportunity to bash Motorola, its products, P25 and anything else that has put a burr under their saddle.

I find this offensive and contrary to the spirit and purpose of this board and I am asking that this be avoided here in the future - please take those sorts of opinions to some other venue.

Post by **/\/\y 2 cents** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 6:38 pm

We are not bashing motorola or anybody. They make the product and we respond as a consumer or buyer to what we see. The more they come out with features like this and get lemmings to go across the land spewing thier brand-touting nonsense, the more obvious it becomes that motorola and this whole ASTRO/P25 thing is theatre of the absurd...I'm simply making a comment that they make mountains out of mole hills about features that don't really make a lick of difference. Do I come out with a press release everytime I do something of trivial importance. I dont do that after I tie my shoe every morning. They are expected to make minor improvements as future revsions are put out and not go looking for pats on the back for doing something routine. I really don't think making a radio do a feature like this warrant's a press release of sorts. Educate the dealer, thats all. I mean you cant even get telephone interconnect on a license anymore let alone afford to own an ASTRO system (or even one radio for that matter.) In fact, I bet that under 50 people in the united states actually use this feature or even care to know the difference. 45 out of 50 of them work at the factory. I'd much rather spend my time in the ASTRO forum talking about REAL digital issues/topics, not that i can use my handheld/mobile more easily or to my liking because they finally enabled some feature that was bugging the crap out of my OCD complex. These are minute little details in a radio's behavior, not things to get all worked up about. Why dont you educate us all on the Digital Vs. Analog advantages (or lack thereof) and different modualtion schemes. Or how lies and gross exaggerations are made and are told about how many users can be on a channel at a time with a digital system. This would be a more worthwhile thing to get people's eyes in front of, and is a hot topic in 2-way these days since so many investors have been scammed by loading claims that dont pan out. Since you own one of these systems, you are a great asset to the board, and can be the eyes and ears, not the salesman's echo. Thats all im saying. Sorry for being sarcastic.
Steve

Post by **xmo** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:22 pm

I will grant you that Larry gets rather excited about some of the new features - but I guess you can't blame him - or the Motorola marketing types - for wanting to promote things - it's a natural sales sort of thing.

MaCom is no better - if you believe their hype - Open Sky is God's gift to radio and Network First solves every interoperability issue on the planet - but does Open Sky have a real operational track record? And aren't there a lot of much less expensive interoperability answers than Network First?

Not believing every salesman's BS and questioning just what is a good solution for each application are goals we can aspire to here and in our work lives. I would just like to see that dialog based on facts.

You have a valid point that P25 live dialing may not be needed by the majority of users - but - it could be a useful feature in some applications - and I do appreciate knowing it is available.

One application for such a feature would be controlling interoperability solutions.

In analog mode we have a number of ways to trasmit control commands - e.g. single tone, MDC, and DTMF. Up to now - there was no way to send a free-format command sequence in digital mode.

With this capability - the DIU will convert the digital commands and digital audio into an analog interface that can drive a port on a controlled device - anything from a JPS to a Link Communications or CAT controller or a VOIP interface.

Post by **/\/\y 2 cents** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:51 pm

you wrote: "Live Astro dialing could be used to control interoperability devices."

If motorola has it their way, you wont have any interoperability devices, If you did, P25 wouldnt have been bought by your agency and the United States wouldnt be so far behind in fixing this issue...Motorola is selling the p25 system AS the interoperability solution, they dont want any other manufactuer's stuff on the scene, ESPECIALLY IF IT WORKS WELL. They usually tell a customer that if you use or buy a 3rd party device, such as an interoperabiltiy box by whomever, we can no longer guarantee or support your system and it is out of waranty and voids the maintinance contract. This usually scares the entity into thinking the other company is going to screw up thier stuff, and never bother persuing a 3rd party solution.

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 8:05 pm

My 2 Cents, like Mr. Cheney told Kerry, “Where do I even begin?!”

You seem to have a penchant for spewing a lot of mean remarks in your posts, and yet you don't know squat about what you are saying. For example:

1. You said: "It sucked having to do all that work and depress your thumb on the ptt while sequentially dialing the DTMF digits."

What in the heck are you jabbering about here? Live Dial still requires that you hold down the PTT, while you manually press each keypad key to send the ASTRO Data 12 digits. It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is---it has everything to do with the ability to be able to send D 12 packets, or not. Until now, the XTS5000 was not able to send Data 12 packets, with thumbs held on the PTT, or toes tied around ones head. The purpose of my post was to let other ASTRO system user folks know that Motorola has now enabled this feature in the XTS5K, something that is a very big deal for me and my company, and my employees.

