General questions about tones

[vs1988]

Both the fire dept. and EMS association in my town use tones to alert their members. The firefighters carry Minitor 4s while EMS uses Motorola HT750 and 1250 radios.

1. Are there tone sets comprised of three tones, or is the last one an alert? The FD's tones consist of a high pitch, a lower pitch, then a plectron warble. The EMS tone is a high pitch, a lower pitch, and then a very high long pitch.

2. What other purposes do tones serve besides activating pagers? EMS uses radios only. When I rode with them as part of my EMT training, they always had their radios on scan or monitor, so there was always a voice standby announced by dispatch before the tones were sent. Can tones be used purely as an alert, for example, to wake the crew in the middle of the night?

Thanks

Vince

 

[jim202]

The tones are a methode that has been used since almost the inception of radio to open up decoder devices. They can be used to do a number of things from alerting people to opening the garage doors on stations, set off alerting sirens and the likes.

The so called third tone you hear is not part of the dual tone code alert, but an audible announcment after the alert tones are sent. Many dispatch consoles have these built in as part of an attention getting tone. Many times you will hear these attention getting tones used just before a voice announcment. At night, they are used to wake people up that are heavy sleepers. Different kinds of tones are gennerally used for different type of calls.

Jim

Both the fire dept. and EMS association in my town use tones to alert their members. The firefighters carry Minitor 4s while EMS uses Motorola HT750 and 1250 radios.

1. Are there tone sets comprised of three tones, or is the last one an alert? The FD's tones consist of a high pitch, a lower pitch, then a plectron warble. The EMS tone is a high pitch, a lower pitch, and then a very high long pitch.

2. What other purposes do tones serve besides activating pagers? EMS uses radios only. When I rode with them as part of my EMT training, they always had their radios on scan or monitor, so there was always a voice standby announced by dispatch before the tones were sent. Can tones be used purely as an alert, for example, to wake the crew in the middle of the night?

Thanks

Vince

 

[Joseph11]

When EMS is dispatched and you hear the high pitched tone, is it directly after the second tone or is there a gap between the 2nd tone and the high pitched tone?

 

[vs1988]

When EMS is dispatched and you hear the high pitched tone, is it directly after the second tone or is there a gap between the 2nd tone and the high pitched tone?

There is a gap (feels like maybe 1/2 or 3/4 of a second) between the 2nd tone and the high pitched one. The first tone is very brief, with the second one being slightly longer. The first two tones are somewhat quiet and harder to hear, but the 3rd is a very loud, high pitched blast.

Vince

 

[Joseph11]

I'm pretty sure it's an alert tone.

 

[Voyager]

Both the fire dept. and EMS association in my town use tones to alert their members. The firefighters carry Minitor 4s while EMS uses Motorola HT750 and 1250 radios.

1. Are there tone sets comprised of three tones, or is the last one an alert? The FD's tones consist of a high pitch, a lower pitch, then a plectron warble. The EMS tone is a high pitch, a lower pitch, and then a very high long pitch.

2. What other purposes do tones serve besides activating pagers? EMS uses radios only. When I rode with them as part of my EMT training, they always had their radios on scan or monitor, so there was always a voice standby announced by dispatch before the tones were sent. Can tones be used purely as an alert, for example, to wake the crew in the middle of the night?

First, forget the warble. That's just an attention getter.

The FD sounds like it's using a standard Quick Call II paging tone set.

The EMS sounds like it's sending a Quick Call II page followed by a group page. Is the long tone about 8 seconds in duration? If so, that's what it is.

The tones can just be used to make the radios beep, but they are usually used to open the squelch on the radios like they do with the pagers (which can also be on monitor, but still beep when they hear their tones).

Joe M.

 

[vs1988]

First, forget the warble. That's just an attention getter.

The FD sounds like it's using a standard Quick Call II paging tone set.

The EMS sounds like it's sending a Quick Call II page followed by a group page. Is the long tone about 8 seconds in duration? If so, that's what it is.

The tones can just be used to make the radios beep, but they are usually used to open the squelch on the radios like they do with the pagers (which can also be on monitor, but still beep when they hear their tones).

Joe M.

The EMS long tone is about 2 seconds.

Vince

 

[clbarker]

What type of system?

Where I live, the tones are used to get the attention of a certain station, 1-9, and consist of 2 different tones. Low then higher...different depending on the station called.

The tone to alert all stations is a solid long lower beep. The same low tone as the begining to all the other pages.

Does anyone know what paging system they could be using?

The panel the Communications Center is using looks exactly like a the buttons on a phone. I'll try to throw a picture in...
Its going to be on the black panel...if I remember correctly from when I was there, it should be the white buttons right under the hole there...

 

[Voyager]

The EMS long tone is about 2 seconds.

Vince

Then it's either a short single tone page (very rare) or it's just an alert tone (which is 99.9% likely the case).

Joe M.

 

[Voyager]

Where I live, the tones are used to get the attention of a certain station, 1-9, and consist of 2 different tones. Low then higher...different depending on the station called.

The tone to alert all stations is a solid long lower beep. The same low tone as the begining to all the other pages.

Does anyone know what paging system they could be using?

The panel the Communications Center is using looks exactly like a the buttons on a phone. I'll try to throw a picture in...
Its going to be on the black panel...if I remember correctly from when I was there, it should be the white buttons right under the hole there...

Sounds like it could be standard Quick Call II and the long one is a group page. (deja vu?)

The keypad is used to input the entry code that is translated into the correct tones to be sent to alert the pagers or portables.

Joe M.

 

[clbarker]

Sounds like it could be standard Quick Call II and the long one is a group page. (deja vu?)

The keypad is used to input the entry code that is translated into the correct tones to be sent to alert the pagers or portables.

Joe M.

OK, thanks, i thought it might be the same...wasnt sure though...

 

[SLWilson]

Paging Tones

Here in Gallia County, OH, we set off tones to alert EMS of a call. The tones are the standard 2 tone alert, BUT, as an attention getter, we added the "warble" to the end of the page. After the pager has "opened" the warble sounds & they KNOW that they have a call. For the fire departments, we have added a "yelp type siren" sound. Pretty much everyone in the county knows by listening to their scanner if it is a fire or EMS call. THEN, for Rescue, we added a FAST siren sound. The extra sounds just last a couple of seconds but let the various responders KNOW that they have a call....Steve/KB8FAR

 

[hcsd35-32]

After the pager has "opened" the warble sounds & they KNOW that they have a call. The extra sounds just last a couple of seconds but let the various responders KNOW that they have a call

Are the 10 to 15 beeps of the pager going off not enough to get your responders attention?

 

[Al42]

Are the 10 to 15 beeps of the pager going off not enough to get your responders attention?

Trust me - with some people being hit on the head with a brick twice isn't enough to get their attention.

 

[Donald2557]

tones are for ...

tones are for addressing purposes only. only two are required for addressing unless a single long tone is sent. the plectron warble is sent following the tones as an alerting feature. the plectron warble has nothing to do with pager addressing.