Pager & radio testing; how much is really neccesary??

[triryche]

In regards to agencies & counties testing alert pagers and radio checks...

Is it OVERKILL by some??

Washington County rambles off about 40-50 different pager tones in series TWICE DAILY.. Other counties like Fond du lac & Calumet just to name a couple do the daily marathon at 6pm.. Some Racine County depts do a check of EVERY mobile & portable radio DAILY. On the other hand counties like Sheboygan and Manitowoc do a once a week paging test with depts individually with a useful message rather than a 10-15 minute marathon of tones every day of the week.

My question is this REALLY neccesary and does anyone else find it to be overkill in many situations? Isn't a weekly test more than enough? :roll:

 

[SCPD]

Washington County is annoying they do it once at noon and around 6pm. I think once a week is good enough. Some local fire depts test their own pagers once a day. I think Dane, Columbia, and Jefferson test daily.

 

[djeplett]

Anything more than once a week must get annoying for the units. Makes you wonder how many units miss pages because they turn them down or off.

 

[HowD]

Mequon had trouble recently with the fire paging system. A call went out and somebody came over the air to report that the pagers did not go off for that call. They paged about 5 more times and it sounded like there was a problem with one of the consoles.

I believe that part of it has to do with accountability/liability. If something is suddenly discovered to be not working properly, there is a reference point for when it was last tested and determined to be in working order.

The same goes for any other equipment. Officers (or at least in many departments--I don't know the rules everywhere) test their squad car equipment before they use the vehicle; lights, sirens, turn signals, brake lights, etc. This way, if something is found to be non-operational, they can get it repaired and are not held responsible for it.

That does not, however, [Beeeeeeeeeeeep boooooooooooop] make it any less annoying. :lol:

 

[nslt204]

On the other hand the test only proves that the radio/pager works at that particular moment in time and in that particular location.
2 min later may be a much different result.
There are many that over do it. Dept's that use radios and pagers daily are kind of wasting time with tests. We used to test every radio once a week. We gave that up long ago due to the amount we use them. We still test weekly for our off duty alert but that is by alpha page and text message, many more variables such as providers and programing.

Daily seems excessive, We only test tornado sirens once a month.

 

[triryche]

On the other hand the test only proves that the radio/pager works at that particular moment in time and in that particular location.
2 min later may be a much different result.

That was my thought exactly. Because a pager test is successfull at noon doesn't mean it will work at 12:15, 3pm, 6pm, etc...

In the Mequon case, what was determined to be the problem? Something I bet a test would probably not have prevented. Radio failures generally aren't discovered until they dont work

I guess I only *****ed about it because it makes scanning a pain sometimes and I end up locking stuff out and forgetting about it.

 

[n9upc]

I am not sure about eastern WI but over here in Pierce Co we have a daily pager test @ 1800 hrs. It serves two purposes:
1.) To make sure that we know our pagers and station alerting system is working
and
2.) To let us know that it is 1800Hrs and that the day crew is off duty and the night crew is on duty.

We also try to do all porgramming testing around that time (to see if tones trip radios, station alerts, etc...)

However some places do it only once a week and others....well you know!

 

[1268]

Gentleman besides what's been mentioned above there IS a liability issue involved. Would you like to hear" we got here late because are pagers didn't go off" Daily is the best but break it down to say 2-3 departments a day.
Those of you arguing that once a day doesn't guarantee there working later are justifying Washington counties twice a day testing.....and after all where just monitoring public safety traffic. What 's annoying to you serves a purpose to those of us in public safety.

 

[OpSec]

Those of you arguing that once a day doesn't guarantee there working later are justifying Washington counties twice a day testing.....and after all where just monitoring public safety traffic. What 's annoying to you serves a purpose to those of us in public safety.

But to what end? Why not do an hourly test, or half-hourly test just in case something might not work. Like you, I don't care if the scanner geeks (no offense to any one in this thread) don't like something they hear on their scanner or perceive it to be overkill...but the OP brings up a valid point. Just because the paging system and pagers work once or twice a day does not mean it will continue to be functional the other 23 hours and 55 minutes each day.

