Buffalo NY fire tones ??

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Saint

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I thought I would try out the Tone out Search function on my SDS100 SCANNER I have been only listening for 15-20 minutes and have picked up these tones so far
424.225 MHz Fire Ch. 1 Dispatch Buffalo NY
a-2974.1 Hz b-422.8 Hz
a-1003.5 Hz b-1004.1 Hz
a-3378.6 Hz b-2048.5 Hz
a-1004.2 Hz b-1004.0 Hz
a-1840.1 Hz b-0.0 Hz
a-1003.5 Hz b-1003.5 Hz
a-3378.6 Hz b-2048.5 Hz
I have some questions, does anyone know how many tones are on the frequency does every radio have a different tone or how does this work so I can figure out how these tones are being used.
thanks for any information
Steve
 

a417

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QC-II (Quik-Call II) uses matched tone pairs that signify a radio or group of radios to be alerted to incoming calls. The radios may or may not be silent until the calls come in. You can use them to unmute the radio, or even activate electronics. Many options. They will transmit a set of tones, alert that radio, unmute the audio (like on a pager) and then it's off to the races...or a cat in the tree, what have you.

Midian Tone Chart. <<---- this used to be a big wall paper sized print they'd send to you for reference, but now it's available instantly on their website. You can cross reference the closest match you get from your recordings to what is on there and start to compile a list of who matches up with what. It can be a fun game ;)

You will most likely be looking under the Quick Call II One plus One page. The mention to reeds harkens back to when the pager had reed chips which were how you physically changed the tone it was looking for, by plugging in the corresponding reed to make it work. They just never dropped it. The tone frequency will match up with a number/code and that's how you can record the data. You will notice there is a couple of % points leeway on the hertz of the tones, so your scanner might be giving you 568.9 when the closest match is 569.1
 

Saint

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QC-II (Quik-Call II) uses matched tone pairs that signify a radio or group of radios to be alerted to incoming calls. The radios may or may not be silent until the calls come in. You can use them to unmute the radio, or even activate electronics. Many options. They will transmit a set of tones, alert that radio, unmute the audio (like on a pager) and then it's off to the races...or a cat in the tree, what have you.

Midian Tone Chart. <<---- this used to be a big wall paper sized print they'd send to you for reference, but now it's available instantly on their website. You can cross reference the closest match you get from your recordings to what is on there and start to compile a list of who matches up with what. It can be a fun game ;)

You will most likely be looking under the Quick Call II One plus One page. The mention to reeds harkens back to when the pager had reed chips which were how you physically changed the tone it was looking for, by plugging in the corresponding reed to make it work. They just never dropped it. The tone frequency will match up with a number/code and that's how you can record the data. You will notice there is a couple of % points leeway on the hertz of the tones, so your scanner might be giving you 568.9 when the closest match is 569.1
Thank you for the information
Steve
 

k2hz

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Those tones you are reporting do not make sense for QC signaling. I think your decoder is just giving false indications. The exception is the 1003/1004 which would be the standard nominal "1kHz" alert or beep tone. QC tones are generally below 2 kHz with 2500 Hz being the highest. Any radio communications transmitter normally has a high frequency audio cutoff of 2800Hz to meet maximum emission bandwidth requirements so 3378.6 just is not possible.
 

Saint

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Those tones you are reporting do not make sense for QC signaling. I think your decoder is just giving false indications. The exception is the 1003/1004 which would be the standard nominal "1kHz" alert or beep tone. QC tones are generally below 2 kHz with 2500 Hz being the highest. Any radio communications transmitter normally has a high frequency audio cutoff of 2800Hz to meet maximum emission bandwidth requirements so 3378.6 just is not possible.
Yea that doesn't surprise me just another thing wrong with the SDS 100 scanner, anyway I was bored and thought I would try the tone out search not that I would use them, thanks for the reply.
Steve
 

GTR8000

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Valid tone frequencies range from 282.2 (Plectron P38) up to 3062.0 (Plectron P37). The lowest Motorola QCII tone is 288.5, and the highest is 2468.2.

Federal also had three very high tones (3197.0, 3339.0, and 3487.0), but they were likely not popular due to the limitations @k2hz mentioned.

There have been a number of tone plans by various manufacturers over the past many decades, including:

Bramco
Federal
GE
Motorola QCI
Motorola QCII
Plectron
Reach
 

BITT211

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hi , read this , i do program minitors and i have a unreal minitor 4 uhf pager , it is programed to buffalo fire dispatch , B switch set to TONE , but there is NO TONES programed A-or B . when a alarm of fire goes out , on the last 3rd [last tone] , the minitor ACTIVATES , alert tones , than resets time i have programed in. still looking in to how this does this with -0- tones programed .
 

ak716

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I thought I would try out the Tone out Search function on my SDS100 SCANNER I have been only listening for 15-20 minutes and have picked up these tones so far
424.225 MHz Fire Ch. 1 Dispatch Buffalo NY
a-2974.1 Hz b-422.8 Hz
a-1003.5 Hz b-1004.1 Hz
a-3378.6 Hz b-2048.5 Hz
a-1004.2 Hz b-1004.0 Hz
a-1840.1 Hz b-0.0 Hz
a-1003.5 Hz b-1003.5 Hz
a-3378.6 Hz b-2048.5 Hz
I have some questions, does anyone know how many tones are on the frequency does every radio have a different tone or how does this work so I can figure out how these tones are being used.
thanks for any information
Steve

Anything with the tone splits are defiantly wrong. Buffalo does solid steady tones, kinda like standard console tones. I don't know the tone frequency off the top of my head, but its nothing special... maybe like 1000.0 hz. The only difference they have in their tones is the amount of times its transmitted and the duration of the tone. I don't regularly listen to Buffalo Fire, but I do remember two short tones is normally an EMS, and three long tones is an "alarm of fire" ie reported fire, not an actual fire alarm. I wanna say there was a thread not too long ago going over this
 

ak716

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hi , read this , i do program minitors and i have a unreal minitor 4 uhf pager , it is programed to buffalo fire dispatch , B switch set to TONE , but there is NO TONES programed A-or B . when a alarm of fire goes out , on the last 3rd [last tone] , the minitor ACTIVATES , alert tones , than resets time i have programed in. still looking in to how this does this with -0- tones programed .
group call maybe? an alarm of fire does long tones, maybe its long enough to trigger the group call alerting
 

wa8pyr

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Valid tone frequencies range from 282.2 (Plectron P38) up to 3062.0 (Plectron P37). The lowest Motorola QCII tone is 288.5, and the highest is 2468.2.

Federal also had three very high tones (3197.0, 3339.0, and 3487.0), but they were likely not popular due to the limitations @k2hz mentioned.

In addition to the issues with high tones (close to and above 3000 hz) being caused by audio bandwidth issues, tone frequencies which are close to remote control tones (such as 2175hz) can have problems with going through some repeaters, as the repeaters often have filters to notch out those tones. I had that issue with the B tone for one agency here.
 

k2hz

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group call maybe? an alarm of fire does long tones, maybe its long enough to trigger the group call alerting
As I mentioned before, "1000 Hz" is the usual "console tone". That standard test and alert tone is usually actually 1004 since exactly 1000 can cause some issues with digital CODECS. I have heard that some pagers can be programmed for "long tone" to an available tone frequency close to 1000 and will activate if the dispatcher holds the tone long enough. It depends on available settings in the pager for tone duration and frequency.
 
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