Using Harris radio on Astro P25 OmniLink system

[rangerfourever]

Guys not sure if this is the right place but here goes;

We are testing access on a new county wide Moto system that is a subsystem, of our Statewide Astro Omnilink build out. Lots of APX 7000s and 6000s going out in the field. My City however uses Harris and is running an Open Sky system within the footprint of the new Moto county build. I got 2 portable XTS 1500s from our Moto rep to test on the county system and I also had one of our Harris M7300 mobiles programed with P25 Trunking with Wide Area Scan/Priority Scan to test also. When we are out in the field testing, the Moto portables work the new system without issue.( we are using a Moto Tech test talkgroup) However if I talk into the system off my Harris mobile,there is a slight delay on the PTT and about every third PTT I have to release the mike and retry access. Question is although all three radios are P25 compliant, is there something specific to the Harris that causes the PTT delay, or is it specific to the nature of the Moto flavor of P25? We are hoping to put all our Harris mobiles on the new Moto county system for mutual aid. I am dealing with our Harris shop for programing, so any solid facts on correctly accessing the Moto system I can bring them will help.

thanks! officer dave

[The Pager Geek]

Assuming the Motorola System being built out is a true P25 system and not a SmartZone OmniLink system, the radio SHOULD work as any other Motorola radio.

However, do you have programming capabilities of both Motorola and Harris radios? I'm interested to know what your channel spacing is under the tab "Astro25 Channel ID" in the system configuration in the Motorola codeplug.

I'm also using a Harris Unity portable on a Motorola P25 system. I'm seeing some things, but not a delay in PTT.

tpg

[rangerfourever]

Page Geek I will have to check as our Harris techs were sent the code direct from Lynchberg and uploaded as is. I will see if I can get the XTS 1500s read . The System Coordinator for the new County sub-system is using 2 Unitys for testing and says he has no issues. I believe the Statewide system is a Smart Zone Omni Link. When it was first put online, Moto would not allow any other mfrs radios on. It is owned by Moto, leased by the State and we pay a monthly access fee as County or local govt users. Now Moto is allowing any P25 compliant radio on as they tweak the system to mirror true P25.

[WCHija]

My County is in the process of having a Harris P-25 system installed, we will be using Unity mobile and portable radios, as well as the Harris DVRS. Im interested in anyone's "issues" so I can plan ahead.

TPG what have you been seeing?

[rangerfourever]

Make sure Harris gets you the new shorter antenna for them Unitys..... Nothing but complaints out this way about the monster antenna on the dual band APX.....

Did you guys look at the XG-75 or do you need the dual/triple band capability of the Unity?

[WCHija]

We are implementing a VHF/700 Trunked system, so we need the "monster" VHF antenna. We were already using a Gianter monster antenna from Smiley antenna on our XTS2500 portables, cut to our tx freq, to squeek out all the perfomance we can.

We looked at the 75, for our non-sworn staff, but went with the P5500 due to cost. Overall the Unity portable and mobile has done a good job for us. We are in a transition from wide band Analog conventional, manual steering between repeaters, to the same system but narrow band, to a P-25 Trunk. It is tough to say what the future holds, so far Harris has been mostly cooperative and helpful. They are supposedly sending me a DVRS ahead of schedule so we can test it and figure out how we are mounting it.

[rangerfourever]

Good luck with your transition to P25 system. I have had good luck with the onsite Harris folks who manage our system project. Some issues with their bosses in Lynchberg on replacement parts etc..however, but they are a business and the bottom line is always in the background.

I thought the new 6" antenna for the Unity could work more than one band but I guess I am wrong.

Not seen anything on the DVRS but we do use V-Tacs for our Open Sky system. Mixed results but some of that is based on the special issues with Open Sky. V-TACs take up a lot of room but for us they are only in full size SUV supervisor squads on the PD side and in lardge Fire apparatus.

The Unity XG-100 is out of the Harris Falcon military line so it is an actual Harris product, not a rebranded M/A Com like most of our Open Sky radios are. We went to bid with M/A Com and ended up with Harris after the buy out.

I am watching the buildout of the P25 VHF Trunking system that Harris is building in Dane County Wisconsin. Lots of good stuff and forsight in the design.