Lscott
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Posts posted by Lscott
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34 minutes ago, gman1971 said:
Couldn't the OP just reflash the radio with a fresh firmware copy? Saving the tuning partition first before dumping new fw on the radio, if the bits are failing maybe the flash can fix it?
G.
If the chip is failing nothing is going to fix it except a replacement. I'm just suspecting that's the problem, a few failing bits, because he said he can program other channels with the same setup and they work.
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You might be unlucky to have a memory chip in the radio that has partially failed, a few bad bits in some memory locations. If that's the case don't be surprised if you later notice some other things don't work right.
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Protecting "trade secrets" is harder that defending a patent in court. For trade secrets the complainant has to show they followed strict security protocols in regards to who saw the information, how it was tracked and how access was controlled.
Non disclosure and non compete agreements are another matter. At least for non compete agreements they have to be reasonably limited in scope, duration and geographic area, to have a chance in standing up to a court challenge.
I would start to worry about this country when we start stealing wholesale technology from the Chinese. At the rate things are going I hope that never happens.
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You didn’t specify what frequencies you programmed into the radio. There are two frequency spilt versions of this radio. Which one do you have?
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On 1/6/2022 at 11:09 AM, JCR said:
HOW MANY HAVE POWER BACK-UP PLANS FOR RADIO? THIS IS JUST FO FUN.....
I general I have several different sized LFP, Lithium Iron Phosphate, battery packs, solar panels and MPPT charge controllers. Then to connect everything up I have pre-made cables and adapters using Anderson Power poles all stored away. Most of my equipment are handhelds so I keep several battery packs charged up and on standby. The NiMH packs I have to rotate through the chargers somewhat frequently due to their higher self discharge rates. The Lithium Ion type packs can last for months without losing to much of their charge. I also have a few mobile power adapters for the handheld radios.
For the higher power mobile type radios I can power them off a large 40AH LFP battery pack. That one using a large Anderson Power Pole adapter. That's wired to a terminal block where I can branch off using the smaller adapters.
I keep several 12VDC LED strips, about 3 to 5 watts, around for emergency lights too.
The solar panels are typically anywhere from 5 watts, 10 watts, 20 watts, 30 watts and 50 watts each. They're small enough to store easily and setup. The smaller panels are perfect for keeping the handheld radios going.
Most of the Kenwood charger bases need 15VDC to work at about 1 amp. For those I have some DC to DC converters that will take 9.8VDC to 36VDC input and provide a regulated 15VDC output at up to 1 amp for the chargers. Perfect for battery operation.
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And this is the link for the study for switching to digital on the VHF marine band too.
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Oops. This should have been the link for the TK-3701 radio in the last post.
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Oh as a side note it seems the ITU is considering going digital for the VHF marine band. On another forum site some are guessing it could come down to a choice between NXDN or dPMR. Both are very closely related.
Myself I’ve been looking around for a relatively cheap dPMR radio to add to my collection. The one I would like to get is the TK-3701. It’s only 1/2 watt but would be fun to play with. Just one problem. They’re expensive.
https://www.connect.fi/images/docs/TK-3701D_20192511_LR.pdf
Supposedly there are cheap Chinese radios that do dPMR but from what I’ve read they use some weird version the AMBE vocoder chip which isn’t compatible with the one used by the standard for dPMR.
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5 hours ago, gman1971 said:
Same for the APX radios, you need a keyloader device.
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12 hours ago, gman1971 said:
Still, FHSS, like @BoxCar said, will require more than your basic listening equipment, but in theory is not that hard. As for encryption goes, it really depends what was used... GD77 privacy? Probably a piece of cake. XPR6550 Enhanced Privacy? a tad harder, but easy, an XPR7550e with AES256? The only chance is if they get their hands on the radio. An APX8k P25 with AES256? Not a chance, even if they get their hands on the radio, they still have to defeat all the security protocols just to get to the AES keys inside the radio, that is if the radio doesn't self-wipe when tampered with.