Those departments that use the daily page to signal crew swaps or broadcast useful information will likely have more interested listeners than those that just fire off tones a couple times a day. You can't tell me that there aren't some people that will not pay any attention to pages around those times of day when the testing is done - just because they have tuned it out as a routine, unimportant test page...whether it is or not.

Waukesha County Kombined Kommunications does so much test paging because the fire departments they dispatch for mandate it. It has nothing to do with WCC policy. There are quite a few dispatchers over there that work for VFD's and some nights their comm center is filled with Minitor pager's alerting as one of their co-workers fires off their department's tones. There is an epic 2000 hours pager test from WCC that fills up a big chunk of time because the pages are on VHF but the responding department has to answer on one of three 800 MHz fire dispatch talkgroups.

Bottom line, testing the VFD's pagers is a good thing but I agree that it's being done to excess with some departments, usually for no other reason than they can.

 

[1268]

But to what end? Why not do an hourly test, or half-hourly test just in case something might not work. Like you, I don't care if the scanner geeks (no offense to any one in this thread) don't like something they hear on their scanner or perceive it to be overkill...but the OP brings up a valid point. Just because the paging system and pagers work once or twice a day does not mean it will continue to be functional the other 23 hours and 55 minutes each day.

Those departments that use the daily page to signal crew swaps or broadcast useful information will likely have more interested listeners than those that just fire off tones a couple times a day. You can't tell me that there aren't some people that will not pay any attention to pages around those times of day when the testing is done - just because they have tuned it out as a routine, unimportant test page...whether it is or not.

Waukesha County Kombined Kommunications does so much test paging because the fire departments they dispatch for mandate it. It has nothing to do with WCC policy. There are quite a few dispatchers over there that work for VFD's and some nights their comm center is filled with Minitor pager's alerting as one of their co-workers fires off their department's tones. There is an epic 2000 hours pager test from WCC that fills up a big chunk of time because the pages are on VHF but the responding department has to answer on one of three 800 MHz fire dispatch talkgroups.

Bottom line, testing the VFD's pagers is a good thing but I agree that it's being done to excess with some departments, usually for no other reason than they can.

No offense state boy but that last statement sounds like an arrogant point of view from an admitted law enforcement prospective.I have had the privilege of working in Fire/EMS in 3 states and this type of page testing and or radio testing is done in each and every one of them.
If WCC has no policy for this testing then there director should be terminated and the policy changed. There have been multiple lawsuits involving slow or no responses that HAVE BEEN won by citizens ...wouldn't you want a policy in place to at least try to defend the county ????
On the comment involving folks not paying attention to page tests or pages during the testing....again spoken like someone who's not had a pager strapped to there side. Your blood races EVERYTIME those tones drop.
Bottom line if you can't stand the test pages lock out the scanner during that time...but it serves a purpose whether you understand it or not.

 

[N9JIG]

When I was a POC we did a 7:00 PM pager test every night, and on Tuesdays we tested all the other pager codes (Chief's, admin, inspector, etc.). It was essential to check that this essential equipment was functioning properly in a controlled setting. If you pager didn't go off at 7 it was broken.

That said, when I got hired at a PD 25 years ago our FD was on 154.160 and at 12:00 every Sunday a county in Indiana tested every single pager code in the county on that freq in sequence. 11 minutes of tones, 30 seconds of voice. While I am sure it was necessary it was certainly annoying. It was enough that it drove us to use a PL so we didn't have to listen to it anymore, so it has a benefit after all!

The basic answer to the question is that if the agency or agencies involved think it is necessary then it is. It may be annoying to us scanner people and to other professionals that share the channels (some of us are both!) but so be it.

 

[GTR8000]

For those unaware or uninformed, ISO requires fire alarm circuits and fire dispatching procedures be tested on a regular basis. They review these procedures and take them into account when calculating an agency's ISO rating. These tests are also part of an agency's overall preparedness plan in many cases.

Are they annoying? At times, yes. Do they annoy even those of us on the job? Yep. Do we ignore or turn our radios/pagers off because we're "sick of hearing" tests? Negative, that's silly to even suggest.

