How to Force a Motorola XPR into Ham Radio frequencies.

There are certain models within the Motorola XPR line that, by default, will not work in the ham band and typically only cover 450Mhz-512Mhz. If you have purchased an XPR at a ham fest for cheap, only to find, it doesn’t work in the ham band, you unfortunately need to hack it. That hack is called, Hex Editing. It’s not hard, but with a little time, its rewarding. It does NOT Brick your radio if you “mess up”, but by the same token, measure twice and cut once.

What does it involve?

• Using MotoTRBO CPS programming software to read and write to the radio
• Using a program called “HxD” that will edit CPS while in your computers RAM

You must have MotoTRBO CPS and know how to use it for this article. You will also need HxD: HERE

Install HxD and have CPS up and running….

1. Load CPS and Read the radio like normal
2. Create your codeplug like normal, except for the frequencies….
   1. On paper or in your head, find a frequency conversion that makes since for you. Converting a commercial frequency into a ham frequency. For example…
      1. 463.000000 = 436.000000
      2. 461.000000 = 441.000000
   2. CPS will only accept frequencies the radio allows, in this case commercial frequencies. We will be using our conversion inside the hex editor to leverage ‘find and replace’.
3. Once you have a conversion in mind and typed out into CPS…
4. Launch HxD. Click the Ram chip icon, or go to “Extras” -> “Open Ram” and choose “mototrbocps.exe”…
5. Click “Search” -> “Replace”
   1. Search For: “Your commercial freq conversion from step 2.1.1”
   2. Replace with: “Your ham freq conversion from step 2.1.1”
   3. DataType: “Text-string”
   4. check: “unidcode string”
   5. Search Direction: All
   6. Replace all
6. Once all the frequencies are updated, “File” -> “Save” and click “yes”
7. Go to CPS and make sure all the frequencies updated…
8. Write to the radio using CPS if everything looks good. That’s it! Of course test it though..
9. To update the radio in the future, the same process will be followed. When you read the radio using CPS in the future, commercial frequencies will be back in place. Hence, measure twice cut once.

 

Updated: 12-28-2018