Anyone have experience decoding POCSAG or FLEX?

[Bdude1]

I am trying to use PDW a program to decode pocsag and flex paging protocols but I am having some trouble... Can anyone help?




P.S. Moderators, If I posted this in the wrong place please move it for me. Thank you!

 

[charlieone]

I am trying to use PDW a program to decode pocsag and flex paging protocols but I am having some trouble... Can anyone help?

Trouble like what?

PDW can be pretty sensitive. Are you using a feed from the headphone jack or from a discriminator tap? I get almost no decode using the headphone jack.

 

[Bdude1]

Trouble like what?

PDW can be pretty sensitive. Are you using a feed from the headphone jack or from a discriminator tap? I get almost no decode using the headphone jack.

Headphone jack to line in on a pro-96. Hoping to stay away from DT... :-( and I'm just not sure what freq to look for to decode fire department pages in my area...

 

[K9WG]

I can decode with headphone jack on my SC150 and external speaker jack on my PSR-600. Just have to play with the volume and PC settings.

 

[ecps92]

Are they using POC? [Alpha/Numeric] or Two-Tone Sequential

What Dept/Freq..the license might help with the info

Headphone jack to line in on a pro-96. Hoping to stay away from DT... :-( and I'm just not sure what freq to look for to decode fire department pages in my area...

 

[dcr_inc]

Volume level is critical.. Keep it LOW and watch the VU meter on the top right side of the screen.. When tones/data is being Rx'd it should be full scale.. Also, open up your baud rates in the options tab.. You might only have one turned on to decode.. i use this program alot for fire companies and it works very reliably..

 

[longreach]

Hi all, I run pdw decoding pocsag and have had no luck whatsoever running thru the headphone jack. I run a pro97 and it's running a disc tap. Ive even resorted having the squelch off altogether too. I found you can't get a good decode and the messages end up a jumble of letters without a discriminator tap.
Cheers all
Matt

 

[Bdude1]

Volume level is critical.. Keep it LOW and watch the VU meter on the top right side of the screen.. When tones/data is being Rx'd it should be full scale.. Also, open up your baud rates in the options tab.. You might only have one turned on to decode.. i use this program alot for fire companies and it works very reliably..

All bauds of both Poc and flex to decode... so that is set right...


Now when you say the VU meter should be full scall you mean like going all the way to the other side of the spectrum? Because mine only moves like and inch for any kind of radio traffic.

 

[Bdude1]

Are they using POC? [Alpha/Numeric] or Two-Tone Sequential

What Dept/Freq..the license might help with the info

Flex paging on 900Mhz... Through a company called American messaging. We have a central dispatch here in the county that I reside in.

 

[Bdude1]

I found a freq that seems to be spitting out flex paging like crazy... its 929.9375... I tried using the search but cant find what company it is.


also the meter is barely moving and I do not know what other settings I can mess with. :-(


Update: After getting frustrated with this I tried something I read online... Where the 1/8th connector goes into my souncard I pulled it out just a teeny bit to make it sound clearer and the meter went all the way to 70% and it started spitting the same message over and over again onto PDW... UNKNOWN SYNC HEADER : DAA6 A6C6 AAAA 255D, UNKNOWN SYNC HEADER : DAA2 A6C6 AAAA 255D. Any idea why im not getting the actual page?

 

[ilgrant]

You will do much better with the discriminator tap.

 

[Bdude1]

You will do much better with the discriminator tap.

:-( blah. I really hope I dont screw my scanner up while doing it.


I guess I dont understand exactly how a dicriminator tap really works.... Heres my understanding so correct me if im wrong:

Basically you are tapping into the audio before it is changed to be able to be sent out through the scanners speaker or headphone jack? basically the raw sound...so I would basically wire up a second headphone jack?

 

[davidgcet]

that is the basics of it. i run DT on my units we use at work. since we have a commercial paging system we monitor OTA pages for error rates/message stats. i use a program called message tracker and have my feed off my Icom. if i use a different radio or a scanner i have to retune the audio level for each device to even get decode, let alone consistent false error free decode.

 

[ka3jjz]

:-( blah. I really hope I dont screw my scanner up while doing it.


I guess I dont understand exactly how a dicriminator tap really works.... Heres my understanding so correct me if im wrong:

Basically you are tapping into the audio before it is changed to be able to be sent out through the scanners speaker or headphone jack? basically the raw sound...so I would basically wire up a second headphone jack?

That's the gist of the idea, yes. I would suggest buying an old scanner that covers the band you wish to use and tapping that. This way you aren't out a bunch of money if something goes wrong. For example, old BC895s can be had for a song, and the mod is documented in our wiki. They cover the 900 mhz band easily

best regards..Mike

 

[Bdude1]

That's the gist of the idea, yes. I would suggest buying an old scanner that covers the band you wish to use and tapping that. This way you aren't out a bunch of money if something goes wrong. For example, old BC895s can be had for a song, and the mod is documented in our wiki. They cover the 900 mhz band easily

best regards..Mike

Not to familiar with different scanners... Thats a uniden right?

 

[ka3jjz]

A very old one, yes. You can use our wiki, and the well known Rigpix website to check on old scanners and see what band(s) they cover. You can get a BC895 for as little as USD 50 or 75, depending on the condition and whether it has the tap already done.

Cheap, man, Cheap! best regards..Mike

 

[NYG]

This is really one of the very cool things about the cheap Funcube and other SDR gear. No need for discriminator taps or data slicers. You can use winrad or the like to tune the radio and send the output via virtual audio/sw mixer to PDW. Works incredibly well.

 

[mancow]

I have tried that and can't get the virtual audio cable to work. If you have any tips maybe you can PM them to me if you don't mind?

This is really one of the very cool things about the cheap Funcube and other SDR gear. No need for discriminator taps or data slicers. You can use winrad or the like to tune the radio and send the output via virtual audio/sw mixer to PDW. Works incredibly well.

 

[SCPD]

Just find an old Universal M-450 reader that is earlier than version 1.5, tap the discriminator on any scanner that covers the frequency range and you can at least copy pocsag. Not sure it will do flex.

 

[NYG]

I have tried that and can't get the virtual audio cable to work. If you have any tips maybe you can PM them to me if you don't mind?

Just got home a little while ago. I'll check my configuration and PM you some details. We'll try to work through any issues.