Two Tone Detect Setup Options

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ff4wildland

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Jun 27, 2018
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Afternoon,

New to the site. Looking for some startup help with 2-tone detect. I work for a government agency as a wildland firefighter and we'd like to get this system going so we can better assist the local VFD's.

1. We're unable to have a computer that is specifically dedicated to the 2-tone detect software. As you can imagine there's plenty of red tape working for the gov. Raspberry Pi setup is out of the question. Our computers auto lock after a short amount of time - so I'm wondering if that would be an issue with the 2-tone software?

2. Physical setup. We primary utilize Bendix King radios (both handheld and mobile) Can I just use a 3.5mm auxiliary cable to connect the BK into the sound card on my laptop? Or would it make more sense to purchase a police/fire scanner and then tie that into the laptop?

3. If the software needs a computer that will need to be active at all times, is there any way to setup the program on an android tablet? That's about my only other option at this point.

Thanks in advance for the help.

v/r

Joe
 

nated1992

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Feb 9, 2013
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Location
Asheville NC
Yes you could use the BK to connect to the computer as long as it passes the tones. A cheap used scanner that can be committed would be a better option. No it will not run on a tablet.

What are you trying to accomplish exactly? It wasn't very clear what your setting it up for.
 

nated1992

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Joined
Feb 9, 2013
Messages
271
Location
Asheville NC
Afternoon,

New to the site. Looking for some startup help with 2-tone detect. I work for a government agency as a wildland firefighter and we'd like to get this system going so we can better assist the local VFD's.

1. We're unable to have a computer that is specifically dedicated to the 2-tone detect software. As you can imagine there's plenty of red tape working for the gov. Raspberry Pi setup is out of the question. Our computers auto lock after a short amount of time - so I'm wondering if that would be an issue with the 2-tone software?

2. Physical setup. We primary utilize Bendix King radios (both handheld and mobile) Can I just use a 3.5mm auxiliary cable to connect the BK into the sound card on my laptop? Or would it make more sense to purchase a police/fire scanner and then tie that into the laptop?

3. If the software needs a computer that will need to be active at all times, is there any way to setup the program on an android tablet? That's about my only other option at this point.

Thanks in advance for the help.

v/r

Joe

Also why is a Pi option not available??
 

ff4wildland

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Jun 27, 2018
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We're trying to set this up so we can receive text messages when the local VFDs are paged out for wildfire. Nearly all the wildfire calls go through 911, so we're either very late to the party or we miss the call entirely.

Pi isn't an option because this system will be running on a government network.

So it sounds like utilizing a BK is the best way to go for this? Thanks for the help guys.
 

skylerm

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Dec 27, 2012
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Location
shelby,nc
Here, when there is a grass/woods fire of a substantial size or during dry times of the year, our communications center dispatches the Forestry Service at the same time our FD is dispatched and if they don't we can just request them once on scene and communications tones it out to their pagers. Could your department not request your local communications or 911 center do that as well? How exactly are you dispatched?

Do your local VFDs have different tones specifically set up for such calls? otherwise you're going to get a text/email with the audio for every single call for every dept. (or set of tones) you have set up regardless of the type of call. How many departments are you trying to follow?

Any old cheap scanner set to the frequency to pass the audio would work and it seems like it would make more sense to do that than tie up a department radio 24/7.

As to the computer you are using. It wont matter if the department computers just go to the lock screen after a certain about of time but it will matter if the computer goes to sleep. Obviously, for the program to work it cant go to sleep and will have to be active all of the time in order to decode the tones and email the audio. Also, how can you use an android tablet on the system but a raspberry pi wouldn't be ok since they are pretty much the same thing?

You don't have to do this at the station. You could do this at home or anywhere else in the area if you had a decent internet connection and a computer you can leave on all of the time; even the raspberry pi option would work.
 

DC31

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Feb 19, 2011
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1,545
Location
Massachusetts
We're trying to set this up so we can receive text messages when the local VFDs are paged out for wildfire. Nearly all the wildfire calls go through 911, so we're either very late to the party or we miss the call entirely.

Pi isn't an option because this system will be running on a government network.

So it sounds like utilizing a BK is the best way to go for this? Thanks for the help guys.

A couple questions:

1. Are your “local VFDs” all dispatched on the same radio frequency?

2. Is someone broadcasting that dispatch channel to broadcastify so that there is a stream of the channel available?

If the answers are yes, then a RPi or a computer could be set up ANYWHERE that there is internet access (could even do it from the opposite side of the world). Use the stream as the audio source for TTD.
 
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