Alpha Numeric Paging to E-mail

[dsheli]

Does anyone know of a device that can read messages from alpha numeric pagers and convert them to an e-mail?
David

 

[DaveNF2G]

A program called WinFlex had such a feature. It has not been supported in a long time and I'm not sure where it can be found any more.

 

[dsheli]

Thanks for you reply, that helped me come upon a program that is supported, PDW! I am still learning how paging systems work,but I pick up on things really quickly. On the back of my pager it lists Baud as 1200, freq: 152.48. Could someone point me towards some articles that can explain how all this works so I can start to try and configure PDW.
Thanks,
David

 

[DaveNF2G]

PDW doesn't require much configuring. The soundcard processes the audio, although you need a discriminator tapped receiver to get clean enough data for decoding. The software pretty much identifies the paging format used by itself.

 

[dsheli]

For initial testing could I just pipe it directly out of the scanner? Anyone have a cheap scanner they want to sell me?
David

 

[Comint]

For initial testing could I just pipe it directly out of the scanner? Anyone have a cheap scanner they want to sell me?
David

Depends on what paging Protocol is being used. If it is Pocsag, then you can ceratinly use Speaker/Earphone audio. Numerous people in my area use PDW, using only Speaker/Earphone audio, to monitor the local Pocsag pagers (the Emergency Services (Public Safety) use them a lot). If your network is using Flex, then I can't help.

Bitrates (Baud) for Pocsag are: 512, 1200, are 2400, and in PDW you can elect to monitor all bitrates at the same time, although we have never seen any 2400 on our local systems.

Obviously, 152.48 is the frequency you need to program into your scanner.

Be Warned: PDW is VERY sensitive to the setting of the Volume level. A "cat's wisker" either way, can mean the diffference between Decoding and NOT decoding.


Also, these two links might be of some use.

http://a23.video2.blip.tv/2510001217646/Adafruit-ReverseEngineeringAPagerPart1238.m4v which is 72 Megs, and

http://a11.video2.blip.tv/1070001263340/Adafruit-HowToMakeAPagerScanner869.m4v which is 26 Megs.

Basically they show how to put a Discriminator Tap on a Pager.

--
Comint

 

[DaveNF2G]

The 512 bitrate is usually numeric pages only. Text pages are at 1200 and up, and I agree that 2400 seems to be rare.