In any case, unless you are part of the agency that tests these tones or a co-user of that frequency, your opinion is of no relevance or consequence. This goes double for the scanner buffs who have no affiliation to the emergency services at all. We really don't care what you may find annoying about our radio operations. If you don't like it, turn your scanner off. Problem solved.

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Some Eastern observations..........................

Before I start please understand I am NOT from WI and I agree with other posters that if an agency feels they need to or has a reason to test equipment frequently then that is solely their business. And if non-affiliated scanner listeners don't like it well.........tough.

That being said I have a few questions and comments about this and I am NOT trying to stir any ****.
I fully understand the use of pager testing to signal shift change or duty crew responsability tours, in either a career, combination, POC or volly situation.

I also understand as res6cue stated that ISO requires "circuits to be regularly tested" (we test ours once weekly at 1900hrs Tuesday). Does anyone know the recommended frequency of these tests by ISO?

Just to reply to 1268's statements "I have had the privilege of working in Fire/EMS in 3 states and this type of page testing and or radio testing is done in each and every one of them." Just a check-in here on the East coast, I monitor SE PA, South Jersey, North DE and North MD and don't recall any testing at more than weekly intervals.
Also "spoken like someone who's not had a pager strapped to there side. Your blood races EVERYTIME those tones drop." I understand your stand here but I disagree with this statement. I have had a pager (several at times.....) on my belt since 1979 amd I can assure you my blood stopped racing on pages a couple of decades ago. My more typical response now is more likely to be "Crap, I wish I could get more sleep!" (maybe we run more, or more likely I'm just getting old and cranky).

As said above I do carry pagers, have had the same Minitor II since the mid 90's (VFD owned), Motorola Advisor II alpha about 2-3 yrs (County owned for FD dispatches) and a Titan-3 flex (Employer owned for Refinery FD/ERT dispatches). Started out with a Minitor I in '79 and moved on to a II in early '80's. During all that time I (and my pager) have worked at construction, welding, demolition, auto repair and heavy industry. I have ridden motorcyles (street & dirt) and ATV's. They have come along with me camping, flying, boating, hiking, partying and just my everyday life. They have suffered through scapes, falls, drops and few plunges into waterways and mud. They have also come along on thousands of Fire/rescue calls and the associated bumps, bangs and sweat (yuk!) Through all of this I have had the belt clip on my first Minitor II break off and thats it as far as failures go! I believe I have missed 4 dispatches (while in the local area) over that time, two were due to basically being in a 'cave' below ground and the other two were attributed to being in radio dead spots also at the time. My station's alerting system (lights/bell/klaxton siren until 90's) has been controlled by a Federal Ten-Ten since the early 1970's, if there's power it works!
I have seen several of our pagers die horrible deaths, mostly from truama, all with a story of how it wasn't the users fault But in all my time the instance of pagers failing to alert has been extremely rare and most times it can be attributed to other conditions.
Have other departments seen high instances of pagers failing to alert? Have I and my dept been very fortunate all this time? Have some depts seen the rate of failure rise to a level that requires daily testing? (Those Depts that are not using tests to signal shift changes or other actions mentioned above).

Again I'm not looking to stir the pot in another state's forum just trying see how things are (or can be) so different across the country as we all do the same job.

Stay safe.

 

[mkescan]

There are some departments that never test the tones,and the only time when they set off tones is to alert off duty people about a full assignment or request for any available off duty to respond to their stations.
They do in station paging and or alpha paging.

 

[triryche]

There have been some great response here, pro and con which is what I was looking for. I would like to chime back in with a couple of responses to responses:

RE: Liability
This one I find to be hogwash! You mean to tell me that if an EMS crew is late to a scene and a patient dies because the crew's pagers didn't go off the first time, then the county or agency ISN'T liable because they tested the pagers just two hours before that?? What if the last test had been 23 hours previous? What if the last test was just minutes prior? The liability argument I don't buy but The ISO standpoint I completely understand but what is the stipulation as the mimimum schedule of testing needed to be compliant?

