NEWB HERE: Scanners Why Not Texts

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MOZ11

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To all.

I am a Newb here. Im a PA who has relied on scanners a long time. Learning more about available tech and getting smarter. Found one company here IPN with a pager that sends dispatchs to the pager which is huge if you want to monitor ---for me---Fire calls only in certain local counties.

Question is is there a vendor that send that by text to mobile devices? If not, why not? This IPN Co monitors all dipatches nationally (again found here, not using the service so I dont know if its legit).

It would seem for non emeegency yet interested responders to be valuable to get off the slave of the scanner and get a clean text message of---in my case a true fire---But does that service exist? If not then maybe I need to make that happen instead of doing what I do now.

TIA
 

sfd119

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Ooookay...I think I'll take a stab at this thread and see what you are trying to convey.

IPN does not monitor ALL dispatches nationally. It relies on a network of scanner people that reports incidents...not the dispatchers themselves.

It sounds like you are trying to be alerted when a Fire/EMS Agency gets paged out, yes? If you have a uniden scanner with FTO (fire tone out) then you can simply program the tones into the Scanner and when the county dispatchers page out an agency, your scanner will act like their pagers. Otherwise, your scanner will remain quiet.
 

BoxAlarm187

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MOZ...

There are several services like IPN that are available. As sfd119 said, these incidents are being sent by folks who are sitting around listening to their scanners, and then sending the information out to the subscribers.

I used to be with one of IPN's competitors, and had all of my calls sent to my (then) Blackberry. I now dispatch for a much smaller, statewide system, and all of those calls are sent to my Droid, either via SMS or e-mail.

As large as IPN is, I'd have to believe that they're sending information to wireless devices.

Keep in mind that with services like IPN, there could be the fire of the century in your county, but if no one is listening to it and then sending the information out, you'd never know about it.
 

iguyer

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IPN also has an option to send text alerts with your preferences.

I ended up dropping them after 3-4 months because there were a few incidents they reported that seemed fictitious and could not be corroborated when tuning in with my scanner.
 

MOZ11

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Thanks for the replies folks. I thought what IPN did sounded too good to be true---at at least my incorrect read on it anyway.

The beauty would be getting a text or page via some central service rather than relying on a handheld scanner. There is software galore to be used by say a fire district to do that. So the tech side of it is sort of there. Still, my thought of what IPN was just a dream.
 

sfd119

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Well, if you have a spare computer and scanner sitting around...there is a way to do it. I host this on my Audio server for the local Fire Departments. We were having paging issues so I set this up and it worked out great. It's got a steeeeep learning curve for most.

TwoToneDetect.exe - radioetcetera

Edit: Looks like it's a lot easier and more stable. He changed the programming lang
 
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krokus

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Like SDF119, TwoToneDetect, or similar setup, is what I would suggest, for what you're trying to accomplish.
 

Stormscanner

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Notification services didn't work well for me. Totally hit or miss. I have researched the life out of finding something that will send texts. I have had no luck. The setup I went with did take some investment, but it has worked well for me. I use the Fire Tone Out feature with my BCT15 scanner and I purchased the basic, 1 channel VRS Recording System software from NCH Swift Sound. It will record the audio only when my fire dept is toned out then email it to me. I have used this setup for almost 2 years now.
 
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MOZ11

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Well, if you have a spare computer and scanner sitting around...there is a way to do it. I host this on my Audio server for the local Fire Departments. We were having paging issues so I set this up and it worked out great. It's got a steeeeep learning curve for most.

TwoToneDetect.exe - radioetcetera

Edit: Looks like it's a lot easier and more stable. He changed the programming lang



No spare Comp but I like your idea.
 

MOZ11

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Notification services didn't work well for me. Totally hit or miss. I have researched the life out of finding something that will send texts. I have had no luck. The setup I went with did take some investment, but it has worked well for me. I use the Fire Tone Out feature with my BCT15 scanner and I purchased the basic, 1 channel VRS Recording System software from NCH Swift Sound. It will record the audio only when my fire dept is toned out then email it to me. I have used this setup for almost 2 years now.

When I read about IPn it seemed to good to ne true. And it is.

For responders (not safety) the concept is great bu the execution isnt there, I was looking for a way to get off the scannner and get reliable TEXTS of callls for fire, just not happening. Trust me there are people willing to pay for that thougj.
 

MOZ11

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Like SDF119, TwoToneDetect, or similar setup, is what I would suggest, for what you're trying to accomplish.

Intruiging...but I dont know what you are telling me???
 

MOZ11

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IPN also has an option to send text alerts with your preferences.

I ended up dropping them after 3-4 months because there were a few incidents they reported that seemed fictitious and could not be corroborated when tuning in with my scanner.


I get that now. Great concept. Too good to be true.

Nice idea though. They market well, but not much there,
 
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