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:
As always, feedback is appreciated.
Thanks,
Andy
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