SDS100/SDS200: Sds100 fire tone out

[khvfdff]

I have almost all my fire tone outs used on my sds100. It has one blank one that has appropriate frequency, etc., with tone a and b set to 0.0. My question is, is the scanner supposed to skip over that search FTO, or what? Mine is currently doing it and I am afraid I've programmed it wrong or something. I didn't think it was supposed to skip over an fto search when everything matches. Help!!

 

[doctordialtone]

I have almost all my fire tone outs used on my sds100. It has one blank one that has appropriate frequency, etc., with tone a and b set to 0.0. My question is, is the scanner supposed to skip over that search FTO, or what? Mine is currently doing it and I am afraid I've programmed it wrong or something. I didn't think it was supposed to skip over an fto search when everything matches. Help!!

Why not just program in a duplicate in the empty spot for now and see how that works?

 

[khvfdff]

Why not just program in a duplicate in the empty spot for now and see how that works?

Because I already know it will go off. I'm just trying to find out if anyone has had a similar issue, with it skipping over fto on the sds100. In search on my 396xt it scans known stored and searches simultaneously.

 

[N9JIG]

If the radio frequency is different than the selected tone out then it will be ignored.

Uniden's Tone Out feature works like this:

When you go to the Tone Out For...> Tone Out Standby menu you then scroll thru the available programmed toneouts. Select one and any others with the exact same RADIO frequency (and modulation and attenuation settings) will also display when decoded. When you program multiple Toneouts with *different* radio frequencies the radio will only open on toneouts on the selected frequency and ignore any other radio freqs. If there are more than one Tone Out with the same radio frequency it will display any programmed tone out on that radio frequency when any tone out on that radio frequency is selected. The SDS and X36 series can have up to 32 sets of toneouts programmed, older scanners are limited to 10.

As long as the radio freq is different than the selected tone out then the others will be disregarded regardless of the tone settings.

 

[khvfdff]

If the radio frequency is different than the selected tone out then it will be ignored.

Uniden's Tone Out feature works like this:

When you go to the Tone Out For...> Tone Out Standby menu you then scroll thru the available programmed toneouts. Select one and any others with the exact same RADIO frequency (and modulation and attenuation settings) will also display when decoded. When you program multiple Toneouts with *different* radio frequencies the radio will only open on toneouts on the selected frequency and ignore any other radio freqs. If there are more than one Tone Out with the same radio frequency it will display any programmed tone out on that radio frequency when any tone out on that radio frequency is selected. The SDS and X36 series can have up to 32 sets of toneouts programmed, older scanners are limited to 10.

As long as the radio freq is different than the selected tone out then the others will be disregarded regardless of the tone settings.

Ok so before I get snappy. I said, and obviously no one read, that all frequencies are the same, all modulation is set to auto. However it is missing the one fto that is set to search for the tones. Someone please help me that has either seen this before or can duplicate this. All other replies will be further ignored, if I keep getting same answers that I have said I already did. UPMan please chime in and help if you can. All stuff is correct on sentinel and in radio and its bypassing the tone search one I have set.

 

[DataSquid]

I have almost all my fire tone outs used on my sds100. It has one blank one that has appropriate frequency, etc., with tone a and b set to 0.0. My question is, is the scanner supposed to skip over that search FTO, or what? Mine is currently doing it and I am afraid I've programmed it wrong or something. I didn't think it was supposed to skip over an fto search when everything matches. Help!!

Yes. It skips it. You have to “tune” to the search FTO manually. Just select it and it’ll search. On my 436 that’s the way it works. Was tricky to figure out!

 

[N9JIG]

To avoid the snappiness, you did not say that all the freqs were the same, you said "it has an appropriate one".

It all depends on the tone out selection made when you put the radio into Tone Out mode. Select the Search entry it will open on ANY tone set on the frequency. Select ANY of the programmed tone sets it will open on any *programmed* tone out set if the radio freq parameters are the same.

