Batboard

Have a customer using the XTS2500/3000/5000 portables in a conventional wide analog VHF environment. Seems like a lot of radio for the application, but they must use these portables as they are the only option (to my understanding and the customers) that will continue to support DVP and keep their older fleet of mobiles alive.

Customer wishes to now move to narrow and while at it: covert to P25. And, desire to move to an interoperable encryption protocol, DES. Which leads to questions I cannot answer:

1. Will the models listed support conventional P25 out of the box with no add ons?
2. What will be necessary to switch from DVP to DES?

The customer will discontinue use of older mobile radios upon upgrade.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!

Hi,

1. It depends on the flashcode. If it starts with a 1 or a 5 they are already flashed for P25 and should just have to be reprogrammed. Otherwise expect to pay a few hundred bucks per radio to have them reflashed.

2. Encryption in these radios is controlled by a device called a UCM that is installed in the radio. In order to run DES you will need compatible UCMs. You can check the UCMs you are using right now to see if they are currently optioned for DES as well as DVP: Turn on the radio and immediately press the button directly above the PTT 5 times in rapid succession. A whole bunch of facts will flash on the screen (including the flashcode - see #1). You will eventually see something that starts with "KG:" if any of the KG's says DES then you just have to rekey the radios with a compatible keyloader (T3011DX or a KVL3000). Otherwise you will need to find new UCMs with DES installed on them. I have no idea what these are going for these days...

HTH

Great info, I will query the radios and see what it says. Thanks for your info.

just to add... the service mode button is the very bottom button on the left side for the 2500 (below the PTT)
On the 3000/5000 is the button directly above the PTT as bezking correctly said.


push it a few times right after turning on the radio to put it in service mode. Then all the radio info will be there.
Flashes by fairly quickly though.

Also if the radio is read he can get the flash in the software, not sure about the KG's though.

bezking wrote:You can check the UCMs you are using right now to see if they are currently optioned for DES as well as DVP: Turn on the radio and immediately press the button directly above the PTT 5 times in rapid succession. A whole bunch of facts will flash on the screen (including the flashcode - see #1). You will eventually see something that starts with "KG:" if any of the KG's says DES then you just have to rekey the radios with a compatible keyloader (T3011DX or a KVL3000). Otherwise you will need to find new UCMs with DES installed on them. I have no idea what these are going for these days...

HTH

If this is a government customer and they're buying new equipment, I'd suggest they move to AES instead unless compatibility with other DES users is a serious issue. DES is deprecated for government use (at least in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand.)

why do you suggest the move to AES even if it was a government user? just curious

mr.syntrx wrote:If this is a government customer and they're buying new equipment, I'd suggest they move to AES

Because it's no longer considered to be particicularly strong due to its short keylength, so it's no longer approved by NIST, and the various national authorities for communication security, such as CSE in Canada.