Thomas1987 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Hi all. Productiom inherited a load of Motorola GP340 from our bars team - bit battered and the batterys are knackered but I'd like to get them back online. The current issue is that bars have replaced them with a load of Icom gear which is on the same frequency as these Motorolas it seems - they only have access to 1 channel (which we shall call "bars"). On our seperate icoms, we've got 2 channels - one which connects to the bars frequency (bars), and one thats seperate (production). I'd like to reprogramme our motorolas to be able to connect to just Production frequency. Do I need to send them off, or can I buy something to let me reprogramme them? Is this easy or a nightmare? Once I've got some new batteries and earpieces there will be not much left in the pot, so prefer not to pay a fortune to get them reprogrammed if I can do it myself! The other interesting thing is I have no idea what frequency the Production icoms are on - any way of finding out? Is it possible to just spend a day going through frequencys and finding out? Bit of a mindfield and if we need to share with bars, so be it, but for a bit of graft/fiddling, happy to make it work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeepSpacePenguin Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Usually you can get fairly cheap USB leads to program radios. A quick google search brought up this one:http://overtime.diytrade.com/sdp/467617/4/pd-2561270/3385992-1349721/USB_Programming_Cable_for_Motorola_GP340_RKN4074A.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas1987 Posted December 12, 2012 Author Share Posted December 12, 2012 Cheers, may just order one of them! Looking at it, they're on the "free" frequencies, on VHF (PMR446), so logicially my production channel must correspond with one of the below...PMR ChannelFrequency (MHz) 1446.006252446.018753446.031254 446.043755446.056256446.068757446.081258446.09375 Sure there's more to it than that but seeing as the bars icoms and production icoms talk, it must be doable! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 PMR 446 can also make use of subharmonic tones, so it's worth researching those too. Searching through channels with a tone-enabled radio may not help find out which users are on a particular channel as they may not be sending the correct tone to open your receiver. Most handheld radios have a squelch defeat button on them somewhere (usually on the side below the PTT - or it is on our Kenwood and Motorola's anyway). Press this whilst making your checks. Once you find something, depress it and see if you keep audio. If so then your receiver has the correct tone (or your transmitter isn't using one). If you lose it then they're sending a different tone to the one your receiver's set up to use. A lot depends on how your radio's are set up. Most users will put their preferred channel in as channel 1 on the selector switch, just for ease, so the channel numbers you see there may not correspond to their positions on the channel selector on your radio. You may also find that you have 2 channels programmed which end up being the same frequency but with different tones. Without knowing what's already in them, you may have some difficulty. Of course with a programming lead you should be able to "read" the radio, and therefore work out the already programmed channel - therefore you'd know what bars are using. The difficulty of course is knowing what the production ones are using. Without spending a lot of time guessing (or get lucky!) I think this could take you some time to work out. If you do end up needing some help then I use Ninehundred communications. They're in Doncaster but are very helpful. With every large purchase of a new brand of radio, I always insist on a programming kit. It tends to be the thing that clinches the deal when choosing a seller. Sadly, I have just about every programming kit going for Kenwood sat on the shelf at work, but we only have a small handful of Motorola's which are instrinsically safe, and they're a different model. Be ready for a shock on the cost of batteries........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas1987 Posted December 13, 2012 Author Share Posted December 13, 2012 PMR 446 can also make use of subharmonic tones, so it's worth researching those too. Searching through channels with a tone-enabled radio may not help find out which users are on a particular channel as they may not be sending the correct tone to open your receiver. Most handheld radios have a squelch defeat button on them somewhere (usually on the side below the PTT - or it is on our Kenwood and Motorola's anyway). Press this whilst making your checks. Once you find something, depress it and see if you keep audio. If so then your receiver has the correct tone (or your transmitter isn't using one). If you lose it then they're sending a different tone to the one your receiver's set up to use. A lot depends on how your radio's are set up. Most users will put their preferred channel in as channel 1 on the selector switch, just for ease, so the channel numbers you see there may not correspond to their positions on the channel selector on your radio. You may also find that you have 2 channels programmed which end up being the same frequency but with different tones. Without knowing what's already in them, you may have some difficulty. Of course with a programming lead you should be able to "read" the radio, and therefore work out the already programmed channel - therefore you'd know what bars are using. The difficulty of course is knowing what the production ones are using. Without spending a lot of time guessing (or get lucky!) I think this could take you some time to work out. If you do end up needing some help then I use Ninehundred communications. They're in Doncaster but are very helpful. With every large purchase of a new brand of radio, I always insist on a programming kit. It tends to be the thing that clinches the deal when choosing a seller. Sadly, I have just about every programming kit going for Kenwood sat on the shelf at work, but we only have a small handful of Motorola's which are instrinsically safe, and they're a different model. Be ready for a shock on the cost of batteries........ Mmm, discovering this! Its frustrating as I don't believe in getting rid of good gear, and whilst they're old hat, they're well built robust radios, just needing TLC! Its further complicated as the venue invested in DP3400' digitals for security, which we are welcome to use during load in, but I want to sort a good working set of our own for show use. It does make them unwilling to spend money on these analogues though! Also, the digitals are licensed frequencies so can't really be used anywhere except the site! I feel a bit more reading is in order - I've spotted the connector cable, with software for £30, which seems like a plan (the others are just the cable and the software is very hard to find). I think its worth a gamble. Otherwise I'll give Ninehundred a shout when I get stuck but for £30, may give it a punt. Thanks for your advice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 I don't think the 340 will go onto the PMR446 channels as the offsets don't match, the deviation has a 12.5KHz/25KHz spec, they're too powerful, and have detachable aerials. You can probably get them close enough to work, but they will be very loud talking to the PMR446 ones, and spread over maybe two channels. Plenty of people reprogram them to this band of course if they want a bit more distance - but they're not type approved for use in that band. I'd also suggest PMR446 is a bad place for production radios because although people often think they have thirty odd channels, this is just different CTCSS tones on the six legal frequencies, so somebody local to you would not be aware you are there and could simply stomp all over you without knowing. Not a very private or reliable system. If somebody heard you they could bugger it up by saying GO, couldn't they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scjb Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Further to Paul's comments, GP340's can be butchered onto PMR446 BUT you will bleed over adjacent channels and even on lowpower mode you will be too strong. Please don't do it! £75 will buy you access to 12 (from memory) legal UHF frequencies for five years... Got to be worth it. You can do it all online through the OFCOM website. You know it makes sense! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas1987 Posted December 13, 2012 Author Share Posted December 13, 2012 Ah right! Rest assured, we'll be on legal frequencies, we try to avoid "dodgy" - a bit of background reading on the internet led me to thinking they are PMR446 radios by default, so I thought thats what ours would be on! I admit I was a bit bemused when I read the regs on PMR446 as it said devices must have "non removable ariels", which obviously both the icoms and Motorola's have got but assumed it was a legacy thing. I'm 99% certain they must be on UHF licensed channels then which makes sense - just need to track it down! Our bars manager has just renewed the licensing for the digital Motorola's so imagine he's got the paperwork, and indeed frequencies for the analogues too! If not, maybe a call to Ofcom! I love inherited kit and tracking down how its set up!! Xmas project! Thanks again all! Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjadingle Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 First - cheap programming software bought on the Internet for Motorola will certainly not be legal. I looked into acquiring this software for GP340 / GP360 use and was gobsmacked at the legal price. I also believe Motorola defend their software licenses quite aggressively - beware!GP340's can be put on 446 - not legal though as mentioned above.Best call in the professionals on this one - if they can reprogram Motorolas they can also read your icoms to reprogramme them to the correct frequency?I have experience of this so if you'd like more info feel free to PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas1987 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Share Posted December 14, 2012 GP340's can be put on 446 - not legal though as mentioned above.Best call in the professionals on this one - if they can reprogram Motorolas they can also read your icoms to reprogramme them to the correct frequency?I have experience of this so if you'd like more info feel free to PMYup, this is the distinct impression I'm getting... Think I'll leave this for the time being and we'll stick on Bar Staff FM until we can afford to do it properly. Thanks again all, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjadingle Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 Either that or educate your bar staff to keep off the net while shows are on? We only have one channel here and most of the time we manage a happy medium - although there are occasional clashes when we're dealing with incidents! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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