I wanted to set up my Motorola XPR series radios (I have an XPR 4550, XPR 5550, XPR 6550 and XPR 7550e) to also act as pagers for when I’m volunteering with my local rescue squad. After much searching online to find the exact configuration settings, I found the settings that work.
Step 1 – Configure Tones
In my case, there are two sets of tones that my squad uses. There’s a regular dispatch tone and a scramble tone for when any available member is needed. As my squad operates in shifts, I wouldn’t always be on-deck for responding to regular dispatches but also wanted to be available for scramble calls.
Given that scramble calls can also occur during my regular shift, I set up two Quik-Call II systems under Signaling Systems in MotoTRBO CPS:
Dispatch is configured as a Selective Call call type with the call format of A-B/A-C. This is because, for my squad, the first tone for both dispatch and scramble is the same. The first tone is entered, then the second tone I enter (Tone B) is the second dispatch tone. For Tone C, I enter the second scramble tone. This will trigger the Selective Call for either a dispatch or scramble tone and there’s even a slightly different alert tone from the radio itself to indicate what type of call it is.
Scramble is configured as a Selective Call call type with the call format of A-B, with A being the first tone and B being the second scramble tone. This separate Quik-Call II system will only unmute for scramble tones and ignore dispatch tones.
Step 2 – Configure Pager Channels
To act like a pager, muting all channel traffic until the tones go over the air, I duplicated the regular dispatch channel twice – one for a general pager channel (on-shift, alerts on both dispatch & scramble calls) and a scramble pager channel (off-shift, alerts on scramble calls only) – and changed the RX Signaling System to one of the Quik-Call II systems I created in Step 1. I then also changed Signaling Squelch to “AND” and the Unmute Rule to “And Unmute, Or Mute”. I then renamed each new channel to indicate what it’s for and wrote it to the radio.