Thinking about buying a Minitor V Pager, need some advice...

[gr8rcall]

Hey everyone,
I'm thinking about buying a Minitor V Pager to use around the house and in the car when I'm away from my scanner. Also, I thought it would be handy for alerting me when stuff like the Rescue, Dive Team, HazMat, ect...get called out.

My question:
Do you think it's worth the $500 bucks. By the time Id bought the pager and the programming cradle, that's probably what it would cost.

Should I buy it new, or used? or should I buy it at all?

 

[Phreakin318]

Hey everyone,
I'm thinking about buying a Minitor V Pager to use around the house and in the car when I'm away from my scanner. Also, I thought it would be handy for alerting me when stuff like the Rescue, Dive Team, HazMat, ect...get called out.

My question:
Do you think it's worth the $500 bucks. By the time Id bought the pager and the programming cradle, that's probably what it would cost.

Should I buy it new, or used? or should I buy it at all?

not familiar with them, but i would just get a bcd396xt handheld scanner it's around that price and can usually find it cheaper on amazon, i got mine for rite at $400, condition was used but it was brand new still in original box with factory sealed plastics and i got the serial to usb connector for $10. would i trade this for a Minitor V Pager? NO WAY !! i would get the best toy for the least money possable.

 

[KD2DLL]

Hey everyone,
I'm thinking about buying a Minitor V Pager to use around the house and in the car when I'm away from my scanner. Also, I thought it would be handy for alerting me when stuff like the Rescue, Dive Team, HazMat, ect...get called out.

My question:
Do you think it's worth the $500 bucks. By the time Id bought the pager and the programming cradle, that's probably what it would cost.

Should I buy it new, or used? or should I buy it at all?

Alright I did the exact same thing. I got one used off ebay. I waited for a dealer or someone with a good reputation to have one. This is the exact sale I got mine on Motorola Minitor V UHF 453 461 9875 MHz RLE1082A A04KMS9238BC Lot EVE771 | eBay Got it for $147 plus shipping. Came with new battery and everything. I got it and theres not even a scratch. Looks brand new. If you are going to get one, I highly recommend a stored voice model. So nice to have.

Motorola Minitor V Battery RLN5707A Lot BSH55 | eBay
I picked up a spare battery since they are so cheap and its always good to have a spare.

USB Programming Programmer Cradle for Motorola Minitor V 5 | eBay
Thats the programer I got. So much less expensive than the moto one and works just as good. I make changes all the time.

EMT Firefighter Paramedic Motorola Minitor Pager Case | eBay
Picked up a case so it stays safe. Nice for if its raining.

I can help you with any questions or such. I can explain to you how to make a single channel model a two channel model. I have our dispatch on it and then our tac freq so I can still listen to operations when I am away from the scanner. All this total came to about $300. Best investment ever.

 

[KD2DLL]

Also, what freqs do you need? Ill take a look around to see who has one in that range.

 

[K4LAU]

Pager choice

I understand the need to look at used pagers due to cost. If however you want to go the new route, I highly recomend a Watchdog pager by US Alert. It is a will moniter two channels at a time, with a total of five to chose from. My department went to this pager about a year ago due to repair problems with the minitior 5.
We have found that the pager is much more sensitive than the minitor. They have a 5 year warrenty.
The cost is about the same as M. And they are easily programmed.
Good luck with your choice.

 

[bravo14]

Hey everyone,
I'm thinking about buying a Minitor V Pager to use around the house and in the car when I'm away from my scanner. Also, I thought it would be handy for alerting me when stuff like the Rescue, Dive Team, HazMat, ect...get called out.

My question:
Do you think it's worth the $500 bucks. By the time Id bought the pager and the programming cradle, that's probably what it would cost.

Should I buy it new, or used? or should I buy it at all?

If you do get the pager make sure you know the Tone A and B. There are few scanners will Fire Tone Out options plus the scanner you can program up 10 FTO. I'm not sure about the pager if it does 1 or 2.

 

[KD2DLL]

If you do get the pager make sure you know the Tone A and B. There are few scanners will Fire Tone Out options plus the scanner you can program up 10 FTO. I'm not sure about the pager if it does 1 or 2.

Minitor V can do 8 sets of A/B tones and 4 Group tones per channel. So with a 2 freq model, 16 total A/B sets and 8 Group. See my screenshot below.

gr8rcall, since you said you want to use this for when your away from your scanner,I would set in any tones you want to be alerted for and then like during the day leave it on Monitor mode to play all audio, and will still alert when tones you have programmed go off. Then, at night you can have a setting to alert only when one of those get a call. Or if you don't want to get waken up at night, set it to Push-To-Listen(must have a stored voice model) and it will just vibrate instead of beep and then save the call in its memory so you can listen later. That way you can still know of anything that happens overnight.

Honestly mine is always with me. all the time. Plus, since I am in New York, since the whole no scanners in a car thing, I can still know whats going on through the pager.

 

[bravo14]

Minitor V can do 8 sets of A/B tones and 4 Group tones per channel. So with a 2 freq model, 16 total A/B sets and 8 Group. See my screenshot below.

gr8rcall, since you said you want to use this for when your away from your scanner,I would set in any tones you want to be alerted for and then like during the day leave it on Monitor mode to play all audio, and will still alert when tones you have programmed go off. Then, at night you can have a setting to alert only when one of those get a call. Or if you don't want to get waken up at night, set it to Push-To-Listen(must have a stored voice model) and it will just vibrate instead of beep and then save the call in its memory so you can listen later. That way you can still know of anything that happens overnight.

