I ordered my first DTR radios the other day, and look forward to having some fun with them. As someone with experience with other Motorola radios, such as APX, XTS MotoTrbo and Jedi series, I’m familiar with commercial CPS, codeplugs, P25 and DMR. I’ve never used radios with FHSS though, but understand how frequency hopping works.
I’ve read the manual for the DTR650, forums such as this and radioreference, but still have a few things I need confirmed/clarified.
The public groups on the DTR seem to be like a conventional simplex channel, correct? And the “channel” setting on a public group just changes the hopping pattern? Private looks like the radio to radio mode in DMR, where you can call another individual user without all others hearing you (unique hop patterns, ID’s etc).
If I am not using CPS, and doing everything from the radio, it looks like I can do most programming except entering text. For that it looks like I need CPS+ cable or the hard to find mini keyboard.
I plan to leave the radios default, and add 1 or 2 private groups. I do intend to get a cable, since the CPS is freely available, and eventually add a few contacts.
Anything else I should know?