I am wondering if it is possible to speak on multiple channels at once with a two-way radio. I work at a large company with many different divisions all running on a total of 16 channels. My supervisor wants me to find out if it is possible to make a group announcement over all 16 channels at once. I would use the Motorola XPR 4550 radio for this.
My assumption is that it is not possible to do this, but I need to confirm. I have been all over the internet and I have looked at the owner’s manual but couldn’t find any answers. I also contacted Motorola customer support but they haven’t responded. My supervisor is getting on me about this and I would appreciate any help.
Thanks
Well - yes, but you’ll need to get a radio supplier to reprogram the system for you. All calls can be designed in, but it involves setting the system up to do these things. 16 channels is different to 16 frequencies and a repeater is normally how it works, although you can do it with basic radio to radio systems. To be fair, I’ve got a lot of digital radios and I cannot get my head around the parameters to programme the complex and clever features. One of those things that you get better at with experience.
It honestly depends on how the system is setup. With DMR (MotoTRBO) you have a feature called an All Call. It’s just what it sounds like, it announces to all talkgroups. However, all call only works if everyone is monitoring the same repeater (unless you are using a trunking system such as Capacity Plus or Connect Plus).
For conventional DMR or conventional analog, the better option if you have mulitple channels (not talkgroups) in use is to force scan on all of the radios being used in a system to an announcement channel (which only supervisors have the ability to transmit on). That way whenever an announcement needs to be made, a supervisor switches over to the supervisor’s channel, makes the announcement and the radios will automatically unsquelch on scan.
Thanks for the insight. Both answers have been very helpful.