No fire tone-outs

All of the public service in Monroe County have gone to Starcom for a while now. I used to hear the tone-outs for the local fire dept. dispatches but now I don't hear them at all. Mainly using 996P2. What did they change??

Digital signaling is faster and more reliable. My local fire department still uses tone outs. A large response can take 20-30 seconds to tone out. Waste of time. Plus, tones can get garbled and don't work. In some instances they cover traffic on the radio. If you look at large departments with 1200 or 1500 or 2000+ calls a day, there is simply no time to waste on tones.

Bring back the alarm telegraph!

I have a coworker who is on the volunteer FD and the tone outs come across his Unication pager when it goes off. I used to hear the same tones on my 996P2 at home but not any more.

When you say tone out are you refering to using the tone out feature on your scanner or do you mean the basic tone out from the comm center on the TG assigned on StarCom for Monroe Co? I don't believe the tone out feature works on a trunked system like StarCom. It may only work on a single frequency type radio.

I live in SW St Louis city and it is nearly impossible to hear much at all from any StarCom radios where I am. I do get some reception (not too often) and very rarely get any fire or EMS tones. So, in part, I feel your pain.

I live in Will Co here in Joliet and the small towns around me just joined SCom and use tone-outs then the mechanical voice comes on and gives out the call, to me its stupid ….In the old days the dispatcher gave out the call and the tones went off in the station and everyone was on there way.....Lets ruin a good thing….

Well our local FDs were conventional and used the same frequency for dispatch since this is a small rural area but every FD had its' own tones that came across my scanner (or my coworker's pager) before the dispatcher would talk. When they switched to Starcom about 2 years ago I could still hear the tones broadcast but now even with the same TGs I hear nothing except when the dispatcher comes on. I was just wondering what could have changed? When I would hear the different tones I knew which FD was going out (since I am a lineman I heard about poles getting hit first) but now I keep the scanner volume cranked so I can at least hear the dispatcher.

One thing I don't like is now with the CAD system (computer-aided-dispatch) there are very few responses from the fire dept mobiles, instead they use there computers when there on the scene or arrive at the hospital ...Much of the drama in listening to FD's has been taken out in todays world of high technology....

Our local fire departments still put out tones on VHF High Band to set off pagers and a Siren at the rural Fire Departments. The 911 center also sends a text message to the fire fighter’s cell phones. There is also an app which routes the fire dispatches to smart phones and tablets.

RoninJoliet said:

One thing I don't like is now with the CAD system (computer-aided-dispatch) there are very few responses from the fire dept mobiles, instead they use there computers when there on the scene or arrive at the hospital ...Much of the drama in listening to FD's has been taken out in todays world of high technology....

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Our local law enforcement uses in car laptops and a lot we can't hear anymore and now they've added an encrypted TG to the mix but our FDs are volunteer so they don't have the money or use really for in truck computers. They use a fire tac channel or an interop TG for comms.

VASCAR2 said:

Our local fire departments still put out tones on VHF High Band to set off pagers and a Siren at the rural Fire Departments. The 911 center also sends a text message to the fire fighter’s cell phones. There is also an app which routes the fire dispatches to smart phones and tablets.

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Well I may have to run another scanner with the old conventional frequency to see if that's where the tones are. I do know they test page every Monday evening and I believe they still test page on the old dispatch freq for a backup. I haven't listened to that for a while. They used to send a tone for the siren at the firehouse but no longer use it. They just use their Unication pagers now. They're still on Phase 1 yet here.

scanman1958 said:

When you say tone out are you refering to using the tone out feature on your scanner or do you mean the basic tone out from the comm center on the TG assigned on StarCom for Monroe Co? I don't believe the tone out feature works on a trunked system like StarCom. It may only work on a single frequency type radio.

I live in SW St Louis city and it is nearly impossible to hear much at all from any StarCom radios where I am. I do get some reception (not too often) and very rarely get any fire or EMS tones. So, in part, I feel your pain.

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I used to listen to St. Louis Co. Police but now they've gone encrypted. Is all of SLATER encrypted? I have MOSWIN programmed in but I guess I'm too far out to hear the Missouri Highway Patrol. And I'm just over the other side of the big ditch.

I'm a believer in a belt, suspenders, and a spare rope just in case.

My county system uses a three-tier concept. Our paging channel only carries the initial notifications and is not used for talk-back, per NFPA recommendation. We use both fast EIA 5-tone for each individual agency and traditional (slow) regional QC-II tones, followed by voice. That's the 'belt'. Not the fastest, but at this point the emphasis is to get volunteers in their boots and headed to the station. Details can come later.

The entire string is stored and automatically replayed fifteen seconds later, from a different transmitter for redundancy. (Suspenders) The replay is nice at 3AM - the first tones get you out of bed, and the replay comes after you are semi-awake.

We back that up with the spare rope: more information via text messages and a phone app that also lets individual responders confirm they are on the way (or not available) and when they will be there. Sometimes the app goes off at the same time as our pagers. Sometimes it is delayed several minutes. Cell phones are good, but not always 100% reliable.

If you miss all of those, you're doing something very wrong (or staying home).

I am Responding works well, but is only as reliable as your cell phone and carrier.

In the station the same app data appearing on everyone's smart phone is on displays in the apparatus bay, with the location and fastest route mapping, and the GPS location of each responder who went active. Our command rescue has a MDT with the same information displayed while in-route. Dispatch also sees the response and location data.

The mapping and location uses Google Maps - sometimes a problem since Google simply refuses to update their maps to the official County 911 road names and address we have been using exclusively for over a decade. We use Bing maps internally (they do use our 911 layers). Google, I hope you are listening, but I digress.

