Minitor V issues with Narrowband??

[TJ_in_IL]

Please forgive me if this gets long, just want to give as much information as possible.

Let me start out by saying that my department switched over to narrowband back in November of 2010. We purchased 10 new Minitor V pagers, and reprogrammed some existing Swissphone RE629's (narrowband compliant), to align ourselves with the tone sets for dispatch (we have 2 2-tone, and 1 long). We have been experiencing some issues with the Minitor V's, and want to see if it may be something that can be corrected with programming, or if they need to be sent back for a "re-tune". The 5's don't always open on dispatch, and the record quality, well, just plain sucks. The pagers have a great deal of static. The swissphones do not seem this way, and it is definately not something with location. I have been trying to go through our old pagers for our recruits and for spares (minitor II, III, IV, swissphone RE529, and USAlert Nova's- all wide band) and all of them open fine and record great. In fact, they work better than before the narrowband switch. These are all being tested in the same location as the Minitor V.
In looking at the programming options, it looks like the 5's can be set for wideband, and I also need to confirm the proper frequency and dispatch tones. Do you think this may help, or should I just forgo this step, and just send them back to be re-tuned.

Please forgive to the long post. I am new to the radio and pagers with our department, and have been trying to research and read as much as possible to catch up. I am in the process of getting a MOT account to access any FSB's or firmware upgrades, to see if there may be a solution there. Any assistance or guidance is greatly appreciated.

TJ

[fineshot1]

TJ - it sounds as if possibly the paging transmitter has not been narrow banded yet
and the Min V's were programed for narrow band.

Confirm whether or not the paging transmitter has been narrow banded and then
go forward from that point.

[TJ_in_IL]

Thanks for the reply. I can confirm that the TX has been converted. We had to do a complete upgrade, including adding a repeater to our setup. Our radio traffic is great, especially since we have all of the TX levels adjusted (the dispatcher TX traffic was weak). I would have to confirm, but the pager tone traffic should be over the same TX as the regular radio traffic, through the same console.

[SteveC0625]

I am going to agree with fineshot. If all 10 M-V's are misbehaving in the same way and all your other pagers are working fine, then there is definitely a problem between the existing system and the V's.

Confirming your narrow/wide situation, dispatch frequency and pager tones is a good start and needs to be done first.

There is no new firmware upgrade beyond 3.0 that I have been able to locate and that one is at least 18 months old or older.

If you have the programming kit for the V's, the firmware version will show in the User Data. If it is 3.0, no need to hunt further. Unless someone knows of a newer firmware version, that is.

Again, if you have the programming kit, read the pager and post the results here after you get your tone and frequency info.

I am betting it is something simple in the programming of all 10 V's and can easily be fixed without taking them out of service for trip to the shop.

[TJ_in_IL]

Originally Posted by SteveC0625

If you have the programming kit for the V's, the firmware version will show in the User Data. If it is 3.0, no need to hunt further. Unless someone knows of a newer firmware version, that is.

I don't have it in front of me right now, but if I recall from the dealer printout, the codeplug version was 0.77? I would have to get into the program itself if that is not it.

Thanks,
TJ

[SteveC0625]

Originally Posted by TJ_in_IL

I don't have it in front of me right now, but if I recall from the dealer printout, the codeplug version was 0.77? I would have to get into the program itself if that is not it.

Thanks,
TJ

In the PPS, the Code Plug Version and the Pager Firmware Version are both displayed under the General tab in the Revision box.

If you have the dealer printout from the PPS, the PAGER VER. is right under the PLUG VER. at the top center of the page. PAGER VER. = Pager Firmware Version.

That should help....

[Donald2557]

A wideband pager will perform ok in a narrowband environment (with sufficient RF coverage) with only a degradation in the audio level. Not to noticible in most cases. The down side to using a wideband pager in a narrowband environment is if there is an adjacent channel nearby. This can degrade a wideband products performance dramatically. If no adjacent channel but the RF sensitivity appears to have degraded when switching from wideband to narrowband and other pagers are operating normally then the issue is probably in the pager. As I recall the M5 does not say narrowband compliant anywhere and does not say narrowband in the programmer.

I would suspect the sensitivity of the M5 is not sufficient in your application and not as good as the Swissphone. If you elect to have the pagers retuned then make sure they are tuned on your frequency else they return on programmable default frequencies. Retune on frequency will typically improve performance or at least guarantee it will perform the best it can.

If your system frequency did not change but all the M5's pagers performance appears to have degraded then it is likely due to coverage changes with narrowband. This would explain why the Swissphone is working better over the M5's. Basically indicates the Swissphone has a better performing receiver.
A retune probably won't buy you much.

[SteveC0625]

Originally Posted by Donald2557

As I recall the M5 does not say narrowband compliant anywhere and does not say narrowband in the programmer.

The Minitor V is both narrowband and wideband compliant. There is a check box in the PPS to determine which for each position on the function switch.

There are also squelch and sensitivity adjustments available in the PPS which often are overlooked when seeking to improve the performance of a unit.

[treybell]

I just bought a Minitor V pager the other day for fire/ems and i was just wanting to make sure what im reading is correct. Are you saying the Minitor V are Narrowband/wideband complient? What about PL's can you enter a PL to cut out unwanted interference? Thanks

[SteveC0625]

Originally Posted by treybell

I just bought a Minitor V pager the other day for fire/ems and i was just wanting to make sure what im reading is correct. Are you saying the Minitor V are Narrowband/wideband complient? What about PL's can you enter a PL to cut out unwanted interference? Thanks

The Minitor V is a receiver only. It will do wideband or narrow band. I said that in my previous post of 6/8/11 just above your post. Did I say it poorly?

The Minitor V is not capable of PL tone operation.

[treybell]

I was just making sure. Thanks