RE: Annoying
I wasn't trying to bring this up specifically as a scanner listener annoyance. Believe it or not, just earlier that morning at work I was in the room with a firefighter who purposely turned his pager OFF because he knew the test was coming up! From a scanner listeners standpoint, the actual paging itself isn't as annoying as realizing I had a frequency locked out and missed something desireable because of it. Myself, I also have radios for more purposes other than just being a "scanner nerd" so this topic is more than just a pissing contest for me.

RE: Frequency of Tests
If an agency is busy enough to have at least one call per day, maybe two (or more).. isn't that a successfull test in and of itself like NSLT mentioned? Why test it if you use it regularly? Also like mkescan just mentioned, many NEVER test anything at all and remain in business with no complaints.

Again.. great comments and facts from everyone. Exactly what I was looking for was some details & specifics regarding the rules & regs about pager tests.

 

[R8000]

I too can agree that some places to go a little overboard on nightly paging tests. I can also side with the previous comments about sometimes people in "scannerland" need to just monitor and leave it at that. I am sometimes approached while on the job from scanner listeners who try to tell me how to build and maintain public safety radios systems. I find this funny. A person who purchased a scanner and programmed it to work tries to tell me how to setup my 6 site, 5 channel simulcast radio system.

If a customer wants to run the nightly paging test marathon, then I comply with their request. I have to extend time out timers on the console and paging transmitters as to handle the marathon. Some also ask I build them a one button page icon that has a stack page setup for all the pagers they want to test. I do agree, this could be spread out to just a handful each night. Some rural dept only get paged for an actual call, one a week if they are lucky. So I guess with that said, you have to weigh each county differently. You cannot say "well, we do this in Washington DC and it works for us" or "we do this on the Milwaukee Fire Dept and it works for us". That's great, but that may not work for a small fire dept getting 3 calls a month.

Now this is just a theory I have *wink* , and yes I was a FF and dispatcher previous in my life and know how some of the politics work ...but...I have a feeling county dispatch centers do paging tests under the direction of a county fire board or something similar to that.

When I service a dispatch console as far as paging tone programming go, I always test it. Right then and there. I don't really care who I upset in scannerland, I am covering my arse by saying it was tested before I left. If I service the paging transmitting equipment, I be sure it's either repeating or dispatch can key it up. Sometimes during troubleshooting , I need to key channels up...sometimes a lot.

This is a totally true story, after testing a county paging channel for reported problems, a grumpy old man came into our shop and complained about us "testing" on the scanner. When my manager asked what he was talking about, the old man said that when we do testing, it stops his scanner from scanning and he and his wife misses all the calls then. Naturally a facepalm was involved at this point.

However, with all this said, yea..it's a good idea to test the system and pagers out, but in moderation. In a busy metro area, daily testing may not be needed. In a rural area with few calls, maybe daily testing is a good idea. It's up to the fire board of that county to decide.

One of the radio system consultants we worked with on a project, mandated a "page confirmation" be built into a new system. At first was like "eh?" but after building it, and seeing the benefits, it's not such a bad idea. The dispatcher gets a visual confirmation on the radio console when a page he/she just sent...actually went out over the air. Kinda nice. To go further with that, dispatch can verify a paging transmitter is working by simply sending the confirmation tones without causing pagers to activate. I use it when I test paging. I plop my butt down at the console, put on a headset and fire off confirmation tones as much as I need to troubleshoot without setting off pagers. This is critical after doing programming changes, as even us radio techs can fat finger a pager cap code or transmitter steering program code line. Every time I test from a console, my one ear has a headset the other ear has a portable radio listening to the paging channel.

Some counties don't encode PL on paging transmitters. When I run into this, it shortens my life just a little having to listen to skip and in Dane County....alpha paging. System design dictates this. A non simulcast paging channel, one has total control over how PL is handled. The paging terminal that handles alpha paging has the capability to disable transmit PL for alpha pages, but allow PL to function for voice pages. However, in a simulcast system this rule is blown out the door. In simulcast not only is the RF frequency is in phase with all other paging sites, but audio and PL encode tones need to be in phase. Switching off PL on a simulcast system isn't as easy as you'd think.

