[Motorola] Reverse Burst Incompatibility - SOLVED!

[Brad]

Eric Lemmon wrote:

> I have made a number of postings on this topic, on this list and others,
> and the responses have ranged from "I've never HEARD of such a thing!"
> to "Yeah, I've known about that for YEARS!"
>
> At issue is the fact that there are two schemes for CTCSS Reverse Burst
> specified in EIA/TIA-603, and Motorola uses one of them while Kenwood
> and the rest of the world use the other.  I first learned about this
> when I added a Kenwood mobile radio to a fleet that was entirely
> Motorola.  On every transmission, the Kenwood caused squelch crashes on
> all Motorola radios, and vice-versa.  It became such an annoyance that I
> converted the entire fleet to DCS, which has just one standard scheme.
> I was going to change the PL tone anyway, due to a match with a distant
> co-channel user.
>
> I made some very critical phone calls to Motorola and Kenwood, noting
> that my employer was a significant buyer of two-way radio equipment, and
> we were not happy with this incompatibilty issue.  Kenwood's response
> was to offer to flash my radio to work with the Motorola reverse burst
> scheme- but I had to ship it to a service center.  Motorola's response
> was that they were using the "standard format specified in EIA/TIA-603."
>
> Now, it seems that Motorola has acknowledged that the incompatibility IS
> an issue, and has done something about it.  The latest issue of the
> Professional CPS (HVN9025K R06.02.03), released a few weeks ago, now has
> an obscure box in the Personality Configuration - Advanced page labeled,
> "Non-Standard Reverse Burst."  When you check this box, the radio will
> encode and decode CTCSS reverse burst in a Kenwood-compatible format,
> but will not mute properly with Motorola radios.  I tested this
> "feature" with a brand-new HT-750, and it works perfectly.  The
> capability will likely appear in future RSS releases for all radio
> models.  Whether Kenwood will add a similar function to their RSS
> remains to be seen...
>
> 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY
>
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I have also noticed this issue with the Kenwood TK-880 radios we use for our
450 LTR system. They work fine on the native LTR however when a customer
goes over to say a conventional channel and talks with lets say an HT600 the
reverse burst is non existant kenwood to Moto however the other way around
the Kenwood shuts up for too long if say someone fumbles the PTT on the
HT600. Icom F series mobiles seem to also suffer from this however not as
bad, the Icom has a real problem with the Compander functions everyone seems
to be going after.


Good luck talking with Motorola, not to knock them however they do need some
fresh talent to add to the engineering gene pool... You can only breed so
many times before you start crossing distant relatives!

Brad KA�SQO