Introduction to the Depot Tool

The Depot Tool is used by Motorola repair facilities to program features into radios that cannot be done with customer-facing tools like the Customer Programming Software (CPS) or Radio Management (RM). The Depot Tool allows you to write different versions of firmware and codeplug software into a radio, change codeplug fields that cannot be changed in CPS/RM, and perform other, ancillary functions such as changing the Serial Number or setting the Serial Number of the radio to the default value.

Depot Components

The Depot Tool consists of two components; The Depot Client and the Depot Website. The Depot Client component is installed onto the computer to which you will physically attach radios with a USB cable. The Depot Website is where you will specify which operations you want to perform on the radio and the values of various fields for the operation. For example, you may choose the APX Change Codeplug operation where you can enter the values of the fields that you wish to change in the radio codeplug.

The Depot Client and Depot Website are designed to work together to give you a single application in which you can perform all depot operations. However, the components can also work independently of each other if there is no Internet connection where the radio is located. See Disconnected Mode for more information.

Radio Families

The Depot Tool currently supports both the APX and MOTOTRBO families of radios and different operations can be performed depending on the radio family. You may have an APX radio attached to the Depot Client USB port and select a MOTOTRBO operation on the Depot Website. The Website will inform you that you are attempting to perform an invalid operation on the radio.

Depot Files

Disconnected Mode describes how the Depot Client and the Depot Website use files to communicate with each other to support the case where there may not be an Internet connection where the radio is being configured. There are two types of files; A file that you create by reading a radio in the Depot Client which will be uploaded to the Depot Website, and a file that is created for you by the Depot Website which you will download to the Depot Client.

The file that is uploaded from the Depot Client to the Depot Website has the same name as the radio Serial Number with an extension of .duf (Depot Upload File)

The file that is downloaded from the Depot Website to the Depot Client has the Job Name that you specified in the Operation Detail page with an extension of .zip

If you are not operating in disconnected mode, the Depot files are automatically uploaded and downloaded from your Windows User Temp folder.

USB Only

The Depot Client can only communicate with radios using a Universal Serial Bus (USB) cable.

One Radio at a Time

The Depot Client will enable the read and write buttons only when a single radio is connected to a USB cable. When there is zero or more than one radio connected to the computer, the client will disable the read and write buttons.