BCD996T Fire Tone Out

[JASII]

I know that the sticky is closed for the Official Fire Tone-Out Discussion has closed http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17245&highlight=Fire+Tone I have had my Uniden Bearcat BCD996T for quite some timie, but I just never got around to trying this feature. Is reviewing the previous posts the best way to come up to speed on the whole Fire Tone Out topic? Is there anything else that I should be reading? Are there any old magazine articles or other web pages that I should be looking at? I just downloaded the most current firmware today for the 996. It looks as if I select one RF frequency I can have as many as 10 pairs of paging frequencies programmed. Also, if several fire stations share a common A or B tone, can simply program in only the common tone and it will trip for all stations or is that not going to work or be prone to falsing?

Also, what is the latest on mode. Was there some issue about selecting FM vs. NFM vs. Auto. I seem to recall reading a post that it is better to program than the other.

The other question is about pager timing. Is that no longer an issue and I can simply program the RF frequency, the pager CAP codes, and I am done?

 

[troymail]

I've used tone out since I got my 396 ... it will monitor a single frequency for 10 tone pairs -- timing was eliminated on the first firmware upgrade .... I suppose they just look for the sequence of tone 1 followed by tone 2 --- I've always used Auto for modulation...

I don't think the shared A or B tone idea applies here.

Works great

I have a Minitor III sitting right next to it that stays off most of the time -- I prefer the 396 tone out because I can program it, set different alerts based on WHO is being toned out, and, best of all, the radio automatically resets itself to quiet after the dispatch...

The only thing I wish I could have if anything is the ability to input the delay time before the radio resets.... I think the highest value you can select is 5 seconds.