Can a Yaesu VX-8DR take the place of my minitor V ?

[rrnewuser]

I have a minitor V that listens on low-band (46.xx mhz) and is programmed with a PL tone to alert when a page from my agency comes through (otherwise, it stays silent).

If I buy a Yaesu VX-8DR, I see that the frequency coverage is adequate to cover this low-band, but can I properly program a VX-8DR with my PL tone so that it behaves just like my minitor ?

I do not use any of the recording functions of the minitor, so I don't care about that ... I just wonder if I can mimic the *paging* aspect of the minitor with this Yaesu radio ?

Thanks.

 

[ScanWI]

No it cannot, the radio will receive all the traffic that is broadcasted on that channel. If you want a radio that will mute and unmute you will need a non-amateur radio.

 

[rrnewuser]

Ugh. Is that some kind of weird regulatory thing, or is that just a strange use-case that nobody caters to ?

It made so much sense ... why carry the minitor when I could carry a minitor that also does X Y and Z ?

 

[ScanWI]

It's a feature that really isn't ham radio related. There is nothing saying that they can't make the radio have a pager feature.

Just so we are on the same page, your pager uses two-tones for it's alerting. PL tone is a inaudible tone that unmutes a radio when the matching PL is seen on the frequency.

Here is a good site that explains two-tone paging
http://www.genave.com/two-tone_paging.htm

 

[rrnewuser]

Ok, thanks.

So, if I may hijack my own thread ...

What devices that are capable of doing minitor-like functions (listen on a low-band freq. for a PL tone to alert on) can also do other things ....

other things like:

- am/fm
- GMRS and/or FRS ?
- anything ?

The point is, I have to carry *something* with me everywhere I go, so I can either carry the minitor which does almost nothing, or I could carry (insert device here) which does more than that. What options are there ?

Really bummed the yaesu can't do that, since that would be a very nice, full-featured device to carry, and is the same size or smaller than the minitor...

 

[DisasterGuy]

You aren't going to find a portable radio that covers low band with two tone decode and also covers the other stuff you are looking for. Further the Yaesu would not be legal to operate on FRS or GMRS.


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[wa2chj]

DisasterGuy is absolutely correct. Minitor Vs cannot do PL/CTCSS or DCS. They can only do 2 tone and long tone (audible) alerts. Being on low band is the issue. Pretty much no one makes portable gear on low band anymore. For VHF and UHF there are any number of radios from Motorola, Vertex, Kenwood, etc. that will do 2 tone decode.

 

[Ed_Seedhouse]

DisasterGuy is absolutely correct. Minitor Vs cannot do PL/CTCSS or DCS. They can only do 2 tone and long tone (audible) alerts. Being on low band is the issue. Pretty much no one makes portable gear on low band anymore. For VHF and UHF there are any number of radios from Motorola, Vertex, Kenwood, etc. that will do 2 tone decode.

Well this is a nitpick, but technically VHF starts at 30mhz, so the frequency referred to by the OP is still VHF. But I imagine we understand what you meant well enough.

 

[rrnewuser]

Why don't radios have free-form, or arbitrary tone definition ?

That is, never mind PL tones or CTCSS or DCS or whatever ... instead, you program the radio and tell it "if you hear thus and such, do this" (and then you would program in tone pitch, duration, repetitions, etc.)

So then we don't care what the radio supports, we just describe the behavior that's going to come in over the air and tell it what to do when it hears that. Theoretically you could program the radio "when you hear DTMF 867-5309, un-squelch"

 

[bamx2]

Should be pointed out, the reason a minitor doesn't do much, is because it is a life-safety radio. Even if a VX could do two tone I wouldn't trust anyone's life to that radio. The Minitor is engineered to have high reliability as a pager. In a multi use radio, you will see lots of things they are good at, but nothing is great. The minitor is great at being a pager.


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[DJ11DLN]

You could get one of these. It won't do all you ask for but it will do the 2-tone, let you transmit (I'm presuming you're authorized), and some of the rest.

Kenwood - TK-190

Lo-band, 2-tone, CTCSS/DCS/DTMF, 16 channels. I'll leave it up to someone else to find a price but I doubt it will go much over $200 at most.

My department originally bought H-T's similar to this one in the early 90s, when we finally got central paging, because for about $20 more than an overpriced pager you also had transmit capability (and 4 channels...we thought that was great back then). They never let us down. Whether or not this one might serve the OP's needs, he will have to decide for himself.