I do want to touch on something slightly off topic...

I get a kick out of reading RR posts from users who say something like "why dont they do things this way?" or "they need to fix this problem...". As a radio service provider let me answer this. The answer : budget. Some counties budget for spare parts, some don't. Some system problems my require the purchase of a part that is $5,000. Some counties can give me the thumbs up instantly...some have to go through purchasing and take days or weeks to get action. The radio tech can only do what he is instructed by the county or city agency. Some counties have a budget that allows us to repair or replace whatever is needed to get the job done. Other counties don't . I have had to loan them my personal radio equipment just to keep operations going...*shrug*.

Politics play a huge role in this. Some issues I could make better by some simple programming changes...but cannot do due to politics.

With all that said, it's not my intentions to blast the scanner community. I have to always keep in mind that some folks just don't know what happens behind the scenes with politics.

There are a few select people who do take it a bit too far with the attitude "I have a scanner, and I say they should build a radio system like this.....". That scares me. We have people who have *ZERO* professional radio experience trying to dictate how radio system are ran or new ones built. Getting input from a radio systems users is important in system design, as well as input from the government agency who is paying the bill. If those two parties see things different, then so be it. I build the system based on who is giving me my paycheck.

73's.

Matt N3IVK

 

[1268]

Before I start please understand I am NOT from WI and I agree with other posters that if an agency feels they need to or has a reason to test equipment frequently then that is solely their business. And if non-affiliated scanner listeners don't like it well.........tough.

That being said I have a few questions and comments about this and I am NOT trying to stir any ****.
I fully understand the use of pager testing to signal shift change or duty crew responsability tours, in either a career, combination, POC or volly situation.

I also understand as res6cue stated that ISO requires "circuits to be regularly tested" (we test ours once weekly at 1900hrs Tuesday). Does anyone know the recommended frequency of these tests by ISO?

Just to reply to 1268's statements "I have had the privilege of working in Fire/EMS in 3 states and this type of page testing and or radio testing is done in each and every one of them." Just a check-in here on the East coast, I monitor SE PA, South Jersey, North DE and North MD and don't recall any testing at more than weekly intervals.
Also "spoken like someone who's not had a pager strapped to there side. Your blood races EVERYTIME those tones drop." I understand your stand here but I disagree with this statement. I have had a pager (several at times.....) on my belt since 1979 amd I can assure you my blood stopped racing on pages a couple of decades ago. My more typical response now is more likely to be "Crap, I wish I could get more sleep!" (maybe we run more, or more likely I'm just getting old and cranky).

As said above I do carry pagers, have had the same Minitor II since the mid 90's (VFD owned), Motorola Advisor II alpha about 2-3 yrs (County owned for FD dispatches) and a Titan-3 flex (Employer owned for Refinery FD/ERT dispatches). Started out with a Minitor I in '79 and moved on to a II in early '80's. During all that time I (and my pager) have worked at construction, welding, demolition, auto repair and heavy industry. I have ridden motorcyles (street & dirt) and ATV's. They have come along with me camping, flying, boating, hiking, partying and just my everyday life. They have suffered through scapes, falls, drops and few plunges into waterways and mud. They have also come along on thousands of Fire/rescue calls and the associated bumps, bangs and sweat (yuk!) Through all of this I have had the belt clip on my first Minitor II break off and thats it as far as failures go! I believe I have missed 4 dispatches (while in the local area) over that time, two were due to basically being in a 'cave' below ground and the other two were attributed to being in radio dead spots also at the time. My station's alerting system (lights/bell/klaxton siren until 90's) has been controlled by a Federal Ten-Ten since the early 1970's, if there's power it works!
I have seen several of our pagers die horrible deaths, mostly from truama, all with a story of how it wasn't the users fault But in all my time the instance of pagers failing to alert has been extremely rare and most times it can be attributed to other conditions.
Have other departments seen high instances of pagers failing to alert? Have I and my dept been very fortunate all this time? Have some depts seen the rate of failure rise to a level that requires daily testing? (Those Depts that are not using tests to signal shift changes or other actions mentioned above).