2. You said: "They make mountains out of mole hills about features that don't really make a lick of difference. I bet that under 50 people in the united states actually use this feature or even care to know the difference.”

Again, you have once more displayed your ignorance for all to see. Regarding 50 users of this capability, I have 181 full time employees in my company, with another 73 part timers. Of these, approximately 35 in my little company alone use this feature. We are required under contract to be able to send D 12 packets to control ground equipment and initiate command sequences on ground computers that our helicopters are required to interface with. Up until now, we could not do this with our new XTS5K radios, since we are required to send these commands in D 12 packet form in P25 mode, and not in analog DTMF. Our DIUs are located in hardened sites, where the D 12’s are converted to DTMF to do everything from initiate command sequences, to interconnecting patches for secure communications. As to being of “trivial importance,” I'd like to see your face when you tell my employees that we can't support the contract requirements that feed their families because we have to build a new system. To my employees and their families, keeping their jobs is not what we consider to be a trivial issue.

Further, if only 50 people were using D 12 packets, why in the heck do you think the Gov’t made a big stink about P 25 service monitors not having the ability to read D 12 packets? I agree that sending D 12 packets on P 25 systems may not be a common or typical need, but for some P 25 users, it is a critical feature that makes our system play properly on an end-to-end basis.

I hope in the future you could think a little before posting mean remarks, and insulting others.

Larry

Post by **xmo** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:42 pm

We just are not making the kind of progress here that I was hoping for.

"...If motorola has it their way, you wont have any interoperability devices..."

This is exactly the sort of untrue and unwarranted comment that I consider bashing and inappropriate. I have personally seen Motorola incorporate third party interoperability solutions into their designs, bids, and installations. Equipment from acknowledged interoperability vendors like JPS and Raven.

If your products have yet to achieve commercial acceptance - bashing Motorola is hardly the best way to accomplish that.

Once again I will ask that responses in these forums be constrained to facts and experiences and comments that contribute to the thread's subject.

Post by **/\/\y 2 cents** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 7:24 am

There is no bashing or mean sprited anyhtin on my end, when someone called me ignorant (which I may or may not be, thats up for the psychologists who give the wechsler to decide,) That was the point of bashing or childish name calling. I think mis-reading a person's context is one of the pitfalls of typing instead of observing tone of voice and facial/body language. When I speak about Motorola (or any competitive business that would act similar) I'm not saying anything bad about them. All I am doing is explaining to you their position when I dealt with them, Im just telling you the way it goes down here in palm beach county florida...infact the admin of the PB county system told me right here on this board that they would never buy another kind/brand of interoperability device from anybody to use along side their new Motorola 800 gear...Meanwhile the federal foresty firefighters are on VHF and when they come into fight a brush fire it can be a challenge communication with the counties they are in. In fact, the county used to be on VHF so now they have technically moved backward in compatibity with other OUTSIDE agencies, not inside agencies. As for ASTRO Live dialing, I did shoot my mouth off because I was confused, point taken. But you have to understand HOT dialing, LIVE dialing, Taped dialing, all sound like variations of the same theme you have been fixated on for some time now. One can get easily confused, especially since i am ignorant. You wouldn't yell at corky from life goes on for giving you a filet-o-fish when you clearly ordered a grilled chicken w/ no mayo, he got confused, ad was born like that, apparently so was I, have some charity. So to sum it all up from my end...(1) no im not tying to be mean lor a basher toward motorola or larry.(2) I'm elated that you finally have the features your company has been waiting ever-so-long for. (3) I love batlabs so and everybody on here so don't get it twisted.
Steve

515 · Post by **515** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 7:35 am

The agency I work for has several conventional P25 systems that use "P25 DTMF", and it works great... It's a very necessary feature to control phone patches, weather stations, alarms, etc.

The conventional XTS5000's I've worked with always supported P25 DTMF, but not in "live dialing" mode. The XTS3000s were the same way. To send digits, you had to put the radio in "phone mode" first, type your digits, and tap the PTT to send them. You can send up to 34 digits in a 90 millisecond burst of data, which is pretty much a P25 trunking inbound status word. I'll take that any day over live dialing 10 or more analog digits into a phone patch where my signal could briefly fade and result in a wrong number dialed.

