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radioman16

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why can't i get eany paging tones for newton county? i have asked the ema director but he said he couldnt release them to the public. is there a reason for that? i want to program some into my scanner. does anyone know where i can get them or how to? kinda flustered

thanks for any info.
 

k9ksb

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I would say talk to ur local fds I couldn't see it being confidential but also don't see the ema director even having them atleast not in my county
 

radioman16

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Ema director is also a fire chief in our county, but in his words for reasons i cannot give any tones to you. and in newton county all fire depts are paged out on ema freq.
 

radioman16

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Time to get a Uniden with FTO Search.

does this scanner automatically save them? my other alternative was to record the tones during test on my comp then running them through a program which tells me what fq tone it is. i just dont understand why they cant give them out. i mean i asked for the public alert tone and it was a no. whats the sense of having a public alert tone if no one can have it?
 

W8RMH

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does this scanner automatically save them? my other alternative was to record the tones during test on my comp then running them through a program which tells me what fq tone it is. i just dont understand why they cant give them out. i mean i asked for the public alert tone and it was a no. whats the sense of having a public alert tone if no one can have it?

I don't think it will save them.

It would seem to me that those tones would be public information.
 

KidClerk

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Let me weigh in here. I'm also a Newton Co. fire chief and while it doesn't really matter to me if someone has my tones, I also don't see what purpose having that information would serve to anyone not involved in our county's emergency services.

Also understand, just a few months ago, we had a (now former) member of one of our fire departments who, along with an accomplice, radio in a false structure fire using a fake number from a neighboring department. This "structure fire" was in the jurisdiction in which the EMA director is fire chief. Not only was my department called to assist, but my brand new command vehicle was damaged enroute when a deer ran into the side of it just north of town...and yours truly was driving. A few days later, this firefighter and his buddy tied up the dispatch repeater with some of the most filthy language I've ever heard, calling the dispatchers names and reporting a non existent PI accident. With the use of one of my handheld scanners programmed to the repeater input frequency, he was able to be tracked down and his world came crashing down around him. I still suspect this firefighter of setting fires as far back as three years ago when I saw him in the area of a fire we were at with his scanner in hand. Two more fires were set in that same area while we were still at the first one.

Its easy to be quick to judge our EMA director for not giving out this information, and giving out these tones could be harmless, but after what we've been through this winter, he probably doesn't feel like taking any chances, and I totally understand his reasoning. I'm not sure why this would be 'public information'. Public information refers to public documents used in the course of conducting the public's business. It's intended to give the public the opportunity to see the transactions of their government officials and ensure that the public is not being harmed. Pager tones have no correlation whatsoever in ensuring transparency in government decisions and policies.

Maybe if I knew who the OP was and why he or she wanted this information I would understand better why the information was needed. If he's a member of a department and wants his scanner to activate on his department's tones, I would be happy to supply him with that information. But if this information is publicized for everyone to know, imagine the havoc it could create in the hands of someone who wanted to set off fire pagers or tornado sirens maliciously. Hopefully all of you on this board are civic minded enough and have enough common sense to understand hesitancy on the part of our EMA director...and me for that matter.
 

Anon6083

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Here's one of those rare moments where we get to understand the true motivation behind a public entity's apprehensions about sharing their communications details. Thanks very much Kyle. It's never pleasant to see the impact of a troubled individual who's been empowered and entrusted with the privileges of a public servant, but we'd all rather know than not, I'd think (we are scanner operators, after all, heh). I hope you got your command vehicle back in quick order :D
 

AK9R

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Kyle, any idea what this "public alert tone" is that the OP referred to? I'm not familiar with the idea of a fire department having a specific tone for alerting the public.
 

scannerfreak

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Time to get a Uniden with FTO Search.

You don't need a Uniden scanner to find the tones. There are software packages that can do this. Some free and some paid.

Fire Tone Out - The RadioReference Wiki

Look at the bottom of that article. I like Comtekk. It isn't free, but it works very well and will run unattended and save among other features.
 
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k9ksb

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Well since we have never had that problem I never thought of it that way but then I can understand why he did want anyone other than someone affilited with a ems entity kind of make me rethink some of that stuff now thanks
 

KidClerk

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A number of years ago, our EMA director purchased and installed alert receivers in all of our schools, the nursing homes, the courthouse, and any business that was interested in purchasing them. It's basically a base pager. There is a tone specifically for activating those receivers that our county dispatch will set off for severe weather messages to alert these institutions. They just drop that tone at the same time they do the fire departments so that they can alert the public to the impending weather watch or warning. Those receivers are tested every Monday at 10am.

Kyle, any idea what this "public alert tone" is that the OP referred to? I'm not familiar with the idea of a fire department having a specific tone for alerting the public.
 

gtriever

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It would seem to me that those tones would be public information.

Frequencies are public information, PL/DPL/NAC and paging cap codes are not. We don't give'em out either unless it's a matter of interoperability.
 
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