SDS100/SDS200: SDS100 Fire Tone Out Use

[N4SRN]

I'm looking at the manuals trying to figure out how to use my SDS100 for Fire Tone Out RX. I set Tone Out for... Tone-Out Setup to CH 22, thinking it would listen on 159 MHz for my local Bedford, NH FD (159.3225, A-582.6, B-617.2) and then show the correct Freq and Tones when received, but saw nothing register overnight. Either I'm doing it wrong or there was no activity (FD is 3mi away).

So, I manually programmed the Freq and Tones (159.3225, A-582.6, B-617.2) into CH 0 and then set that to Tone-out Standby, and am waiting.

Am I doing it right? Since I have a SDS200 base and SDS100 I use mobile/portable, I figure to leave the SDS100 on FTO when not away from home. Any advise appreciated!

BRET/N4SRN

 

[dave3825]

Did you enter the actual freq that the A and B tone would be transmitted on.

Easy to read tone out set up


.

 

[N4SRN]

Did you enter the actual freq that the A and B tone would be transmitted on.

Easy to read tone out set up

I did not, no. I saw the channels were defaulted in steps of 1 MHz and thought maybe the unit searched that 1 MHz increment and then picked up and displayed the exact Freq and Tones, but I guess not...must be it just finds the Tones for a known Freq. When I looked up the Bedford NH FD on snewiki.com , the list had both the Freq and the Tones.

Is it generally easy to find the Freq for a FD but not the Tones?

 

[dave3825]

Published tones are funny. Some areas, they are all over and some they are scarce. Either way, all one needs is a recording of the alert they are looking for. Then an app on a cell phone can give the tones right away.

My son was learning trumpet and teacher told him to use Pano tuner app on his iPad so we set that up and while he was playing a rif, what ever that is, our local fd banged out with an auto accident and the app displayed a and b.

If your using sentinel, read your scanner first, then go and add the freq and tones, then write back to the scanner. If doing on the scanner, just go back in to tone out and edit the freq to be the correct freq and you should be good to go.

 

[N4SRN]

Progress!

I manually programmed in the Bedford FD on my SDS200 with Freq/Tones as above and am on Standby logging to ProScan. I have had 13 hits in 12hr and am adjusting volume and alert tone/volume. Once I get that right, I'll add more FDs within RX range and use the SDS100 for FTOs, using the SDS200 for scanning.

 

[mc48]

The 100 & 200 will find the tones for you, just enter the frequency and leave the tones blank and set it to record. When you play back it will allow you to the hear tones and messages to find the department you want and show the tones broadcast.

 

[harryshute]

Would I be able to use my SDS100 and 200 on a 700 MHz P25 Phase 1 trunked system?

 

[dave3825]

Would I be able to use my SDS100 and 200 on a 700 MHz P25 Phase 1 trunked system?

You own both radios and do not know the answer to that question?

Easier to Read SDS100/200 Digital Scanner Manual

 

[ems55]

Published tones are funny. Some areas, they are all over and some they are scarce. Either way, all one needs is a recording of the alert they are looking for. Then an app on a cell phone can give the tones right away.

My son was learning trumpet and teacher told him to use Pano tuner app on his iPad so we set that up and while he was playing a rif, what ever that is, our local fd banged out with an auto accident and the app displayed a and b.

If your using sentinel, read your scanner first, then go and add the freq and tones, then write back to the scanner. If doing on the scanner, just go back in to tone out and edit the freq to be the correct freq and you should be good to go.

Hi, is there a Android app to display tones ?????

 

[harryshute]

Hi, is there a Android app to display tones ?????

Not sure if Android but I use Apple "Radio ID...1234". I've decoded all the codes I need for P25 but I've been told the SDS series won't do them. Guess Dave 3825 doesn't know the answer. Would be nice if they did. I'm told Unication is my best bet.

 

[dave3825]

Pano tuner, as mentioned above

Would I be able to use my SDS100 and 200 on a 700 MHz P25 Phase 1 trunked system?

You own both radios and do not know the answer to that question?

Guess Dave 3825 doesn't know the answer.

You asked about p25 phase1 trunked systems. Were you referring to something else?

 

[donc13]

Would I be able to use my SDS100 and 200 on a 700 MHz P25 Phase 1 trunked system?

As long as they are in this frequency coverage.. Yes

Frequency Range of 25-512Mhz, 758-824, 849-869, 895-960 and 1240-1300MHz.

 

[dave3825]

I think he is meaning using the tone out feature on a trunked systems which will not work as sds1/200 require 1 freq

 

[N4SRN]

The 100 & 200 will find the tones for you, just enter the frequency and leave the tones blank and set it to record. When you play back it will allow you to the hear tones and messages to find the department you want and show the tones broadcast.

Most of my ProScan hits doing this have no audio, so I can’t identify the source. I’ll try to trace back to published NH Freq/Tone data to see if I can see where I’m getting hits.

Might there be a better way to go about it?

Bret/N4SRN

 

[R0am3r]

Hi, is there a Android app to display tones ?????

There is an Android version of Radio ID. It works on my Pixel 6 Pro running Android 12.

 

[mc48]

Most of my ProScan hits doing this have no audio, so I can’t identify the source. I’ll try to trace back to published NH Freq/Tone data to see if I can see where I’m getting hits.

Might there be a better way to go about it?

Bret/N4SRN

Use the record and play function of the scanner not ProScan.

 

[JK96]

The 100 & 200 will find the tones for you, just enter the frequency and leave the tones blank and set it to record. When you play back it will allow you to the hear tones and messages to find the department you want and show the tones broadcast.

Any chance you could give a little more detail on how to do this?

 

[mc48]

Easier to Read SDS100/200 Digital Scanner Manual (marksscanners.com)
You can do the programming in the scanner or in Sentinel, this only works for analog systems.

 

[N4SRN]

I have 100+ A/B Tone captures on 159.9 MHz alone over several days - just 2 of 5 pages shown here as examples. While some might be variants of the same TX source, with some +/- Hz tolerance on Tone ID, there’s still way more than I expected to receive here in Southern NH. The 159.9 frequency appears the most popular New Hampshire Fire Tone Outs - Scan New England Wiki and I suppose I could be getting the occasional RX from 100mi+ away on an indoor antenna…

 

[dave3825]

Looks like you have have1 freq dispatching multiple departments.

The wiki shows this for Bedford but its not the freq your scanning.

Bedford

Fire

159.3225

582.6

617.2

FD

2020.07.19 JBolduc

159.900 is shown as being used by many departments on the tone out wiki page so that would be why your seeing so many a b tones

Go thru your recordings under recorder tab. When you find a recording of your department, find that same timestamp in the fto logging tab