November Q&A

[Q] I currently have a couple Motorola XPR5550 radios that I am trying to upgrade the firmware on. Both radios are on R02.40.00 which is what they were on when the radios were sold to me. I am currently using CPS 2.0. I'm having trouble upgrading the firmware so far I don't know where to download the latest firmware from. Customer support stated that they could not help me due to the radio being out of warranty. I am trying to upgrade to firmware because I am trying to make the RX audio levelling work on the radios. Customer support stated that the firmware may be the reason for it not working. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[A] To upgrade the firmware beyond R02.10.08, the radio will need to be on a Software Maintenance Agreement contract. If it is, then you first need to upgrade to R02.10.08; recover the licence and then upgrade to the current release. R02.10.08 enables the Software Update Management feature flag in the radio codeplug.

If this is a XPR5550 non-e model (what we know as a DM4600 in EMEA), there is a chance that it is no longer supported, in which case, the highest you can go is R02.10.08. Since you are already in contact with customer support in North America, you should ask them about getting this radio onto a SMA. Depending on how the radio was procured, you may have to make contact with the Reseller who sold you your equipment.

[Q] I was using the latest CPS2 Software and wrote back to an old DP4801 Radio. The software uncounted an error now the radio continually restarts. Do you maybe have a fix for this?

[A] It sounds like you bricked the radio. There’s no fix other than to send the radio in to Motorola Solutions for repair.

[Q] How to set up the time/clock in R7 on Automatic via wifi. every time we tried to set it up on automatic it just end up in 01/01/2000 and the time is 00:00.

[A]

Make sure Time Source in General Settings is set to Automatic.

When set to automatic, the radio will get its time source from GPS or Wi-Fi. This means that in order for the radio to get the time source from GPS, it needs to see some satellites. If not outdoors, the Wi-Fi network to which it is connected needs to pass UDP port 123 from the internet and the radio needs to be able to access pool.ntp.org which is a well-known NTP time source.

If none of these seem to solve the problem, you need to contact technical support.

[Q] When I install version 2.138 of Radio Manager and then click on the ‘import radio’ option I am told “You Cannot Perform This Operation Due To Lack Of Permissions”. I get this message even before I am given the option to select the file to import. I get this consistently when installing on either Windows 10 or Windows 11 virtual machines.

This discovery is with a blank database and a fresh install, but it is born from me trying to update my database from 2.128. I have been consistently unable to update my database, and am instead presented with what appears to be a blank database (though the job history is there, just not the radios). Again, when I click on the ‘import radio’ option I am told “You Cannot Perform This Operation Due To Lack Of Permissions”. As usual, before RM 2.138 opens for the first time, I am told that it will update the database to 2.138. The time it takes to do this is far too short in my opinion, given the database size.

I think the whole problem relates somehow to permissions that are being messed up with in the install somehow… perhaps at an SQL level? I have never had a problem this bad when updating RM. I have once before lost my database on an update but was able to successfully restore it with my backup.

As per your advice on your blog, I tried running the installer with Admin privileges, with virus protection turned off, and with all windows updates performed. I even tried in compatibility mode and rolling both windows 11 and 10 back to about mid-2021 in case that helped. Each of these was one change at a time (to keep track of the variables).

I have successfully got 2.138 working with a fresh database on a non virtual machine, but again the database update didn’t work properly. Once I had unsuccessfully tried an import caused the database problem, I uninstalled the software and deleted the SQL database. On reinstall, I no longer had a working version, instead getting the same messages and problems. It feels like there is something I’m missing.

So, my challenge to you, if you are interested, is to try installing 2.138 on a windows machine and see if you get the same error messages. You could also try updating 2.128 to 2.138. If you do see the same problem, then I would suggest it is likely to be worth a blog post as other users will most likely experience the same issues. Perhaps you will find a way to prevent it, or perhaps you already know of a possible way to fix the issues that 2.138 causes.

[A] I have installed an older version of Radio Management and upgraded to 2.138.176 on a Virtual Machine running Windows Server 2016 Standard. The Hypervisor I use is Proxmox VE 8.0. The installation went smoothly and Radio Management works as expected. The host is on my home network.

I’ve installed older versions on Windows 10 Pro running on Virtualbox and Hyper-V. The results were more or less the same although I was not able to get the v-Switch to pass IP traffic between MNIS and the physical ethernet port.

Just an idea with no supporting evidence: maybe Windows 10 and 11 were not designed to run on a Virtual Machine? Maybe there is something in your Hypervisor that needs to be adjusted to allow the guest OS (and installed software) to access all resources?

Windows and Virtualisation is slightly out of my province so I’ll let my readers, who are more knowledgeable in this area, weigh in on your problem.

I will however, try to reproduce the when I have some idle time.

[Q] Are you open to a few hours of paid consulting to architect RM for a small ~50 MotoTRBO Cap+ radio deployment?

[A] I'm quite chuffed you asked! No, sorry, I’m not allowed to moonlight and anyway, I have a busy private life at the moment, so free time is in short supply.

[Q] Right now working on an IP site connect project, but is going to take a long time because of the company's IT system, which they are working on. (That's not the problem.) They would like to use something in the meantime, so was thinking about Trbo Link. They have one HQ location and three satellites, all of which have their own Trbo repeaters (let's call them A (HQ), B, C, D. We have a Trbo repeater on a very tall site right in the middle (we will call this HIGH-1) So what I would like to do is use links at each site--- so the Link for Repeater A====transmits to HIGH-1=== HIGH 1 repeats and transmits to Links attached to Repeaters B C D. This should work as far as I can tell.

You cannot have repeaters talking to each other, like in the analogue days. MOTOTRBO Link requires dedicated link repeaters. This post goes into some detail. This document might also help.

[Q] I bought a station from the market, motorola sl1600. I would like to change its frequency to PMR 32 channels. Now it only has two. Can you help me?

[A] To reconfigure this radio, you will need CPS and the programming cable. This radio uses a USB-A to Micro USB cable which you can find anywhere. More importantly, you will need a spectrum licence from your local telecommunications regulator and some knowledge to configure the radio to work correctly. My suggestion would be to contact a Motorola Solutions Reseller near you and ask them to help.

[Q] On every dm4600e device, we have a noise signal on the audio line of the rear accessory port at about 3.65kHz. For studio applications, this is an absolute nightmare. Have you ever heard of this, do you know a solution? It really is a problem with the device itself and not with the power supply or ground loops. We have been trying to find a solution for over a year for the more than 100 devices installed.

[A]I have not seen reports of this. The RX audio output on pin 12 of the accessory connector is high impedance (ca. 10kΩ) and unbalanced. Ground needs to be sourced from pin 14 and not any of the other grounds. 

If this is what you have, my suggestion would be to contact technical support. I tried with one radio I have here, using a small audio amplifier but could not hear anything.

When contacting support, it might help if you could provide the following information - in addition to the usual technical details:

How load is this noise (x dB below the 330mV output)? When is this noise present?

Does the noise change if the radio is idle and the display turned off?

Is this noise present when the radio is powered down?

Is this noise a pure sine/square wave or more spread?

One or two of my readers may be able to offer some advice here from their own experiences. Using a mobile radio for dispatch applications via a sound card is quite popular and if there was a problem I'd have expected to have seen this before.