Pager Tone Problem - F-121

[slingshot202]

I have an ICOM F-121 and to date I love the radio, the pager feature is one of the best features to me and that is why I am struggling with an issue.

I have programmed 7 tones in the area where tones are programmed and I have latched them onto one of my channels for paging. I have one tone that tends to not activate consistently.

I have reprogrammed it, programmed it on it's own, etc, but it activates when it wants to. Has anyone else seen this problem or perhaps be able to explain this problem to me?

If you need frequencies or tone frequencies to understand the problem then PM me and I will send them to you.

Thank you,
CJ

[N2DLX]

Try turning the required tone decode timer down. Say your paging tones last 1.0 second and 3.0 seconds.. don't put those in for the required tone duration. Enter something smaller like 0.5 and 2.0 so if you're scanning, for example, and the radio lands on the paging channel mid-page, it doesn't wait for a full page end-to-end to trip.

[slingshot202]

Rich,

Thanks. I will try that. I don't generally try and scan the pager channels as I never thought it would pick them up in time, but I will try and make the changes to see if it helps my current problem.

Thanks,

CJ

[silverbk]

Sorry for jumping in late. I had the same issues with my Icom radios. I agree that it is timing related. Sometimes the tones come into the radio slightly out of spec ie timing and the actual value due to atmospheric conditions and the radio taking a few milliseconds to pass the audio. If you follow the above suggestion it may work for you. The same goes for if you want to transmit tones, you will have to overset your values to compensate for the slight delays in the equipment. Some radios and pagers are very tight on the timing it requires to open the squelch.

I have also found the group feature to be a nuisance. I usually set it up so that it will never get a chance to activate. You should also determine if dispatch is sending the tones on top of a PL sometimes setting the channel to CSQ yields better results.

This is a great feature to have built in. I have several old IC-420 radios which are basically the same setup except they require an accessory board to do two tone properly.

I usually set everything up on a separate channel so I can switch to that channel during cell calls, conversations or if I want to listen to music. I will still here the calls and not all the chatter.

good luck

[slingshot202]

Originally Posted by N2DLX

Try turning the required tone decode timer down. Say your paging tones last 1.0 second and 3.0 seconds.. don't put those in for the required tone duration. Enter something smaller like 0.5 and 2.0 so if you're scanning, for example, and the radio lands on the paging channel mid-page, it doesn't wait for a full page end-to-end to trip.

Sorry for the long delay, but from post to laptop to truck to programmed to me some time!

This appears to have worked. The pager activated two different times today on the first shot.

Thanks for the help, I also modified another tone that has not worked yet, still not sure the reads are right, but we shall see.

Thanks again!!

CJ