Auto Key Select for Receive

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mustanglane
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 01, 2007 12:37 pm

Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mustanglane »

Have a problem with an XTS5000 (recent govt purchase, full P25 with multi-key, DES and AES, but dont know the flash versions) that is not switching to the correct key on receive. The associated personality is set for ASTRO, and encryption is set to SECURE, with the KEY set to STRAPPED. A DES level key is selected. The radio is current in terms of loaded keys, and includes an AES key that is for the same agency as the selected DES key mentioned above. When another unit transmits using the AES key, this portable does not receive anything, but if the other unit switches to the same DES key as what is strapped in the radio, the portable receives fine.
Was always under the impression that all things being correct, the radio would auto-decode upon receive - BUT we have never STRAPPED a personality to a specific key. Belief was that setting the key to STRAPPED only meant that the user could not change the key for TRANSMIT purposes, but it seems to affect RECEIVE also - anyone have any confirmation of this or further explanation?
Thanks very much!
Dennis DG
tvsjr
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Joined: Fri Nov 28, 2003 9:46 am

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by tvsjr »

Have you tried reconfiguring that particular personality for select to see what happens?

Also, you probably have done so already, but make sure both radios have the proper keys with the proper key IDs. If the IDs are wrong, it won't work.
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mustanglane
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 01, 2007 12:37 pm

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mustanglane »

Thanks for the reply - I would like to try that if for no other reason than to prove my theoy, BUT it belongs to another agency - don't mind READING their radio, but there's that pesky little deal re different CPS versions that I hesitate to WRITE to their radio.
We did do a KVL read of both agency's radios and the LID/KID are the same for each key in question, even though they Otar from different KMFs. This also proved that the other radio had current AES level key in the background. Most interesting!
mike m
Posts: 903
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mike m »

D,

I remember testing this same issue on some Fw 12 and 14, XTS5000 HT's, and on some of the Helo RT's for Tucson Raid and even on some of your RT's.

After some major PITA setup issues I was able to finally get all of my XTS5000 Handhelds, but only with a particular FW version, to talk to each other and to the RT using strapped AES keys.

I typically made notes of these picky issue for my own backup plans and I'm going to see if I have them filed away somewhere on a USB stick.

But as I remember I had to manually enter in the AES keys in each of the radios mainly because the OTAR site north of us, at the time, wasn't set up for AES OTAR.

I eventually was able to get it working but not with OTAR.

Stan and I went thru a lot of problems with early FW versions and AES keys that didn't work properly, and I'm wondering if your radio has an LCD can you get the firmware revisions from the lower side button 5 key press after power up or is this an aircraft radio without the LCD ?


Mike

Edit:
My memory is starting to come back after 3 or 4 years,

make sure that all personalities are set for ASTRO only on receive and not for mixed mode as I remember that it had something to do with this and or with the P25 bandwidth selection also.

I'm still searching thru old notes to see if it was tied a a particular firmware too.


And of course I don't have an cps anymore nor do I have any XTS/astro radios either but a friend up north of me does and we are presently working on a trunking scan project for him.

I could use one of his radios at his shop and test out keyloaded AES later this week if it will help, I need to get up to his shop anyway so it's not a problem.
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mustanglane
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Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mustanglane »

Hey Mike,
Its actually a portable from another agency at another location - I didnt get to "lay hands on" myself. Our agency has always set up encryption as SELECT for on/off and SELECT for Key Assignment along with assigning a default key for the channel in question. Unfortunately, there are NO standards in the "G"!!
I'm really trying to verify my long held belief that the radio will always auto select from among the available keys upon encrypted receive - at least thats the way they work with the key selection being set to SELECT!
I only have one portable at my immediate disposal, but may get to my former office later this week and setup a test scenario to see how it behaves. I cant say for sure, but based on the channel they were testing, I'd have to say that it was set for full Astro and 12.5Khz channel spacing. We'll see what I can turn up and will post an answer if I can determine definitely.
Thanks
mike m
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Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mike m »

Have the other agency try and set all of the radios to 25KHz P25 and see if this fixes it.

I found some of my notes but so far they are all depot tool related and only for downgrading firmware revision but I'll keep searching.

Mike
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K8TEK
"Dark Chocolate"
Posts: 458
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 12:40 pm
What radios do you own?: Dynatac

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by K8TEK »

mike m wrote:Have the other agency try and set all of the radios to 25KHz P25 and see if this fixes it.

I found some of my notes but so far they are all depot tool related and only for downgrading firmware revision but I'll keep searching.

Mike
Bandwidth settings have absolutely no effect in digital mode. IMBE uses 2.83KHz deviation, period.
K8TEK::Tim
mike m
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Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mike m »

And I see what caused the confusion, I meant 12.5 KHz not 25 K so they could set radios to digital and not mixed mode if not already done.

I need to stop staying up all night on weekends.

I know they don't have any effect on tx but we had similar problems with some of the XTS5000's integrated in our avionics packages only when set to mixed mode RX and the fix was setting rx to digital and not mixed mode.

He will need to set the rx bandwidth to 12.5K not 25K to enable digital and non mixed mode, and this is the main reason that I mentioned it.

Also it was because I had another 3 letter fed agency running mixed mode rx with similar problems and the fixed was to go Digital on RX.

I'm working from scratch pad notes that are 3 to 5 years old but there was a similar problem with an FBI P2000, but even though its not an HT it's still based on the XTS5000 platform Dennis.

And some of the other FED agencies were notorious for getting the problem Source and Destination radios flip flopped in their descriptions when explaining a problem.

As a result I learned never to assume what the true problem radio was until all combinations were tried especially when working with 2nd hand information as MustangLane is, the only reliable information that I ever received that was correct was from from Customs and MustangLane knows why.

They were the only ones who ever supplied me with a correct scenario set of troubleshooting information.

I sure miss the troubleshooting with those radios Dennis, I sure wish the British Big C hadn't messed things up as bad as they did otherwise I'd still be doing it for a living and having fun at it.


Mike
mike m
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Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mike m »

D,


I found some of my old notes, but I don't think are any help but here goes.

My scribbling says we had this same problem before and You, Stan and I worked on it but at that time it was a site down in Southern AZ having the problem.

The notes say the OTAR site was not upgraded to ASTRO OTAR, it was only sending plain MDC OTAR and the notes also say that DES OTAR worked fine but Astro OTAR did not.

Also notes say that we couldn't test it from P-scott because the Willy site was not updated at the time for Astro otar and neither was our KVL3000+, we never did order the modem for the KVL so I don't know how it was resolved but notes say it was resolved and it was not the radio in this older case.


Mike
nytech
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Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:56 am

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by nytech »

Have you checked with Moto to see if this is a "known" issue with recent firmware? It always was true that the radio would receive as long as it had the key in memory regardless if it was selected or not.
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mustanglane
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 01, 2007 12:37 pm

Re: Auto Key Select for Receive

Post by mustanglane »

All,
Took me a while to get back on as I had a replacement knee op and have been down for a bit.
turns out that, as mentioned in one of the earlier posts, the "other" radio was from a different G-agency, and they were NOT playing by all the rules as far as obtaining their KID (Key ID) from a common source. I did actually setup two radios from the SAME agency, completed a full Astro Otar, and no matter what the Secure or Key Select settings were (SELECT or STRAPPED) the receiving radio ALWAYS decoded the incoming key as long as it matched ANY of the keys that were delivered to it during OTAR.
On a much broader issue, DHS has learned NOTHING since 9/11, as there is LESS interoperability or adherence to ANY standards than before - very sad -
Thanks for all your suggestions!
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