 

[khvfdff]

Yes. It skips it. You have to “tune” to the search FTO manually. Just select it and it’ll search. On my 436 that’s the way it works. Was tricky to figure out!

Thank you for your help!

 

[khvfdff]

To avoid the snappiness, you did not say that all the freqs were the same, you said "it has an appropriate one".

It all depends on the tone out selection made when you put the radio into Tone Out mode. Select the Search entry it will open on ANY tone set on the frequency. Select ANY of the programmed tone sets it will open on any *programmed* tone out set if the radio freq parameters are the same.

Ok. Thanks. Question was answered by another person but thank you again.

 

[DataSquid]

Thank you for your help!

I found I had to read the "Easier" guide's section on this a few times word by word to really get it. Easier to Read BCD436/536HP Digital Scanner Manual

Its operation is... peculiar. I find.

 

[khvfdff]

I found I had to read the "Easier" guide's section on this a few times word by word to really get it. Easier to Read BCD436/536HP Digital Scanner Manual

Its operation is... peculiar. I find.

Ok. Again thanks for the help. My question was answered.

 

[JASII]

I just bought an Anytone AT-D878UV dual band HT. It is capable of 2 tone decode. I have used the Fire Tone Out Search feature on Unidens in the past, but not recently. How accurate is the Fire Tone Out Search feature on the Uniden SDS100? If I recall correctly, in the past when I used this feature the tones displayed on the FTO Search could be off by a couple of Hertz and I had to compare the tones found to a chart to determine the standard tones. Is that still the case?


https://www.midians.com/pdf/tone-signaling-charts.pdf

 

[N9JIG]

I just bought an Anytone AT-D878UV dual band HT. It is capable of 2 tone decode. I have used the Fire Tone Out Search feature on Unidens in the past, but not recently. How accurate is the Fire Tone Out Search feature on the Uniden SDS100? If I recall correctly, in the past when I used this feature the tones displayed on the FTO Search could be off by a couple of Hertz and I had to compare the tones found to a chart to determine the standard tones. Is that still the case?
https://www.midians.com/pdf/tone-signaling-charts.pdf

Similar to other Uniden scanners it is usually accurate to a Hz. or 2. Usually in this case close is usually close enough.

I created a chart (www.carmachicago.com/Newsletters/FTOList.pdf) that is helpful in determining the actual tones with color coding. As agencies usually stay within the groups one can determine the probable actual tones used. These days though they can easily select any tones they want, even ones that were not historically offered, as new pagers and encoders are programmable to the fraction of a Hz. and are more accurate in tone delivery than the older mechanical devices used.

 

[JASII]

Similar to other Uniden scanners it is usually accurate to a Hz. or 2. Usually in this case close is usually close enough.

I created a chart (www.carmachicago.com/Newsletters/FTOList.pdf) that is helpful in determining the actual tones with color coding. As agencies usually stay within the groups one can determine the probable actual tones used. These days though they can easily select any tones they want, even ones that were not historically offered, as new pagers and encoders are programmable to the fraction of a Hz. and are more accurate in tone delivery than the older mechanical devices used.

Thanks, Rich.

I am running this now and I have it connected to ProScan to log the activity.

It is interesting, to me anyway, that the Hit Counter functions in this mode. I wonder how many Hertz difference it takes to considered a different hit? However, the Uniden, or ProScan, might actually be temporarily saving the data and comparing. I seem to recall looking at my log from an older Uniden scanner in Fire Tone Out Search mode and seeing tone outs for the same station and same department and the frequencies were a couple of Hertz off and there was no Hit Counter.

Also, has anybody here noticed any falsing in this mode at all? A couple of times I have seen it display a single Tone A and I never did here the communications center actually tone anybody out.

Also, I do recall that 800 Hz frequency is an alert tone. I think my local comm center uses that and either they, or another nearby comm center uses 800 Hz for fire and 800/1500 for medicals.