All response confirmation and subsequent communication is on one of two dedicated multi-site repeater voice channels, different from the initial paging channel. That way communication can take place while the replay or other pages (for the same or a different incident) are going out. That also makes it easy for en-route responders and potential mutual aid partners to get the big picture.

Once on scene, our life and safety critical tactical traffic is moved to a simplex VHF channel for reliability. Simplex is only good for a couple miles at best, but that's fine since that traffic seldom needs to reliably cover more than a couple block radius and a repeated system glitch or failure won't stop critical communications, like "Evacuate" or "Mayday". Only the apparatus and Incident Commander stay on the regional repeated channel.

Sort of a pain for the scanning public, but the purpose of the exercise is to be reliable, redundant and safe while protecting your life and property.

I think you have the right idea. Get a scanner that can monitor the old VHF fire freqs and see if they still use them for tone outs.

On SLATER the FD's still use their old VHF freqs to dispatch on in conjunction with the new trunked system TG's. That includes East Central Disp.Too bad PD's are encrypted. It sucks.

Depending on your location in So Illinois you should be able to hear MOSWIN. Especially the VHF channels. Their signal is fantastic. Just make sure you put in multiple sites to guve you a better chance for picking up signals.

I looked at a basic map and I don't think you can get the 700/800 tower from St Louis City. But you should probably hear Jeff Co or Ste Genevieve, Co. You may give them a try unless that is what you are doing already. Good luck.

scanman1958 said:

I looked at a basic map and I don't think you can get the 700/800 tower from St Louis City. But you should probably hear Jeff Co or Ste Genevieve, Co. You may give them a try unless that is what you are doing already. Good luck.

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I still have my conventional channels in a couple of scanners I'll have to crank them up again. I use my PSR-800 and have the MOSWIN sites in west and south counties programmed in. I'm in Monroe Co. so I'm not that far out. I didn't know they still used VHF I thought they were all P25 Phase II. I have my antennas in the 2nd floor of the house and still can't get MOSWIN. Next time I go to MO I'll have to bring my 800 with me and see what I get. I listened in when the Ferguson riots were going on. Very intense. As soon as Brown's daddeh said let's burn this b**** down my 3 scanners came to life and I couldn't keep up with it. I'm guessing after that melee they wanted to go encrypted.

My favorite part of this hobby for the last 54 years is listening to "FD's from tunable radios to crystals to the 996P2 but for the last two years for some stupid reason "Joliet" ILL has been completely "ENC, I have family on the PD who I can't hear now but its very disgusting to see the fire go "ENC"...There on Starcom, even there FGround is "ENC"....

My thoughts on using trunked, repeated or even worse (gasp) encryption for fireground communications:

Lets' say I fall through an interior floor and since my feet are getting toasty dangling in the fire I decide it is prudent to call "Mayday". Here is what I DON'T want to happen:

1. My "Mayday" call gets bonked because the trunked system is busy,
2. My "Mayday" call didn't make it miles to the repeater/trunking site because I was in the basement or had a damaged antenna/radio/battery/etc.
3. My "Mayday" call signal made it to the repeater/trunking site, but the fixed infrastructure was having 'technical difficulties'.
4. My "Mayday" call makes it to the repeater/trunking site, but an ambulance on the same incident scene was transmitting a high-powered patient report on MERCI and the RF from the ambulance de-sensed/digitally-bumfuzzled the other receivers on the incident ground enough that no-one could hear the infrastructure transmitter five or ten miles away.
5. My "Mayday" call signal made it to several other receivers including mutual aid partners, but was not decoded because of encryption.
6. My "Mayday" call is 'walked on' by off-scene high-powered transmitters on the same channel that can't hear the life and safety traffic at my incident.

Can't happen in today's technically advanced age, you say? Read the LODD after action reports for the past ten years. #1 though #6 are direct contributors to a couple dozen firefighter deaths. That's not 2nd degree burns and boo-boos. That's dozens of firefighters who never went home to their families because (at least in part) of over-used state-of-the-art gee-wiz technology.

Here is what I DO want to happen:

My "Mayday" call from what is left of my portable antenna sends out enough signal on a common interoperable tactical channel using plain stupid old-fashioned analog simplex and is heard by other folks at the incident less than 300 feet away.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.



[Afterthought: before anyone starts flaming me - for the 3rd or 4th time - over the above scenario, I acknowledge that a lot of other things also went wrong in my example - shouldn't be by myself, two-in-two-out, should of sounded the floor, RIT and oversight, should of, shouldn't of, etc. etc. etc. My point is using infrastructure-free simplex analog life and safety tactical fireground communications on a dedicated channel with no remote base station transmitters, not the circumstances requiring use in any particular instance or emergency.]

Excellent explanation of what should not happen....A retired fire fighter scanner friend of mine when they chose this system to include "ENC" for the FD went to the city council meeting and pleaded with then not to go this route but they talked him down....Thankfully so far they been lucky!!!!...You sound like a guy with a lot of common sense....

I have heard some local FDs wanting to keep conventional analog fire ground just for that reason, a local radio to radio signal.

Great explanation jaetock. I totally agree.

Those reasons are why large departments like Chicago use a simplex command channel on all fires. One simple freq with no fear of "hitting the repeater" five miles away, etc. Too bad municipalities sometimes leave it up to the aldermen at monthly meetings to decide what channels to use. Dangerous.

I also agree with your statement at the end...…..Just because you can shouldn't mean you should. How true.

I have known RoninJoliet for years. (even met up with him once in Joliet) He has a lot of info to share. He is a buff just like the majority of us. Nice to get feedback from you.

I hope our guy in Monroe county can get his tones back. Ha. Also if he needs any other help he can PM me about MOSWIN site to scan.