Expanding DLR1060 to 10 channels

In Business Radio CPS R05.01 Motorola added the ability to program up to 10 channels in the DLR1060, up from the original 6.

There is a catch, though. Only radios produced after May of 2017 have the correct version of firmware and codeplug structure. If you look in CPS you’ll probably see either firmware R01.00 or R01.01. What you can’t see is the last 2 digits. My radios from July 2016 were on FW R01.01.00.

If you try writing a 10 channel profile in CPS to a radio on R01.01.00 it will tell you that you need to update the radio using the DLR update tool. Problem is that tool is nowhere to be found.

I contacted Motorola business support and they ended up escalating the case to engineering. Turns out the tool does exist, but it was never publicly released. They didn’t release it because there is around a 5% chance that the DLR will brick during the upgrade process and become unrecoverable. They never could track down the reason for that bug and as radios have aged out they’ve received so few requests for the update that figuring it out didn’t make much business sense.

I was able to get the update tool with the written understanding that it could brick my radios and that I was not to share it. I wouldn’t share it even if they hadn’t asked as I don’t want to be responsible for ruining someones radio.

I did successfully flash my 2 DLR1060s to R01.01.01 and program 10 channels.

As long as your radio is newer than May 2017 this won’t affect you, but if you have an older one and really want 10 channels it is possible, you’ll just need to reach out to business radio support for the tool, and be willing to accept the associated risk.