sibbley
Member
I made a goof. It's not Delayed N. It's Revert N 10.56 seconds.
Bucks County EMS & Fire tones, need some help
- Thread starter radicalbill
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sgansky
Member
If you want to decode the QC2 tones get the iPhone app Radio ID (Not sure if there is an Android version). It's 99 cents and works great. Decodes QC2, MDC and others perfectly.
Radio ID has worked great for me as well. My county has a few departments with some very strange tone sets. I've ID'd them in audacity but could never get a pager to activate with their sets. When I t iced them on Radio ID it gave a tone set that has worked perfectly. I very rarely buy apps but that one was very much worth the 99 cents.
wv2vvl
Member
Trolling for Bucks County fire call-out tones
My location is only a mile from the County courthouse where one of the 155.550 Fire/EMS dispatch transmitters is located. I am also only a mile or so from the Station 19 fire house on Sewell Ave with their North Band transmitter on 153.905. My house is on the same level as the courthouse which is nearly 500' AMSL.
My monitoring operation at home Is currently limited to an AR-33-B PLL synthesized VHF receiver sitting on the top shelf of my computer desk in the basement, which puts the rubber duck antenna below ground level here. This receiver is very hot (<0.22uV, EIA 12dB SINAD) & I have logged reception of the following companies & apparatus over the past month:
Stations 19 & 79 - Doylestown Borough & Township
Stations 29 & 78 - Warrington
Stations 21 & 22 - Langhorne-Middletown
Station 1 - Feasterville
Station 66 - Warwick
Station 2 - Montgomery Twp
Stations 5 & 15 - Buckingham/Solebury
Stations 90, 91 & 92 - Warminster
Stations 3 & 73 - Northampton
Station 46 - New Hope Eagle
Station 93 - Hartsville
All of these stations are within a 5-10 mile radius from me.
Despite the contrary listings in the 'Bucks County PA Fire Tones' pdf in the Wiki page, all of these were heard on the North Band channel.
After verifying my reception ability with these loggings. I invested in the CommTekk 2-tone decoder II & a $13 capacitor microphone from Amazon. Getting the decoder to work accurately & consistently took several days of trial & error but I have so far succeeded in verifying Doylestown's tones as being as listed in the pdf: A-645.8/B-855.8 Hz. I still haven't gotten the logging function of the decoder to work but that's a future project along with installing an outdoor antenna, which I have along with the low-loss coax cable.
A single tone is heard at the beginning of most EMS/Fire dispatch calls on 155.550 & many fire calls on 153.905. This decodes as 1,000 Hz. This is also the tone used to signal recall.
I hope to post additional tone reception but only those that differ from the ones shown in the pdf.
Jack (ex-WV2VVL, ex-WA1TEJ)
My location is only a mile from the County courthouse where one of the 155.550 Fire/EMS dispatch transmitters is located. I am also only a mile or so from the Station 19 fire house on Sewell Ave with their North Band transmitter on 153.905. My house is on the same level as the courthouse which is nearly 500' AMSL.
My monitoring operation at home Is currently limited to an AR-33-B PLL synthesized VHF receiver sitting on the top shelf of my computer desk in the basement, which puts the rubber duck antenna below ground level here. This receiver is very hot (<0.22uV, EIA 12dB SINAD) & I have logged reception of the following companies & apparatus over the past month:
Stations 19 & 79 - Doylestown Borough & Township
Stations 29 & 78 - Warrington
Stations 21 & 22 - Langhorne-Middletown
Station 1 - Feasterville
Station 66 - Warwick
Station 2 - Montgomery Twp
Stations 5 & 15 - Buckingham/Solebury
Stations 90, 91 & 92 - Warminster
Stations 3 & 73 - Northampton
Station 46 - New Hope Eagle
Station 93 - Hartsville
All of these stations are within a 5-10 mile radius from me.
Despite the contrary listings in the 'Bucks County PA Fire Tones' pdf in the Wiki page, all of these were heard on the North Band channel.
After verifying my reception ability with these loggings. I invested in the CommTekk 2-tone decoder II & a $13 capacitor microphone from Amazon. Getting the decoder to work accurately & consistently took several days of trial & error but I have so far succeeded in verifying Doylestown's tones as being as listed in the pdf: A-645.8/B-855.8 Hz. I still haven't gotten the logging function of the decoder to work but that's a future project along with installing an outdoor antenna, which I have along with the low-loss coax cable.
A single tone is heard at the beginning of most EMS/Fire dispatch calls on 155.550 & many fire calls on 153.905. This decodes as 1,000 Hz. This is also the tone used to signal recall.
I hope to post additional tone reception but only those that differ from the ones shown in the pdf.
Jack (ex-WV2VVL, ex-WA1TEJ)
wv2vvl
Member
Unknown Bucks County north Fire Band Tone Pair
Since I have yet to get my decoder's logging function to work, finding that I have picked up call out tones that aren't on the Wiki list is interesting as I have no idea who they belong to. Sometime late this afternoon I decoded A-681.1/B-897.1. Anyone have input on who might use these tones?
Jack
Since I have yet to get my decoder's logging function to work, finding that I have picked up call out tones that aren't on the Wiki list is interesting as I have no idea who they belong to. Sometime late this afternoon I decoded A-681.1/B-897.1. Anyone have input on who might use these tones?