Fire Tone-Out Search Logging

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 837.8 0.0 3 00:00:11 03/08/19 19:23:08 03/08/19 19:23:28

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 800.0 799.8 1 00:00:04 03/08/19 18:50:04 03/08/19 18:50:08

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 2251.1 2866.0 2 00:00:03 03/08/19 18:21:54 03/08/19 18:22:02

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 800.0 800.0 1 00:00:04 03/08/19 18:19:59 03/08/19 18:20:03

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 0.0 452.7 1 00:00:00 03/08/19 18:18:22 03/08/19 18:18:22

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 2857.8 2843.5 4 00:00:09 03/08/19 18:13:19 03/08/19 18:13:45

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 643.8 384.0 1 00:00:00 03/08/19 18:03:20 03/08/19 18:03:21

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 1100.6 2870.7 1 00:00:00 03/08/19 18:00:35 03/08/19 18:00:35

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 690.0 2987.7 1 00:00:00 03/08/19 17:58:38 03/08/19 17:58:38

Tone-Out 0 151.295000 0.0 479.5 3 00:00:13 03/08/19 17:52:45 03/08/19 17:53:03

 

[RJS]

Question for anyone, can DTMF tones be programmed into Uniden Scanners, if so how? Or, new SDS series enhancement for a future upgrade?

 

[N9JIG]

Question for anyone, can DTMF tones be programmed into Uniden Scanners, if so how? Or, new SDS series enhancement for a future upgrade?

No, the scanners will not decode DTMF.

 

[N9JIG]

Thanks, Rich.

I am running this now and I have it connected to ProScan to log the activity.

It is interesting, to me anyway, that the Hit Counter functions in this mode. I wonder how many Hertz difference it takes to considered a different hit? However, the Uniden, or ProScan, might actually be temporarily saving the data and comparing. I seem to recall looking at my log from an older Uniden scanner in Fire Tone Out Search mode and seeing tone outs for the same station and same department and the frequencies were a couple of Hertz off and there was no Hit Counter.

Also, has anybody here noticed any falsing in this mode at all? A couple of times I have seen it display a single Tone A and I never did here the communications center actually tone anybody out.

Also, I do recall that 800 Hz frequency is an alert tone. I think my local comm center uses that and either they, or another nearby comm center uses 800 Hz for fire and 800/1500 for medicals.

Yes, there is some falsing now and again. I have seen occasional times when certain voices or drawn out words will trigger a tone-out. Some times a fairly long alert tone will also cause it to open.

800 and 1000 Hz. are popular console alert tones but are often also used for paging tones. I traced one common falsing to a dispatch center having a police channel in the background using 800 Hz. for a console alert tone, when the fire dispatcher would talk at the same time the police channel was on in the background the tone would be heard ever so softly but just enough to open my BCT15X on Tone Search.

 

[JASII]

Thanks again for the reply. I am still playing around with the optimum settings for this. Right now I am running the squelch at full (15) since the transmitter is not very far from me. Hopefully, that will reduce falsing. If not, I may even try the attenuator!

Also, how well does the Uniden SDS100 multiple, sequential tones? While I suppose it isn't super common, some communications centers near me will have a Monday night test or a Friday night test in which they send out multiple tones in a row. Another example would be certain severe weather events in which several organizations are paged in a row. I assume that the radio and logging software will deal with these just fine, but I am looking to others here for their experience.

Actually, maybe the time when they do pager testing would be a great time to log multiple tones at once. I am sure the problem I will face at some point is I will have tones for some of the busier departments, but come up short on the ones that get toned out only once a month or so.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, this might be an excellent example of why I need to add a patch cord between my SDS100 and computer. That way I can record the actual audio being sent after the tones are transmitted.

 

[nick223]

Can you run fire tone out in the background while you scanner scans "zones/banks/systems?"

 

[RJS]

No, the scanners will not decode DTMF.

Thank you Rich