For what it's worth, all the people who are saying "it's impossible to alert on more than one channel simultaneously" are wrong. I have a fleet of Big M radios in various bandsplits which have multiple tone-sets on each of 16 channels, and if they hear both tones (any fraction thereof - doesn't have to be the full 1 sec/3 sec), they alert. Period. The very same logic could be applied to the scanner, if someone would bother coding it that way.
Now, if you want to argue that it's possible you won't catch the alert because you're on a different channel, then that's where the "duh! obviously" comes in. I don't think anyone in this conversation reasonably expects that "alert" means "priority receive and alert", except the people saying "you can't do that". This is akin to saying that emergency alerts is broken because you don't catch every emergency-button-press on system xyz, because you're not even scanning it at the time the button-press comes across.
I believe that most people who want multiple toneout options in these scanners want them to work like I describe here: If when scanning, channel X is received and there are tones on it, compare the tones against the tones entered in the tone-out entries for that channel. If the tone being heard matches, continue the tone-out process (listening for 2nd tone, sounding alert, etc). Otherwise, and after the tone-out process in any case, resume normal operation (staying open/hanging on channel X until the delay/squelch conditions are matched).
That's not too hard to fathom, guys, and not much to ask, either. Anyone who expects that the scanner, when it's off-channel or even off-system, is going to have any hope of catching an alert going on on channel X, doesn't understand how scanning radios/receivers work in the first place.
The majority of scanner hobbyists, IMO, would want tone-outs in the manner I described above, simply to provide an additional alert that "hey, this department has a call going on". So it doesn't matter if every alert is captured or not. Anyone who is trying to use a scanner as a primary means of being called to a job are missing the point of the scanner. Furthermore, people in that position should have pagers, alerting radios, or other department-issued equipment to do the mission-critical dispatching that's required for them. If your department hasn't issued you a pager yet, perhaps they have a reason for not wanting you to respond to calls at this time... give THAT some thought.
And now, know-it-alls and wannabe experts, let the flaming commence!
Now, if you want to argue that it's possible you won't catch the alert because you're on a different channel, then that's where the "duh! obviously" comes in. I don't think anyone in this conversation reasonably expects that "alert" means "priority receive and alert", except the people saying "you can't do that". This is akin to saying that emergency alerts is broken because you don't catch every emergency-button-press on system xyz, because you're not even scanning it at the time the button-press comes across.
I believe that most people who want multiple toneout options in these scanners want them to work like I describe here: If when scanning, channel X is received and there are tones on it, compare the tones against the tones entered in the tone-out entries for that channel. If the tone being heard matches, continue the tone-out process (listening for 2nd tone, sounding alert, etc). Otherwise, and after the tone-out process in any case, resume normal operation (staying open/hanging on channel X until the delay/squelch conditions are matched).
That's not too hard to fathom, guys, and not much to ask, either. Anyone who expects that the scanner, when it's off-channel or even off-system, is going to have any hope of catching an alert going on on channel X, doesn't understand how scanning radios/receivers work in the first place.
The majority of scanner hobbyists, IMO, would want tone-outs in the manner I described above, simply to provide an additional alert that "hey, this department has a call going on". So it doesn't matter if every alert is captured or not. Anyone who is trying to use a scanner as a primary means of being called to a job are missing the point of the scanner. Furthermore, people in that position should have pagers, alerting radios, or other department-issued equipment to do the mission-critical dispatching that's required for them. If your department hasn't issued you a pager yet, perhaps they have a reason for not wanting you to respond to calls at this time... give THAT some thought.
And now, know-it-alls and wannabe experts, let the flaming commence!