G.
The Kenwood modules will do that. Plus you need a special “key loader” just to access the cryptographic module from what I’ve read.
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I monitor MURS along with FRS channels when at home. I hear way more activity on FRS/GMRS than on MURS, in fact I hear almost nothing on MURS. It seems to be mostly neglected in my area.
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2 hours ago, gortex2 said:
Well as I agree radios cost money so does every piece of equipment a FF or police officer wears doing there job.
So what really drives the high prices? One could say the engineering, testing certification and so on. Or the manufacture knows the customer will pay it simply because there isn't anything else out there that's competitive. As technology gets better one should be able to buy the same quality equipment at lower prices as time goes by.
How many would continue to buy the older models because they know they work but can't due to the manufacture obsoleting them so they can sell an updated version at higher prices when maybe you don't care about those new features. When the manufacture knows a customer will pay $8K for a radio what stops them from introducing an updated one for $10K?
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1 hour ago, PACNWComms said:
Some people/organizations may get further discounts, but here is some of my pricing with each radio being a Model 3 full keypad and display version, with antenna, single battery, belt clip, and single unit charger, single zone P25 Phase 1 FDMA with no AES encryption options:
APX900 M3 $3116.00
APX4000 M3 $3392.70
APX6000XE M3 $4065.20 (this price is for P25 Phase 1/2 FDMA and TDMA with AES OTAR options)
Then there is the XPR7550e M3 TDMA at $1006.40 (this org gets screwed on these, I tend to try to get new old stock instead at one third the price from a trusted vendor).
Sad part is government agencies and mega businesses are paying those prices. Then 10 to 20 years later you can buy them used for a small fraction of those prices, and most are perfectly usable.
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Part of metric is how much performance do you get for the money spent. A lower spec'd radio might be a better deal if the price is right. Of course for some people price is not a consideration. But I did read a few posts where some comments were made about the cost of one or more models.
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31 minutes ago, gman1971 said:
Yeah, the 8000 is in a class of its own... with a mighty impressive price tag too...
Can you add in the MSRP value for the base configuration of each?
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I would be a bit more conservative on the solar insolation value used in your calculations. The charts I've seen from NREL, National Renewable Energy Labs, had a margin of error of about 10 percent. Also your eye may not notice it but small about of dust and haze in the air can result in a noticeable reduction in panel output.
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html
On the battery side the general recommendation is NOT to discharge a Lead Acid battery below 50 percent of capacity. Doing so can result is a large reduction in the number of charge/discharge cycles the battery can support before it become unusable.
You also DON'T want to let a Lead Acid battery sit around for very long at anything less than full charge. In a partially charged state the Lead Sulfide is porous but then becomes less so over time. When the acid can no longer penetrate the Sulfide it can't be converted back to Lead and Lead Peroxide during the charge cycle resulting in a permanent reduction in battery capacity.
Most people don't consider what happens when a Lead Acid Battery is charged too fast. Some of the water in the electrolyte is converted into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Even in a so-called "sealed" battery there are vents to release gas build up. Once that gas is released it can't be converted back to liquid water, yes there is a complicated chemical process in GEL and AGM batteries that can do this, but only if the gases generated is done slowly. If you look at a some of the smaller battery specification sheets this max charge rate is specified. Of course with liquid filled batteries this isn't a problem since you can always add more distilled water.
https://datasheet.octopart.com/NP7-12FR-EnerSys-datasheet-32762402.pdf
For the above example a 7 amp-hour battery the max recommended charge current is 1.75 amps. At a terminal voltage of 14.4 VDC the max power you can safely use for charging is 1.75 X 14.4 = 25.2 watts. I just cringe when I see guys selling so-called solar power generators at swaps with these small batteries and have a 50 to 100 watt PV panel connected to them.
https://www.power-sonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Technical-Manual.pdf
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3 hours ago, Ian said:
My holy grail of "learning Morse". Digital signaling is for machines.
