Official Fire Tone-Out Discussion

[FDNY10-75]

I haven't bought one yet, just a jr ff/buff waiting for my next paycheck so I can buy one. I want to buy it because then I won't have to carry my min IV and my scanner. However, if the alerts are crap, it won't really be replacing anything. Just kinda wanted to try it befor I buy one.

Thanks in advance,
~FDNY 10-75

[rdale]

Note that it won't work as both a scanner and a pager - one or the other at a time.

[FDNY10-75]

Originally Posted by rdale

Note that it won't work as both a scanner and a pager - one or the other at a time.

Now I am lost... Don't mean to be ditzy, but does it not scan and allow fire tone outs at the same time?

[whooey]

The Frequency counter that UpMan posted doesnt work that well for ME. UpMan said he hasn't tried it, here's my impressions.

Heck its freeware didnt cost me anything!!! But the Hz was jumping all over the place during the two tone page, then again the freq counter came with no info on how to use it.Also on playback of my recordings from scan record that UpMan also posted, the freq counter wont register the Hz on playback, only when its live scanner activity.

Anyone else had luck with these two programs figuring out your tones??

Not me...

[rdale]

"does it not scan and allow fire tone outs at the same time?"

It does not - if it was scanning it would not be able to monitor the toneout freq.

[1080iAddict]

I cant help with those programs, but I can help with the methodology I used - which worked.

Download and install the trial version of Adobe Audition 1.5 here (I have the licensed version, but from what I am reading the trial version will work for 30 days - which is all you need):

http://www.adobe.com/products/tryado...jsp#product=92

Next, download and install ScanRec and make your .wav file using ScanRec (you can find the site in these threads somewhere). Try and get good clean 5X5 reception when ScanRecing the tones - it helps.

Next, start Adobe Audition.
You want to be in Waveform View. In the View menu at the top, switch to waveform view. On the left, open the .wav file and drag it into the big window. Back up on the menu tabs, you'll see a choice "Analyze" and select "show frequency analysis". A new window opens. In that window, FFT size should be 4096 and "Triangular" mode should be selected. Just trust me. Click play and when you hear the tones, select that portion of the wave file in the big window and zoom in (there is a zoom to selection button down there at the bottom of the big window). Highlight the actual portion of the first tone. Look in the smaller window for frequency analysis and youll see the HZ reading. Now, do the same thing for the second tone. Note the HZ reading. If it doesnt change, then change the FFT thing to 2048 and then back to 4096. Dont know why that fixes it - just trust me.

Once you have the tones, go to the charts posted above and find the closest tone that matches what you wrote down - this is how you double check, zero in, and get the EXACT tone reading. Note that my readings were either exact using Audition or +/- .20 of the reading - not bad at all!! If I was off, I just looked at the chart to get the exact reading. And, I can confirm that my 396 works this way.

If you get familiar with this software, note that you can be precise and measure the actual tone length with the timeline counter in the program - but you wont need that after the firmware update.

You need to play around with Audition. But trust me, it works.

Good luck. There is a good help file in Audition if you have a problem.

[FDNY10-75]

Originally Posted by rdale

"does it not scan and allow fire tone outs at the same time?"

It does not - if it was scanning it would not be able to monitor the toneout freq.

So it has to be held on the frequency for the tone out feature to work?

[1080iAddict]

Originally Posted by FDNY10-75

So it has to be held on the frequency for the tone out feature to work?

Basically, yes. It is a 'special mode' of the radio and it sits of the frequency you set to monitor the tone. You can not scan and monitor tones at same time.

[FDNY10-75]

Oh well, thanks for the info guys. Maybe they will implement it so that you can scan and monitor later on...

[DMBFireman]

well, I have the tones figured out in Adobe Audition and I have even tried generating the tones through Adobe Audition, creating a wave file, and then broadcasting it on an FRS channel to test the tone-out feature. It is still not working. I think it may be because there is no tone gap and the BCD396T won't let you input 0ms for the gap it just sets a minimum of 1. I actually had the specific tones given to me a few days ago by someone from the fire department but I lost them in a computer crash...he's going to give them to me again but from what I can remember the tones I found today in Adobe Audition are the exact same numbers he gave so I know I have the Hz right. The tone durations are standard 1 sec, 3 sec with no gap...but I still can't get it to work. Has anyone gotten theirs to work on a tone that has no gap?

Brandon Thetford

[DMBFireman]

since I thought there may be a problem with the tone gap I generated a set of tones the same as the fire department I have information for but with a .5 second gap. I set up fire tone out for it with the .5 sec gap and it still did not alert!!! I am beginning to think that fire tone out is not working on my scanner!!!! I didn't measure the times other than selecting the time of each tone in Adobe Audition and reading the duration in the timeline. Is that accurate enough? For example I ended up with 1.03 seconds for tone A so I just used 1 second as that tone duration...

