CS750/751 Contacts

Question:
I also have a few questions about using contacts in the CS750/751 radios.

First, I understood from other reading that when an individual’s contact information is entered into the code plug, their name information (or whatever is given in the “Contact Name” field) will display on the radio instead of the caller’s DMR ID number. That is not happening on my radios. Does anyone have any ideas?  *** ADD CONTACT LIST ***

Second, my attempts to import contacts into a code plug have failed to date. When I try, I get a pop-up window saying only “Import Contact failed!” Any thoughts on how to make that work? Exporting contacts works fine.


Finally, it appears that the 750/751s do not allow duplicate text strings in the “Contact Name” field. When I tried to manually enter a second entry for a person in the contacts list with a different Call ID but the same Contact Name, I got another error message saying “Alias already exist,please input again!” (sic). This seems wrong, since many users have multiple radios, and therefore multiple Call IDs. Also, it appears to be allowed on other radios, since the California contact list I downloaded from the DMR-MARC web site, apparently intended for Motorola radios, contains numerous duplicates in the Contact Name field.

I’m using the lasted firmware (Version 1.00.26) and CPS (Version 3.03.15), which appears to allow imports. The file I’m attempting to import has 852 records, well short of the 1,000 record limit.



Answer ::

In another thread, Mark (mark-yahoo@...) posted a link to a zip file he created containing all the world’s contact lists (http://www.foxhollow.ca/DMR/Contacts/ALL-DMR-Contacts.ZIP). I pulled out his list for California and tried it. It imported fine.

So, experimenting and comparing his list to mine, I discovered a few things; which can be summarized by saying that “CSI’s Customer Programming Software (CPS) is a bit picky about importing things.”

I noticed that Mark’s list did not have the sequential “No.” field populated, while mine did. Also, as Bernie found, the CPS apparently does not like to import All Call contacts. Finally, I found by accident that the CPS does not like any formatting in the files. I had originally left a few cells in my modified file with a yellow background highlight, causing the import to fail.


The need for an empty “No.” column is confusing since files exported from the CPS have that column filled in. One would think that we should be able to import a file that the program itself has exported. The other confusing point is that I’m able to manually add an All Call record, but the program won’t import one.

Bernie, to your point about changing the ID on the All Call record, we can name the record anything we want, but when we select “All Call” from the drop-down list in the Call Type column, the ID number is pre-filled by the program and can’t be changed. Guess I’m going to have to live without the All Call. Not sure how to use it anyway.

So, for whoever is working on writing “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Programming CS750/751s”, to import a contact list:
a) The sequential “No.” column must be blank, except for the column header.
b) No All Call records.
c) No text or cell formatting.

Now to see if the contacts will display on my radio . . .