"You ask what Morse Code is good for? I'll tell you. MorseCode is used exclusively by Electronics Based Life Forms tocommunicate amongst themselves using advanced OrganicDigital Signal Processors, running state of the art ArtificialIntelligence Software, to perform the highly complextransmit encryption, receive decryption and error correctionfunctions." -
3 hours ago, Ian said:
(I honestly don't know which ISS radios are currently active; I read that they recently got a new Kenwood VHF rig a few years ago…)
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14 minutes ago, axorlov said:
I'm not sure about DTR, but DLR has only four digits for the hopset, making 10000 combinations. Is DTR the same? May help with facilitating crimes somewhere with understaffed underfunded sheriffs departments, but for 3-letter agencies seems to be easy to brute-force. No?
One might be tempted to assume it's secure. I don't know if the exact protocol is documented but some kind of synchronization code has to be communicated between the radios. Who knows what else is being sent. In fact it might even be a requirement that "secret" hop info is being transmitted and that only "authorized" government agencies have access to it for monitoring use.
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2 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:
I've heard of a Prolific chip in USB cables, but not prolific mode.
Is that the same as Promiscuous Mode in DMR?
If so, for $69, hard to beat the Radioddity RD-5R DMR/analog HT, which is their GD-77 in a UV-5R style case and now there is the OpenGD77 Firmware project that supports this radio, too.
Unfortunately that isn't really available, promiscuous mode, for some digital systems. That would be very handy for monitoring things like NXDN and P25 trunking systems. The protocol is written such that when a digital transmission is picked up, and its tagged as from a trunking system, unless the radio has a valid "system key" loaded, not an encryption key, for that system the data is not decoded to audio and the radio stays muted. At least that's my understanding.
For my NXDN radios, NX-300's, the programming software won't even show the NXDN network info window without a valid system key loaded in to the software. Kenwood keeps a fairly tight lock on the software for these system keys. It's the KPG-110SM.
https://comms.kenwood.com/en/products/model.php?ID=KPG-110SM-a
I have a buddy the does use a XTS-5000 P25 radio on 800 MHz to monitor his local public service agencies. He used what was called an "non affiliated" mode but still had to fudge up a system key for the radio to get the thing to work.
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With only 22 channels available for me I just scan them all. I even do that at home. If I hear something interesting I stop the scan.
It helps if the radio scans reasonably fast too. Some of the Chinese radios are really SLOW while scanning, if that matters to you. That might be one thing to check before laying out your money.
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38 minutes ago, RobertHode said:
Does anyone have an approved and official list of the equipment that can be used to commit or facilitaed criminal acts? I want to do things correctly.
Asking for a friend
Well you can ask those who have been convicted and I'm sure they can tell you what equipment doesn't work.
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7 hours ago, dirkvan said:
So I am curious as to why there are such limitations to programming GMRS radios. .....i just want to understand the mechanics of it. I freely admit that I am not an engineer or technical guru
Well it simply comes down to the money. Somebody has to pay the software guy to rework functioning firmware for their Ham version of the radio, or totally new firmware, to meet FCC GMRS regulations. It's not going to be done for free. If the manufacture doesn't see a huge market for a product with those features it's poor business sense to spend money on something that won't increase sales in a major way.
Once you sit through a few meetings between sales and engineering groups, I have for the kind of business our company is in, the question pops up "how much is the customer willing to pay for feature "x"?". The answer in some cases is little to done. Guess what? Management kills the idea and it doesn't make it to production. That's they way the business world works.
U.S. charges China's Hytera with conspiring with ex-Motorola staff to steal technology
in Miscellaneous Topics
Posted
I’ll bet Motorola paid to have their radios “seen” on TV. No real difference than seeing a clear unobstructed view of band names on various products in movies. Just another form of paid advertising.