Again I'm not looking to stir the pot in another state's forum just trying see how things are (or can be) so different across the country as we all do the same job.

Stay safe.

To answer your question Minitor 3 and 4 ...great reasons to test your pagers. Unreliable might be an understatement.If your using a 2 your smart but that was the last solid pager built(IMHO)

 

[1268]

RE: Liability
This one I find to be hogwash! You mean to tell me that if an EMS crew is late to a scene and a patient dies because the crew's pagers didn't go off the first time, then the county or agency ISN'T liable because they tested the pagers just two hours before that?? What if the last test had been 23 hours previous? What if the last test was just minutes prior? The liability argument I don't buy but The ISO standpoint I completely understand but what is the stipulation as the mimimum schedule of testing needed to be compliant?
You can call it what you want....been in a court room when the issue of page testing and response times was brought out....because you find it a bad argument do you really think a lawyer won't use that loophole ???
I have been listening to and scanning for 20 years about as long as I have been in public safety . I have been a huge opponent of encrypted fire traffic and then I read a topic like this and start to understand why local government is doing it. There are some topics best left alone...the one you are enquiring about is one of those.

 

[nslt204]

I love it when the lawyers come out. Especially with unsigned posts.
I never said there was never a reason that pagers/radios/station alerting should never be tested. What I said was some take it to excess or maybe better stated as extreme.
Tests are only valid for that particular time and are only really testing the console and transmitter not each receiver unless every pager/radio carrier tested responds back to the dispatcher. Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!
I am scanner/radio geek, Guilty as charged. I have also been in the Fire/Rescue/EMS biz for 23+ years now. Every thing from large metropolitan operations to rural Dept's. 2-3 calls a week to 24+ calls in 24 Hours. Both as a true unpaid volley to paid member. I have been to court a few times as well. Lawyers are slime. Just because they try or say something is no reason to come up with a test that proves nothing to very little because there is no documentation of a test of each device in the system. Yes ISO is that detailed. Liability comes from documentation. ISO are recommendations, they are not law, and are for fire only not EMS can't be used as a legal standard in an EMS case. ISO determines your fire insurance rate and nothing else. Be more concerned with DOT,EPA,OSHA,DOJ and NFPA in the liability are standards area. There is more liability with departments that don't train to the minimum standard by local or state law and department that don't have the staff to get the unit on the road in a reasonable amount of time. Some Dept's I monitor can on a regular basis page 3 to 4 times to get an ambulance on the road in under 15 min. They wait way too long to call mutual aid and now the delays continue to mount. Testing won't help that.

It boggles my mine that the argument is made that if someone questions pager tests that "they will encrypt" where did that come from? The black helicopters must have returned. There is a big push back on the PS side to dump encryption for anything but SWAT/EOD and DEA type stuff. The reason is INTEROPERABILITY. darn near impossible with encryption.
There are a number of case in this group and several others where the "evil" scanner geeks heard something and actually assisted in helping the local LE or FD by giving info, seeing something and in several case in WI and Northern IL helped catch hackers into the public safety radios systems.

The Department I work for tests the station alert once a day at roll call. We get all kinds of daily info for the shift, it's in house only so we only annoy ourselves. We test our off duty call back pagers and text messaging once a week again only to the annoyment of the device carrier. Should we test radios/pagers? yes. but I think the original post was looking for a logical reason and schedule. We test our pumps.... not daily, we test our hose... not daily, we test a lot of equipment in the fire/ems world very little of it daily let alone multiple times a day. Some mentioned here will test during working fires and emergency calls. Policies like that "because its always been done that way" will get someone hurt or worse

 

[mkescan]

Try a google search.
I couldn't find anything about law suits or anyone dying because department pagers didn't go off.

Seems like some departments just do alpha paging now,I am guessing they are using some big paging company,who knows how long some pages might get delayed there.

Wauwatosa & West Allis tone everything out,and Wauwatosa even does a daily over the air tone test,I can't tell you how many times I heard "we didn't get the page" when a actual call was toned out later in the day.

John - Milwaukee area scanner geek