Just out of curiosity (& a little boredom)
- Thread starter howie38
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I think he's talking in general and not specifically about any one town. This comes up every once in a while.
Fire and EMS alerting is a niche market. There isn't a lot of money in it, so things don't tend to update. In other words, the manufacturers don't make $20 million sales on alerting pagers, so what they offer is what is available, take it or leave it, and that's not going to change. The last big innovation was the Unication receiver.
Digital radio systems do have features that can be used for individual and group alerting. At least P25 does. Even if a string of individual stations has to be sent, it will still be a lot shorter than sending 4 seconds of A/B tone and a few hundred milliseconds of gap between them. That adds up. It's more for station-based alerting in career departments - if they are not alerted through their CAD and various station devices. I don't have any experience with the Unications, so someone else will have to say if they can be programmed to alert from call alert or similar signaling.
The siren on the pole thing is because of NFPA 1221 requiring a separate means of alerting. In this case, alerting can be done over the radio, but also over sirens. If the radio system fails, the siren system probably still works if it's wireline controlled, unless another town or agency can set them off. When the Insurance Services Office evaluates a town's capabilities, things like having an independently functional siren system for alerting can mean lower insurance premiums for businesses and residents.
Fire and EMS alerting is a niche market. There isn't a lot of money in it, so things don't tend to update. In other words, the manufacturers don't make $20 million sales on alerting pagers, so what they offer is what is available, take it or leave it, and that's not going to change. The last big innovation was the Unication receiver.
Digital radio systems do have features that can be used for individual and group alerting. At least P25 does. Even if a string of individual stations has to be sent, it will still be a lot shorter than sending 4 seconds of A/B tone and a few hundred milliseconds of gap between them. That adds up. It's more for station-based alerting in career departments - if they are not alerted through their CAD and various station devices. I don't have any experience with the Unications, so someone else will have to say if they can be programmed to alert from call alert or similar signaling.
The siren on the pole thing is because of NFPA 1221 requiring a separate means of alerting. In this case, alerting can be done over the radio, but also over sirens. If the radio system fails, the siren system probably still works if it's wireline controlled, unless another town or agency can set them off. When the Insurance Services Office evaluates a town's capabilities, things like having an independently functional siren system for alerting can mean lower insurance premiums for businesses and residents.
wtp
Member
i grew up in Hillsdale New Jersey, we had the siren on the pole AND plectron units..
now i am in Florida and we have paging on the 700 Mhz P-25 (digital), i do not know for sure if 'the guys' have pages though.
but they live at the firehouse/ambulance building as they are paid.
now i am in Florida and we have paging on the 700 Mhz P-25 (digital), i do not know for sure if 'the guys' have pages though.
but they live at the firehouse/ambulance building as they are paid.
Deleated
Doesn't matter where. Although, I'd like to know if Burlington Co ever considered it.
Just wanted to know if there was a better digital paging system that wouldn't have those tones coming over the scanner. In my county the tones run about 25% or more louder than the dispatchers voice which means in order to hear the dispatch, the neighbors get to hear the tones screeching all day long. Just try to watch TV with that.
wtp
Member
scanners get to hear the tones
the pager only goes off with the tone it is listening for.
get a pager or set the tone/s you want the scanner to open for.
the pager only goes off with the tone it is listening for.
get a pager or set the tone/s you want the scanner to open for.
I know what you're getting at: it would be nice if scanners could just mute the tones (unless, of course in FTO mode).
Remember folks: Dont feed the troll....
I miss my 33.82! low-band was so much more fun to listen to.
mdsxfire
EDBM
yes changing from analog minitors to unication pagers for digital is quite expensive i believe we spent close to 40G on unication pagers to equip everyone when we went to QCII over P25, definitely a nice upgrade for the coverage increase and to be able to monitor our fireground after the tones drop though
tomk62
Member
He's not asking about any specific system or agency, just conceptually - in today's digital age why do we still have to hear the tones?
^ this.
^ this.
wtp
Member
and it is like i tell the wife, only pay attention to the scanner after the tones go out, the rest is little stuff.
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I too miss my 33.940 at 500’ MSL. Groundwave daily Rhode Island to Maryland. Pasco County FL often. Even got a QSL card from Germany. That Master Pro was solid. CommSpec board for $49 bucks brought all that to an end.
Another view of this is the old saying, "don't put all your eggs in one basket". Having two completely different systems is great in case you have a catastrophic failure of one or the other.
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