Motorola XTS 2500 Portable Radio

I frequently read various forum posts about programming a Motorola Astro-25 capable radio for scanning a trunking system. While these posts are usually wildly speculative and take the side of caution, after doing some research I found that it is actually quite easy to scan a system with a professional radio. I’ve compiled the ups, downs, and everything in between.

The Good

• Unbelievable quality. You will be blown away by how much traffic you miss with a traditional scanner. There is a reason Motorola radios are trusted in the field. You will find your radio going “digital” far, far less. Like 98% less.
• Very loud audio. If you sometimes have trouble hearing your scanner, or if your scanner gets distorted at louder volumes, getting a Moto is a good idea.
• Very rugged design. I suppose I could go into all of the radio’s features, but this is truly one of the best benefits. These things can get slammed around pretty well without issue.
• The battery life is great. You will get a couple days straight of scanning with an XTS. This is likely because transmitting is the biggest battery hog, which you won’t be doing.
• It Roams. One of the great things is that these radios are built to roam. Program in a few control channels (as many as you like) and the radio will pseudo-affiliate with the best available site. And Motorola radios are capable of scanning the entire 800mhz band to find a good Control Channel on the correct system.

The Bad

• You are limited in what you can scan. It looks like 16 scan lists is the limit. These scan lists can have multiple talkgroups in each. Scanners, on the other hand, can hold entire systems with multiple sites without issue.
• The best method for scanning involves hacking making a system key with a program called skeygen.exe. There are other ways to get a system key for the system you are trying to scan, but they aren’t good for people who aren’t savvy with hex editors.
• It’s not discrete. The XTS series radios are still pretty big and heavy. This is mainly due to the battery, but the tradeoff is great battery life.
• Expensive. More on this later.

The Process – How To

It is important to understand how Scan lists, Trunking Systems, and Conventional Personalities work. If you’ve never used CPS before, this might be a difficult (and expensive!) venture for you. CPS alone costs hundreds of dollars while the XTS2500 costs around $1200 used (unless you buy a frankenflashed radio from China on eBay). But it’s not my job to judge your abilities, and what follows is a fairly concisely-explained method for scanning your desired Astro Trunking system. Best of luck to you, and if you need help please contact me. The YouTube video is embedded below.

Note: I am currently in the process of re-doing this video. If you need help, please contact me on G+ or Facebook.

Well there you have it. I am always willing to help out, so if you need assistance please do not hesitate to contact me via Twitter or Facebook. Remember, System Keys are not supposed to be handed out like candy. You should have a legitimate reason to have one. That being said, what you do with your computer is up to you.

I’ll be living at Claire’s new apartment this week, it’s great living so close to everything – no need to drive!

Steampunk Apartment in Chelsea, New York City

Sexytime (Mimosa & Sleepyhead) Ticket for the Abbey Theater

The Sexytime (Mimosa & Sleepyhead) mixtape is one of my favorites of all time, but I’m sure they have been up to even cooler things in the 3 years that have passed since its release.

I can’t wait to see Mimosa again, and hopefully it will be an awesome start to the weekend.

If you were born in the 90s, you have to remember how cool this was in Elementary school.

Via Reddit.

Half Life 2 Headcrab Desktop Wallpaper for Download

I was bored, so I made a Half Life background that highlights the grungy ambiance of the game in this wallpaper. It’s a 1920×1200 .png file, and it can be edited in Fireworks (or your favorite image editor) to your liking

Download Here (Right-click & save as to download directly to hard disk)

To give credit where credit is due, the awesome headcrab icon is from here and the base texture is from here.

Not gonna lie, I waste way too much time in this game. Via App Store | My Tower

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been troubleshooting the Foot Kinetics web site with the business owners and their web designer. While the site is gorgeous and the product is great, the site has been having some non-design-related technical issues surrounding what I suspect may be a problem with a database. It seems that their Joomla installation is working and serving up content, but at times it hangs for up to a minute on some pages and some browsers. As one can imagine, this would be an issue for any business owner trying to keep customers on the site. The problem is not without a solution, of course, but finding it may be the issue.

While I enjoy cloud storage for frequently updated documents, I decided to pick one of these up from the Apple Store for use as a Lion recovery disk and encrypted partition for secure storage. And the spring loaded clip for a keychain is perfect too.

Last night Brad and I braved the cold and the snow to see Adventure Club from Montreal. I was really impressed with how they made it seem more like a party they were attending rather than being the center of the show. Their interaction with the crowd was truly unique.