Larry, are you sure your 5000's wouldn't do P25 DTMF at all, even in phone mode? It was a firmware upgrade for the live dialing, right? What firmware version is it?

I know we've discussed this before, but I still don't think the P25 DTMF can be encrypted, though. At least not with the current Motorola equipment on a conventional system. I've seen an IFR2975 decode them using the optional "P25 Logger" function. It would decode them just fine, regardless of the encryption state of the radio.

I've been told the EF Johnson 5100 portable will soon have the ability to send P25 DTMF on a conventional channel--which is the kind of interoperability P25 is all about. I Wonder when a non-MA/COM radio will be able to operate on any ProVoice or analog EDACS system... My guess is 'never'.

wd9cms · Post by **wd9cms** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:57 am

Larry,

What host version supports P25 Data 12 packet dialing????? We have R04.80.00 host and DSP will this version work ?????

Thanks,

ExKa|iBuR · Post by **ExKa|iBuR** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:37 pm

Analog FM DTMF is a future option? Great, so I spend mega-bucks on a very high tier radio and still can't do something I was able to do with a POS SP50 10 years ago...

-M

Post by **batdude** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:45 pm

whoa

hot keypad dialing is supposed to be supported in HOST 5.00

i can CONFIRM that i can send ANALOG DTMF with host 4.80.00

all i have to do is put the radio in phone mode via the menu, and tap the number and the radio transmits analog DTMF.....

kinda a pain, but hey.... it works.

doug

Post by **Wowbagger** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:51 pm

515 wrote:I know we've discussed this before, but I still don't think the P25 DTMF can be encrypted, though. At least not with the current Motorola equipment on a conventional system. I've seen an IFR2975 decode them using the optional "P25 Logger" function. It would decode them just fine, regardless of the encryption state of the radio.

The encryption is applied to the voice data going into/coming out of the vocoder - so anything else isn't encrypted.

The sequence is:

Microphone -> anti-alias filter -> Analog to digital -> any AGC -> Vocoder -> optional encrypt -> forward error correct -> frame into P25 logical data units -> modulate

Demodulate -> slice to symbols -> deframe -> apply error correction -> optional decrypt -> vocoder -> any AGC -> digital to analog -> reconstruction filter -> amp -> speaker

There is a seperate spec for encrypting the control channel that would encrypt the dialing packets, but while some of the TLAs have discussed this (especially after they saw our control channel logger!) nobody has asked us to support an encrypted control channel (at least no bugs have been filed requesting that).

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:43 pm

wowbagger said: "The encryption is applied to the voice data going into/coming out of the vocoder - so anything else isn't encrypted."

However, one of the new features of CPS 5.0 is: "Conventional Encrypted Data is now supported."

larry

Post by **batdude** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:55 pm

maybe i am just being a little

here

but

is encryption of data-12 packets (astro dtmf) that darn important?

i guess if you are a covert operative dialing your contact at the embassy, sure... but c'mon

you have to have a freakin' 15k$ box just to decode them.....

larry, can you spare a DIU? I need to connect it to my cross band quantar... the vhf side came in the mail today!

doug

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:57 pm

The Data 12 packets that are sensitive and need encryption are not limited to applications such as autopatch with the MRTI 2000 (e.g., so that cowthief can covertly dial his Top Secret Japanese Embassy phone numbers). It is more typical to need to encrypt these Data 12 packets for signaling operations that remote control other equipment, and/or provide signaling commands for other systems. An example is commands that are fed to PCs connected to a DIU 3000 to start a series of programmed sequences of events. These types of applications have traditionally used analog DTMF commands. Remember that the DIU 3000 decodes these Data 12 packets, and it pumps out DTMF via the MRTI 2000 port on the rear apron of the DIU 3000.

If someone were to get ahold of these command sequences they could hack into the affected systems and play all sorts of havock. By encrypting these command sequences, it is possible to provide a high level of security for these command codes.

larry

doug, I think you need 2 DIUs, one for the UHF side, and one for the VHF side, along with a controller, such as the S-COM 7K, if I understand what you are trying to do (cross band 2 Quantars that can transparently cross band repeat both IMBE and legacy analog FM).

Post by **batdude** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:45 pm

star trek quote

DAMMIT JIM

I think you need 2 DIUs

oh well.

and no - i hadn't thought of control packets - that's pretty swift.... of course, i am still looking for a SAM too... i would control mine with MDC in the absence of data-12 decoding