Honestly mine is always with me. all the time. Plus, since I am in New York, since the whole no scanners in a car thing, I can still know whats going on through the pager.

Does the pager do uhf ch1 vhf ch 2? Buddy of mine was thinking getting one.

 

[SteveC0625]

Does the pager do uhf ch1 vhf ch 2? Buddy of mine was thinking getting one.

No, VHF or UHF, but not both.

 

[gr8rcall]

Also, what freqs do you need? Ill take a look around to see who has one in that range.

I'm looking for one that does 154.220 and 156.120mhz.

Alex:
Thanks for your advice, I'll probably pick one up off eBay sometime in the next year or so.
I'll definitely get the cradle on your suggestion!!!

not familiar with them, but i would just get a bcd396xt handheld scanner it's around that price and can usually find it cheaper on amazon, i got mine for rite at $400, condition was used but it was brand new still in original box with factory sealed plastics and i got the serial to usb connector for $10. would i trade this for a Minitor V Pager? NO WAY !! i would get the best toy for the least money possable.

I don't want it to scan. I want it for when I'm away from my scanner, in the car or somewhere else in the house, working outside, ect...
Since they're much smaller and weigh less, I thought it'd be handier then lugging a scanner around!

 

[twintip720]

USB Programming Programmer Cradle for Motorola Minitor V 5 | eBay

has anyone had luck using this programmer rather then spending double for the official.

 

[gr8rcall]

USB Programming Programmer Cradle for Motorola Minitor V 5 | eBay

has anyone had luck using this programmer rather then spending double for the official.

Yes, that's the programmer Alexkaczor got. I think he likes it!

 

[KD2DLL]

USB Programming Programmer Cradle for Motorola Minitor V 5 | eBay

has anyone had luck using this programmer rather then spending double for the official.

Yes, that's the programmer Alexkaczor got. I think he likes it!

Yes thats the one I bought. It works very good. Only downside is you can't upgrade firmware with it, but other than that its perfect. Sometimes you have to hold the pager firmly in place when reading or writing to it to ensure the connection is fully made, which is not a problem anyways. I'm so glad I bought that one.

 

[gr8rcall]

Hey guys,
I saw a thing about Minitor V engineer mode.

ATTN AlexKaczor or anyone else who can help:

Can you mess with your engineer mode, and actually change your UHF pager to VHF?
If that works, doesn't that mean I could buy ANY Minitor V, and make it into the kind I need?
Could I buy a 1 channel non-stored voice pager, and make a 2 channel stored voice pager, ect.....?

Thanks!

 

[RBMTS]

Well - no, no, and yes (sort of).

Like any commercial receiver, you can't just jump frequency bands that it wasn't designed for. The M5's had specific range receiver boards. To go from VHF to UHF (or even up and or down ranges within the specific bands), you'd need to change the receiver boards.

You can't "enable" SV in a non-SV pager. The electronics are just not there (the push button on the selection knob for a start).

As for changing from a one channel to a two channel, I can't remember if just altering the engineer mode was enough or if the config file needed a HEX hack. It's been a LONG time since I have done that. I think Alex can better answer that one. But something sticks in the back of my mind that the last time I did this I needed to HEX edit that config file to allow the model number of a 1 channel pager to be recognized as a two channel. But then again I might be thinking of a RSS radio hack I was doing.

 

[RBMTS]

One more note as a FYI.

I really urge people not to play with the engineering mode. I have seen many pagers become paperweights because of playing in that screen. Putting all the settings back to default will not work at times. So play at your own risk. Just be prepared for the consequences if you corrupt the pager.

 

[gr8rcall]

To the above poster,

10-4!

I KNOW you can change a 1 channel pager into a 2 channel.
I just read this, and this!

Thanks!

 

[KD2DLL]

You can change it from a 1 channel to a two channel. That's what I did to mine.

You can change it to a SV model but you will need parts, so I would recommend just buying one with stored voice if you want that. It will save time and you won't have to open up the pager.

With the changing for UHF to VHF, like Randy said, you will need to buy a separate receiver board. It's not cheap.. At all.. Your best bet would be to buy it in the correct band and band split.

Now for the band split. Mine is approx 453.000 to 461.000(not 100% sure that that is the exact band split since I'm out of state and don't have it with me). I have successfully changed it to the next band split up. I did that once to test programming by changing the band split so I could put it on a GMRS freq to test my tones to make sure they would alert correctly. I have not tried to change it any further than that. It may just work like that because I was approximately only 1-2 MHz away from its set band. Not really sure.

In engineer settings, do not change anything unless you are 1000%(yes one thousand) sure you know exactly what it will do. Working in engineer mode can make your investment into a $500 paperweight if you aren't careful. The only things I have changed in engineer mode have been the band split once for testing and changing it from a 1 channel to 2 channel model. Other than that I have not played around with it.

Hopefully that answers your questions.

 

[gr8rcall]

Alex,
Thanks so much!

~Gr8rcall