Fire Tone Out

[KAZ7ED]

I think I have everything programmed correctly in my BCD996T and BCD396T. When running in "Tone-Out Standby" mode I noticed it scans each entry every 1.2 seconds or so. So if you have 10 entrys and it takes maybe 11 seconds to cycle through them, what are the odds of it catching a tone out? Does anyone have any experience with this many (10) tone-out entries, and is the function successful? Or, is it actually dynamic, meaning that they are alive all the time and not necessarily caught during the scan?

 

[UPMan]

It is only cycling the display. Since it is sitting on a single RF frequency, any tone-out that is received will be detected.

 

[KAZ7ED]

What if you have more than one frequency? You could have up to 10 different frequencies with tones. (I only have two, but 10 are possible). Is it continuously monitoring all 10, or quickly monitoring all 10, in lieu of the 1.2 secounds each?

 

[andy404ns]

What if you have more than one frequency? You could have up to 10 different frequencies with tones. (I only have two, but 10 are possible). Is it continuously monitoring all 10, or quickly monitoring all 10, in lieu of the 1.2 secounds each?

I'm almost 100% sure (UPMan verification?) that it will only "scan" through the tone outs you have entered if they have the SAME frequency. So if you had one frequency that dispatched multiple agencies, you could scan for any of those tones (since it's all on the same frequency). However, if you had 10 different frequencies programmed into the tone out section, you would only be able to monitor one of them at a time and it would not "scan" through the others. Eh that wasn't a very good explanation so here's an example...

Tone out 1 - Frequency = 46.1800 A -> 1200.0 B -> 500.0
Tone out 2 - Frequency = 46.1800 A -> 1000.0 B -> 920.0

In the above configuration, the scanner will check both of those tone outs since they have the same frequency (even though the tones entered are different)



Tone out 1 - Frequency = 460.5000 A -> 825.0 B -> 1000.0
Tone out 2 - Frequency = 463.2250 A -> 1425.0 B -> 910.5

In the above configuration, the scanner will NOT check both. It will hold on either tone out 1 or tone out 2, depending on which one you scroll to.

 

[KAZ7ED]

"Since it is sitting on a single RF frequency, any tone-out that is received will be detected."

" It will hold on either tone out 1 or tone out 2, depending on which one you scroll to."

How do you know which of the frequencies it is "sitting on", and how do you "scroll to" another frequency?

 

[N9JIG]

The radio does not scan between frequencies at all in Fire Tone Out Mode, it sits on one frequency only, depending on what one was selected when you set the radio to that mode.

When you set up Tone Outs you need to set the RF frequency, the Mode (FM, NFM or Auto) as well as the Attenuator setting (on/off). If there are more than one of these set up with all 3 of these parameters exactly the same then the radio will check each set of fire tones on those.

If any of the parameters are different (say 1 is set with the attenuator on and the rest with it off) the radio will only check those that match exactly the one selected when you go to the Tone Out mode.

While the radio is capable of storing and monitoring up to 10 sets of fire tones, it can only check those whose frequency, mode and attenuator are identical. It will ignore all others.

Also, the radio is not actually scanning anything in this mode, even though the display rotates among the various sets of fire tone sets it is monitoring. It will open on any of the (up to) 10 sets immediately, even if it is not displayed at the time. The display rotates to show what sets it would open on when the tones are decoded.

You can select another tone set by rotating the knob while in the Tone Out Standby Mode. Thus, if you have 3 sets on 154.430, 3 on 154.205 and 4 more on 33.70 you can select any one of these frequencies when you go into the Tone Out Standby mode, then change to another freq at any time. The radio will ignore all except the ones on the currently selected frequency.

 

[andy404ns]

"Since it is sitting on a single RF frequency, any tone-out that is received will be detected."

" It will hold on either tone out 1 or tone out 2, depending on which one you scroll to."

How do you know which of the frequencies it is "sitting on", and how do you "scroll to" another frequency?

When you enter fire tone out mode, you just use the scroll knob to select which one you want to hold on. You should enter a name for the tone out so that you can identify it when you scroll.