FiveToneDetect now available

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aaknitt

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Hi everyone,

I had an Italian firefighter contact me a couple weeks ago to see if TwoToneDetect could be used with their 5-tone paging system. 5-tone paging is apparently much more common in Europe than two-tone paging (also used in some locations in the US). It uses much shorter tone sequences with a number of different standards that map digits 0-9 and A-F to a specific tone frequency. TwoToneDetect can't be used to detect this type of paging, so I created a new program (borrowing very heavily from TwoToneDetect) that can handle 5-tone paging. It's still in the early stages of testing, but if anyone has a system in their area using this paging format and would like to try it out, there is a link to this new program on the left-hand menu at www.twotonedetect.net.

If you're going to try it out, here are some things you'll want to know:
  • I have not yet made a version of the TonesEditor program to support five tone operation. Until I do, you'll need to manually edit the tones.cfg file using a text editor. In the tones.cfg file you can create a section for each tone set that you want to receive an email or text alert for. Just make sure you increment the section header when copy/pasting. For example, add [Tone3] as the next tone set in the sample file, not another [Tone2]
  • Note that the 5 tone code is entered by digit number/letter (1-9,A-F), not by frequency. If you enter repeating numbers, the "repeat" tone (E) will automatically be substituted.
  • After starting the program, click on the "Edit Config Info" menu item. In this menu you can select the tone format (EIA, CCIR, etc.). You can also adjust a parameter called "Tone Strength Threshold". This parameter changes how "strong" the tone must be relative to background noise before it is considered valid for detection. I've found that values between 10 and 20 seem to work well. A value that is too low will result in falsing on voice traffic, while a value that is too high will prevent tone detection.
  • If you want, you can create a file called alias.csv (sample is included) to display ANI information on the main screen. This is kept separate from the tones.cfg file since there may be ANI codes that you want to display but don't want to alert on.
  • Make sure to download ffmpeg and put ffmpeg.exe in the program directory. See the included README.txt for a download link

As always, feedback is appreciated.

Thanks,

Andy
 

KLH

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Would this work with departments that use DTMF tones to activate services (example would be tornado sirens) ?
 

aaknitt

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Would this work with departments that use DTMF tones to activate services (example would be tornado sirens) ?

No, it won't work for DTMF detection. DTMF detection is another thing on my "to do" list. I hope to make it available eventually, but not sure when I'll be able to get to it.

Andy
 

aaknitt

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v65 Released

Hi everyone,

I just posted v65 to the FiveToneDetect page.

Version 65 Release Notes:
  • Enhancements to signal processing to improve detection
  • Left/Right/Mono selection in Config Menu
  • FiveToneEditor8 included with release
  • Email Body field added to TonesEditor. Allows a custom message to be added to the body of the email message
  • Added ANI history to main screen display and to log.txt file

If there are any issues, let me know.

Andy
 

aaknitt

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v65a Posted

Hi everyone,

I just posted v65 to the FiveToneDetect page.

Version 65 Release Notes:
  • Enhancements to signal processing to improve detection
  • Left/Right/Mono selection in Config Menu
  • FiveToneEditor8 included with release
  • Email Body field added to TonesEditor. Allows a custom message to be added to the body of the email message
  • Added ANI history to main screen display and to log.txt file

If there are any issues, let me know.

Andy

There were some major bugs found in v65 of FiveToneDetect. I just posted v65a that should fix these issues.

Thanks,

Andy
 

kc2kvy

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Feature Request

Have you put any thought into adding a scheduling feature? I work for an EMS department where the medics work regular shifts every week, but don't want to receive pages when they are off shift.
 

aaknitt

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Have you put any thought into adding a scheduling feature? I work for an EMS department where the medics work regular shifts every week, but don't want to receive pages when they are off shift.

This may be a dumb question but...why do they need to get the pages on their phones when they are on shift? Shouldn't they be well within pager range if they are on shift?

But to answer your question, no I haven't thought about adding this kind of capability to the program itself. It could be done with an external script that edits the tones.cfg file though.

Andy
 

kc2kvy

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This may be a dumb question but...why do they need to get the pages on their phones when they are on shift? Shouldn't they be well within pager range if they are on shift?

But to answer your question, no I haven't thought about adding this kind of capability to the program itself. It could be done with an external script that edits the tones.cfg file though.

Andy

I meant to post this on the TwoTone version, whups. Sorry about that. Anyways, we don't carry a pager, but do carry a portable radio. It's a single tower VHF repeater system, so when we're in a building or in a vehicle, reception is pretty terrible. It'd be nice to have a way of knowing that they system is blowing up while you're at the hospital turning a patient over, or if we're in the mall on a detail, etc.

I might look at writing a script to do this. It'd probably work pretty well on a Pi... thank you for the suggestion!
 

aaknitt

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I meant to post this on the TwoTone version, whups. Sorry about that. Anyways, we don't carry a pager, but do carry a portable radio. It's a single tower VHF repeater system, so when we're in a building or in a vehicle, reception is pretty terrible. It'd be nice to have a way of knowing that they system is blowing up while you're at the hospital turning a patient over, or if we're in the mall on a detail, etc.

I might look at writing a script to do this. It'd probably work pretty well on a Pi... thank you for the suggestion!

If you're going to be using Python for the scripting I'd suggest using the INIparse module that you can get here:
https://code.google.com/p/iniparse/

That's what I use to edit the tones.cfg file within the program. I can shoot you some example code if you want, just send me a PM or email. You'll want to use the update_interval parameter in the config.cfg file to make sure the program is updating the email addresses quickly enough for your needs. Default is once per hour, you may want it to be quicker.

Andy
 

aaknitt

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v65b Posted

Hi everyone,

I just posted v65b to the program page, which has some bug fixes for the L/R audio input selection. Detection was working OK but recording was messed up. I think this release should fix the recording issues.

Thanks,

Andy
 

aaknitt

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v65c Posted

Hi everyone,

I just uploaded v65c to the program page. This version should fix the problem that 65 and 65b have of taking too long to create the WAV file after recording. Let me know how it works for you.

Thanks,

Andy
 
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