Some DMR questions.

[TNFrank]

Not sure what CCS7 is. I understand DMR and P25. Also, another question, will I be able to RX P25 channels? 

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, TNFrank said:

Not sure what CCS7 is.

That's the type of ID used for P25 digital voice mode.

1 hour ago, TNFrank said:

Also, another question, will I be able to RX P25 channels? 

Not without a real P25 radio, or a hot spot with the P25 protocol built in. Note P25 radios are expensive. Some used radios people have them priced like Gold Bricks, and IMHO they are way over priced. You can buy really nice used DMR and NXDN radios far cheaper than the P25 stuff.

For example this is a section of Kenwoods 2024 catalog. Look at the cost to add P25 conventional verses DMR conventional to one of their top tier NX5000 HT's. Note they come out of the box enabled already for NXDN.

https://comms.kenwood.com/special/nx_5000/common/pdf/nx_5000_brochure_2016.pdf

 

The price is shocking to say the least. Other manufactures will rape you just as bad.

P25 radios are expensive, I'm guessing,for a couple of reasons. One it's a requirement for many emergency communications systems, and its used by just about every government agency. Second, and I don''t know if it's still true or not, but there were/are government grants to cover some of the cost of the equipment. Of course as soon as the government starts handing out money the prices go up because the manufactures figure the end buyer isn't footing the whole bill so the cost, to them out of pocket, isn't as big of a deal.  

[TNFrank]

The only reason I'm interested in P25 is to RX LEO/EMS frequencies to keep track of what's going on same as I monitor DPS on NFM. You'd be surprised at all the stuff going on on the roadways.

[SteveShannon]

44 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

The only reason I'm interested in P25 is to RX LEO/EMS frequencies to keep track of what's going on same as I monitor DPS on NFM. You'd be surprised at all the stuff going on on the roadways.

Some scanners receive P25. 

[Lscott]

41 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

The only reason I'm interested in P25 is to RX LEO/EMS frequencies to keep track of what's going on same as I monitor DPS on NFM. You'd be surprised at all the stuff going on on the roadways.

First before investing in any kind of radio for P25 monitoring, particularly for public safety, you want to make sure it's not encrypted. If it is you're hosed. You won't find any way to break the encryption normally used.

Second it's not a trunked system. Some radios will NOT scan trunking systems unless they are registered/affiliated. That's can't happen without the system administrator of the system authorizing your radio on it, which likely 99.999% of the time won't happen. There are some ways to do what is called a "non affiliated" scan. It usually means some way to spoof the radio to think it's really on the trunking system. I have a buddy who managed to do that with some XTS2500's on 700/800 MHz to monitor his local PD. He's lucky they don't encrypt.

It's usually the first item above that spoils the idea of monitoring. 

[Lscott]

8 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Some scanners receive P25. 

[Northcutt114]

5 hours ago, TNFrank said:

The only reason I'm interested in P25 is to RX LEO/EMS frequencies to keep track of what's going on same as I monitor DPS on NFM. You'd be surprised at all the stuff going on on the roadways.

I don't know whereabouts you are in Arizona, but the majority of major metropolitan police forces are encrypting their radio traffic. I'd check before I spent any money on a radio to scan.

 

[Northcutt114]

4 hours ago, Lscott said:

First before investing in any kind of radio for P25 monitoring, particularly for public safety, you want to make sure it's not encrypted. If it is you're hosed. You won't find any way to break the encryption normally used.

It's usually the first item above that spoils the idea of monitoring. 

Yup, this ^.

 

[TNFrank]

Dept. of Public Safety(aka Highway Patrol)still uses FM Narrow band. I have 4 channels locally I can listen to, East, West, South, and Central. EMS and Rural Metro Fire are also NFM. Not everyone has gone P25. 

I got my radio today so, let the fun begin.

[TNFrank]

Ok, so the CPS isn't reading the radio. I tried my chipped cable(which I'm told isn't going to work with a digital radio) and the factory supplied cable. I installed the drivers for the standard USB programming cable but the odd thing is that the CPS doesn't give me the option of a COM Port to pick from. Normally I use COM5 but there's no picking the COM port so I just get an error message and can't connect to the radio. The cable IS pushed in all the way and short of unplugging everything usb from my computer I have no clue as to what to do. Any ideas?  

[TNFrank]

Well, the radio is going back to Amazon. I'm not going to try to fight with it to get it to work with the CPS. I've tried a couple different cables, installed drivers, did everything I could think of including trying other CPS programs but it just won't read. If I can't read it I can't program it. I'm going to go with my first choice, the RT-4D and see if that'll work. If it doesn't then it'll go back too. 

[WRYS709]

2 hours ago, TNFrank said:

Ok, so the CPS isn't reading the radio. I tried my chipped cable(which I'm told isn't going to work with a digital radio) and the factory supplied cable. I installed the drivers for the standard USB programming cable but the odd thing is that the CPS doesn't give me the option of a COM Port to pick from. Normally I use COM5 but there's no picking the COM port so I just get an error message and can't connect to the radio. The cable IS pushed in all the way and short of unplugging everything usb from my computer I have no clue as to what to do. Any ideas?  

[deleted; see below]

[WRYS709]

1 hour ago, TNFrank said:

Well, the radio is going back to Amazon. I'm not going to try to fight with it to get it to work with the CPS. I've tried a couple different cables, installed drivers, did everything I could think of including trying other CPS programs but it just won't read. If I can't read it I can't program it. I'm going to go with my first choice, the RT-4D and see if that'll work. If it doesn't then it'll go back too. 

I had 0 problems with programming my DM-1701 for the brief time I owned it.

Link for me the CPS that you are using.  How did you find it?  Was it included in the box; I suspect not.

What computer do you use?  Which flavor of Windows?

If you get this frustrated with programming, working with DMR programming will not get better.  With all due respect, you need to take a few deep breathes, relax and give it more than 2 hours for help to arrive!