Fire pagers
- Thread starter miked9372
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W3DMV
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The RR database says the paging is on 154.385 Mhz
That's what we did in Louisville/Jefferson County Kentucky.
I'm unaware of any manufacturers planning to produce trunked/digital pagers. I suspect that they would be very costly, well out of financial reach for most fire departments.
I expect conventional/analog tone and voice paging for volunteer and combination volunteer/career fire departments will be around for a while.
Many departments are supplementing tone and voice paging with systems such as I Am Responding, which send text messages to smart phones. However since such systems are not under the complete control of the dispatching entity, they are not recognized by the Insurance Services Office. This could reduce the points assigned for fire insurance rating purposes, something fire departments "cherish".
what i'm confused is hfire 1 is a digital channel, is there a converter that goes from digital to analog so the pagers work?
hibtacer
Member
The "converting" or patching is done by the dispatch on their consoles.....sending out on 800 and VHF freqs simultaneously.
stmills
Member
Dayton 384.6 426.6
Rogers 794.3 645..7
Rogers 794.3 645..7
DJ11DLN
Member
When did they ever let that stop them? "If we create the need for this new high-$$$ gizmo, they'll figure out how to afford it." That's how we wound up with a statewide TSYS here that doesn't work as well as VHF analog did.
Those are a good backup...but they sometimes have unacceptable delays. I've had my phone go off before the original tone-out completed...and also had it not go off until we were enroute back to station. Or not at all. I do hope you're right, analog paging is about the only affordable, reliable method of getting the word out. Unless somebody would want to take a swing at cross-breeding a fire conference and cellular?
Please don't hijack threads. This thread was about P25 trunking pagers, not what the 2 tone frequencies for Rogers & Dayton Fire.
Colorado has that huge new statewide p25 system and they're encouraging all local departments to migrate.
Everyone who does two tone paging just simulcasts a patched toneout on the VHF analog channel and dispatch talkgroup, then the field units respond and have normal traffic on the p25 radios.
I kind of like it, because i can have my city/county toneouts on the B side of my ham portable, hear the toneout, and then not have all the traffic that follows, unless i actually care about the call, then i can turn the p25 radio on.
Everyone who does two tone paging just simulcasts a patched toneout on the VHF analog channel and dispatch talkgroup, then the field units respond and have normal traffic on the p25 radios.
I kind of like it, because i can have my city/county toneouts on the B side of my ham portable, hear the toneout, and then not have all the traffic that follows, unless i actually care about the call, then i can turn the p25 radio on.
About 3-4 years ago, our county migrated from a VHF system which had tone and voice paging for firefighters along with the usual two way voice traffic.
On the tone and voice paging side, for the 17 fire departments and perhaps 600+ firefighters covering about 400 square miles, there were three transmitters on the dispatch frequency. Not any one tower would give great coverage for the whole county. Thus the dispatchers had to know which of the towers was best for department being dispatched and select it before transmitting.
The new system is a P25 simulcast system on 800 Mhz. As part of that project, they also upgraded our VHF tone and voice paging channel to a 5 site simulcast system, which has worked a whole lot better.
They have a console patch set up between the VHF paging channel and a Dispatch Talkgroup on the 800 system. So anything going out on the VHF paging channel also goes out on the 800 system.
On the tone and voice paging side, for the 17 fire departments and perhaps 600+ firefighters covering about 400 square miles, there were three transmitters on the dispatch frequency. Not any one tower would give great coverage for the whole county. Thus the dispatchers had to know which of the towers was best for department being dispatched and select it before transmitting.
The new system is a P25 simulcast system on 800 Mhz. As part of that project, they also upgraded our VHF tone and voice paging channel to a 5 site simulcast system, which has worked a whole lot better.
They have a console patch set up between the VHF paging channel and a Dispatch Talkgroup on the 800 system. So anything going out on the VHF paging channel also goes out on the 800 system.
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