POCSAG Decoding?

[kyleyankan]

Hi Everyone,
I'm a ham radio nerd, looking to try a new experiment in radio/computer integration. Basically, my county's fire department uses both Voice and POCSAG broadcasting. The POCSAG broadcasts a text message to our Motorola Advisor II pagers, which alert if it matches our station. However, I'd love to see all the county pages, and be able to process them on my computer. Perhaps to alert myself via text-message when anyone in the township gets a page, or when a good fire is on the air. I run Ubuntu 7.10, and have tried multimon with 2 different scanners on 154.205 (Our POCSAG Dispatch Freq). I used a program called Multimon to try and read the messages, but it does not return any POCSAG codes, but when I test DTMF out using another radio, it works fine. Does anyone know of a slick, efficient way to interpret POCSAG broadcasts? I just need the rough text output, I can parse my way through the rest!

-Kyle Yankanich
KB3LXF
Woodlyn Vol Fire Rescue

 

[JJones27320]

Try searching for a program called POC32 ... I've had alot of luck decoding both POCSAG and FLEX using this program.

 

[ka3jjz]

Proceed with caution - decoding, and putting out what you hear, is illegal per ECPA and other laws. Such actions are part of what got the late Bill Cheek into so much trouble.

73s Mike

 

[kyleyankan]

Proceed with caution - decoding, and putting out what you hear, is illegal per ECPA and other laws. Such actions are part of what got the late Bill Cheek into so much trouble.

73s Mike

Oooh, I did not know this. Perhaps I won't decode such messages *cough* But if I were to how would you do it? *cough*

 

[SkipSanders]

Actually, the ECPA specifies paging on common carrier frequencies. Decoding paging on fire frequencies should be perfectly ok.

 

[ka3jjz]

Unless common carrier is used in his area for fire paging - it is, in some cases, here in Maryland....73s Mike

 

[kyleyankan]

Unless common carrier is used in his area for fire paging - it is, in some cases, here in Maryland....73s Mike

Well, all pages are dual dispatched via voice on a different frequency, other than that I'm not sure what a common carrier is. Voice dispatches are just alot harder to do fun stuff with on your pc.

 

[SkipSanders]

scanners on 154.205 (Our POCSAG Dispatch Freq).
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That is not a 'common carrier' frequency, it's a local license fire/public safety channel. Common Carrier is a 'communications for hire' operation like a paging company.

San Diego Fire (at the moment) uses 154.085 with GOLAY pagers. Trying desperately to replace it, since GOLAY equipment is no longer available.