Brandon Thetford

[whooey]

Originally Posted by DMBFireman

Has anyone gotten theirs to work on a tone that has no gap?

Brandon Thetford

No gap here, and from what i could squeez out of the freq. counter/ scanner record, it matched what I had on a old list for my county.

1 second, 3 seconds, no gap.

I CAN'T GET IT TO WORK!!!!!! :cry: :cry: ops: :cry: :cry:

I give up.

Brandon G.

[rdale]

Enter a 1 for the gap... It works fine for all my 1sec/3sec pages.

[1080iAddict]

guys, I dont know what to tell ya. My department timing has .750 tone A and .250 tone B and no tone gap and I use 1 ms as the gap which is nothing. It works perfectly.

Maybe its your reception? Are you in tone mode and not tone detect? Did your station tone out? It works - I am telling ya. It works.

[whooey]

Originally Posted by 1080iAddict

guys, I dont know what to tell ya. My department timing has .750 tone A and .250 tone B and no tone gap and I use 1 ms as the gap which is nothing. It works perfectly.

You mean 3/4 sec for tone A, and 1/4 sec for tone B right?

I am also using 1ms for tone gap. I'm ready to freakin break something.

[Al42]

Originally Posted by FDNY10-75

Oh well, thanks for the info guys. Maybe they will implement it so that you can scan and monitor later on...

Since the radio has to hear the tones from the beginning of the first one, the concept of scanning while tone-out monitoring is flawed. No matter what they "do" to the scanner, you can't make a round top on the square bottom. Same reason you can't have a priority talk group on a scanner.

[mancow]

Hopefully this wasn't posted somewhere else in the thread that I missed.

Here's a good link to Batlabs with a page that explains different formats in detail with examples.

It has the breakdown for the 4 digit Centracom type of codes that I'm trying to figure out for our local fire dept.

http://batlabs.com/qcii.html



mancow

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by whooey

The Frequency counter that UpMan posted doesnt work that well for ME. UpMan said he hasn't tried it, here's my impressions.

Heck its freeware didnt cost me anything!!! But the Hz was jumping all over the place during the two tone page, then again the freq counter came with no info on how to use it.Also on playback of my recordings from scan record that UpMan also posted, the freq counter wont register the Hz on playback, only when its live scanner activity.

Anyone else had luck with these two programs figuring out your tones??

Not me...

Which programs? I've found counter.exe to work well on anything. But, the better your sound card the better the accuracy. You also have to adjust the timing depending on the tone length for best results.

Joe M.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by FDNY10-75

Oh well, thanks for the info guys. Maybe they will implement it so that you can scan and monitor later on...

Only if they add another receiver that can monitor the FTO frequency while the main RX is tuned to the other frequencies OR they develop a super-fast priority check that doesn't take too much away from the channel you are monitoring. Remember, with paging the frequency would have to be checked every 500 mS for a page that has a first tone of only 1 second long. For some pager formats, it's even shorter! If it takes 100 mS to check the frequency for the tone, you're losing 100 mS of audio on your scanned channel every 500 mS! (or about 20% of the audio) The result? Your scan___ signal w___ _ound lik_ __is. And that's not counting WX PRI, Close Call, or channel priority. With all those going, you would hardly ever hear anything.

Sorry, but for FTO to work you must be monitoring the frequency. Even the scan function on your Min IV warns about missing pages, and that's only scanning TWO frequencies. Imagine the changes of missing something if scanning hundreds or thousands.

Joe M.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by DMBFireman

well, I have the tones figured out in Adobe Audition and I have even tried generating the tones through Adobe Audition, creating a wave file, and then broadcasting it on an FRS channel to test the tone-out feature. It is still not working. I think it may be because there is no tone gap and the BCD396T won't let you input 0ms for the gap it just sets a minimum of 1. I actually had the specific tones given to me a few days ago by someone from the fire department but I lost them in a computer crash...he's going to give them to me again but from what I can remember the tones I found today in Adobe Audition are the exact same numbers he gave so I know I have the Hz right. The tone durations are standard 1 sec, 3 sec with no gap...but I still can't get it to work. Has anyone gotten theirs to work on a tone that has no gap?

Brandon Thetford

Are your tones being generated EXACTLY on frequency? I've found that using some less-than-perfect sound cards the recorded frequency is sometimes several cycles off - sometimes more than 10! (which is far enough off to not alert anything looking for the right frequency).

Is your deviation about 3 kHz?

Are your tones pure? Any nosie may not decode properly in the scanner. Any distorion may throw off the decoding.

There are lots of reasons the mickey mouse setup you describe won't work. Don't take that term wrong, but that is the type of setup you described.

If you know the tones for your area, put them in and let the scanner sit in FTO mode for a while. Some departments can go for weeks - even months without a call. Others get toned out every few hours or even more often. Surely you have another scanner you can monitor the FTO frequency on to hear if your target was being dispatched.

Joe M.