Jack
wv2vvl
Member
Doylestown tones (new?) decoded today
Just a while ago I decoded a new tone pair for Station 19 (Doylestown): A-643.9/B-853.1. I switched from 155.550 County Fire/EMS Dispatch to North Fire (153.905) to confirm that Stations 19 & 79 were on the air & starting a response to a smell of oil around a boiler or furnace in a home. This pair differs from the one listed in the Wiki pdf (A-645.8/B-855.8) which I decoded last week without verifying the ID of the units on the radio.
Also today I decoded the pair A-682.7/B-933.1 for a Doylestown EMS call (unit 125) for a fall victim at the license plate store near the state liquor store on Veterans Lane. This pair was later decoded for an EMS call for chest pains at an address on Belmont Ave. I didn't catch the address & wouldn't post it if I had but there is an elderly care home on Belmont Ave, so this kind of call is perhaps routine.
The CommTekk 2-tone decoder works as well as might be expected but I have a number of complaints. For one, after-sale technical support is marginal. Two, it misses tones occasionally. Three, I still have no clue as to how to make the logging function work. And four, initial setup to get the radio volume/computer microphone audio levels correct for routine tone decoding can be very time consuming & frustrating.
Jack
Just a while ago I decoded a new tone pair for Station 19 (Doylestown): A-643.9/B-853.1. I switched from 155.550 County Fire/EMS Dispatch to North Fire (153.905) to confirm that Stations 19 & 79 were on the air & starting a response to a smell of oil around a boiler or furnace in a home. This pair differs from the one listed in the Wiki pdf (A-645.8/B-855.8) which I decoded last week without verifying the ID of the units on the radio.
Also today I decoded the pair A-682.7/B-933.1 for a Doylestown EMS call (unit 125) for a fall victim at the license plate store near the state liquor store on Veterans Lane. This pair was later decoded for an EMS call for chest pains at an address on Belmont Ave. I didn't catch the address & wouldn't post it if I had but there is an elderly care home on Belmont Ave, so this kind of call is perhaps routine.
The CommTekk 2-tone decoder works as well as might be expected but I have a number of complaints. For one, after-sale technical support is marginal. Two, it misses tones occasionally. Three, I still have no clue as to how to make the logging function work. And four, initial setup to get the radio volume/computer microphone audio levels correct for routine tone decoding can be very time consuming & frustrating.
Jack
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wv2vvl
Member
Bucks County Medic Alerting Tone
While I still haven't been able to get my logging function working for my tone decoder, it is interesting to listen to the radio while watching tones decode. An interesting note is that medical (EMS) units are alerted with a 500 Hz single tone as compared to the 1,000 Hz tone used for fire & rescue units.
Jack
While I still haven't been able to get my logging function working for my tone decoder, it is interesting to listen to the radio while watching tones decode. An interesting note is that medical (EMS) units are alerted with a 500 Hz single tone as compared to the 1,000 Hz tone used for fire & rescue units.
Jack
wv2vvl
Member
Monitoring Bucks North Fire with a Minotaur V Pager
My refurbed M5 arrived on Friday. Tonight was my first chance to check out its performance & see how it compared to my earlier monitoring with my AR-33-B in the basement with its rubber duck antenna.
I switched the M5 to the fire channel & set it on a book case in my TV room, which faces south towards the Doylestown fire station. Nothing was heard for over an hour & then at least 2 calls for odor of gas in a home came in. I logged 6 or 7 different stations & equipment as well. All signals were full quieting & the audio was very clear and, if needed, very loud. Reception was apparently just as good as I had with the AR-33-B in the basement but with much better audio quality.
Sitting at my computer in the basement, the M5 just went off with a fire call but it was noisy & I missed the station number etc. It was Station 19 here in Doylestown. Not bad for a receiver with no external antenna.
The 2-tone call out function is performed on Bucks County EMS/Fire dispatch 155.550. The only tone I heard on North Fire (153.905) was the 1,000 Hz single tone before a call & repeated several times for recall.
On a slightly different topic, I got a phone call the other day from an officer with the local fire company. I may be getting involved with them in some non-hazardous capacity, possibly involving radio communications.
I'm very pleased with the M5's performance & plan to use it both at home & while mobile/portable. I will likely buy the earphone accessory.
Jack
My refurbed M5 arrived on Friday. Tonight was my first chance to check out its performance & see how it compared to my earlier monitoring with my AR-33-B in the basement with its rubber duck antenna.
I switched the M5 to the fire channel & set it on a book case in my TV room, which faces south towards the Doylestown fire station. Nothing was heard for over an hour & then at least 2 calls for odor of gas in a home came in. I logged 6 or 7 different stations & equipment as well. All signals were full quieting & the audio was very clear and, if needed, very loud. Reception was apparently just as good as I had with the AR-33-B in the basement but with much better audio quality.
Sitting at my computer in the basement, the M5 just went off with a fire call but it was noisy & I missed the station number etc. It was Station 19 here in Doylestown. Not bad for a receiver with no external antenna.
The 2-tone call out function is performed on Bucks County EMS/Fire dispatch 155.550. The only tone I heard on North Fire (153.905) was the 1,000 Hz single tone before a call & repeated several times for recall.
On a slightly different topic, I got a phone call the other day from an officer with the local fire company. I may be getting involved with them in some non-hazardous capacity, possibly involving radio communications.
I'm very pleased with the M5's performance & plan to use it both at home & while mobile/portable. I will likely buy the earphone accessory.
Jack
Last edited:
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