orzeljo609 said:
Go to Page 1 of this very thread and you'll see how to record and determine from your PC...
Official Fire Tone-Out Discussion
- Thread starter UPMan
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Go to Page 1 of this very thread and you'll see how to record and determine from your PC...
Tone Problems
I have recorded .wav files for a department with about 10 stations. About half the stations use a B tone of 767.4 and the others use B=787.4. All the stations with B=767 trip the radio fine. NONE of the stations with B=787 trip, so I figured I was simply wrong about what B really was. To the ear, those different B tones (767 and 787) are distinctly different. I have tried other values close to, but different from 787.4 (788.5 etc) with no luck. I have now used different software to calculate period and frequency, and they all come out to about 783. So I have loaded up values for "any B= (A=value, B=0)" 780, 783, 786, 789 etc with no luck. Yesterday I broadened the range of B, and had a channel set to B=769 and TWO of the stations that sound like 787 tripped!
The .wav files show very pure sine waves, with little distortion, so I think I have good samples. And when I set the tone generator for 769 and play with the B tones (787), the 769 seems clearly too low.
So what's going on? I am stumped. Keep in mind, the radio will correctly decode the 767 stations, so I don't think the radio is messed up. THey seem to all get transmitted from the same dispatch with the same signal strength etc.
I have one more theory to explore: I have recorded all the tones in .wav files using a second radio plugged into a computer using the Windows "Sound Recorder" utility. I have created a large blank file using the Effects/Decrease_Speed option so I can let it record about 30 minutes unattended. When I "catch" a set of tones, I truncate the unwanted parts of the file, leaving only the tones (preserving the speed). Of course I record and playback at the same overall "slow" speed, so it sounds natural and fine just like live... but I wonder if in any way Sound Recorder might be making a slight change to the audio (by limiting bandwidth or actually playing back a little faster (than recording) than perceptible), and shifting the frequency higher slightly, so that the resulting .wavs appear to be a slightly higher freq... 787 instead of 767. I've made these .wav files over a long period of time, and have no way to know if they were made with this large blank file or earlier before I started using that trick. Maybe that's contributing, so I'll try and experiment with that today. IF the tones that are being analyzed as 783 are really 767, that's about a 2% increase, so I think I'll try and skew the A tones "down" 2% as well.
But the forum is open for other suggestions!
Thanks
I have recorded .wav files for a department with about 10 stations. About half the stations use a B tone of 767.4 and the others use B=787.4. All the stations with B=767 trip the radio fine. NONE of the stations with B=787 trip, so I figured I was simply wrong about what B really was. To the ear, those different B tones (767 and 787) are distinctly different. I have tried other values close to, but different from 787.4 (788.5 etc) with no luck. I have now used different software to calculate period and frequency, and they all come out to about 783. So I have loaded up values for "any B= (A=value, B=0)" 780, 783, 786, 789 etc with no luck. Yesterday I broadened the range of B, and had a channel set to B=769 and TWO of the stations that sound like 787 tripped!
The .wav files show very pure sine waves, with little distortion, so I think I have good samples. And when I set the tone generator for 769 and play with the B tones (787), the 769 seems clearly too low.
So what's going on? I am stumped. Keep in mind, the radio will correctly decode the 767 stations, so I don't think the radio is messed up. THey seem to all get transmitted from the same dispatch with the same signal strength etc.
I have one more theory to explore: I have recorded all the tones in .wav files using a second radio plugged into a computer using the Windows "Sound Recorder" utility. I have created a large blank file using the Effects/Decrease_Speed option so I can let it record about 30 minutes unattended. When I "catch" a set of tones, I truncate the unwanted parts of the file, leaving only the tones (preserving the speed). Of course I record and playback at the same overall "slow" speed, so it sounds natural and fine just like live... but I wonder if in any way Sound Recorder might be making a slight change to the audio (by limiting bandwidth or actually playing back a little faster (than recording) than perceptible), and shifting the frequency higher slightly, so that the resulting .wavs appear to be a slightly higher freq... 787 instead of 767. I've made these .wav files over a long period of time, and have no way to know if they were made with this large blank file or earlier before I started using that trick. Maybe that's contributing, so I'll try and experiment with that today. IF the tones that are being analyzed as 783 are really 767, that's about a 2% increase, so I think I'll try and skew the A tones "down" 2% as well.
But the forum is open for other suggestions!
Thanks
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D
DaveNF2G
Guest
There are several possibilities.
Distortion can be introduced anywhere in your receiving chain. The scanner audio could be over processed, your sound card could be changing things, and Windows .wav files are compressed, so some loss of fidelity is likely there.
I have found that my particular station combination tends to read tones as low in frequency by about 2 or 3%. It helps to have standardized tone tables for reference, too, so you can try legitimate values in your radio.
Distortion can be introduced anywhere in your receiving chain. The scanner audio could be over processed, your sound card could be changing things, and Windows .wav files are compressed, so some loss of fidelity is likely there.
I have found that my particular station combination tends to read tones as low in frequency by about 2 or 3%. It helps to have standardized tone tables for reference, too, so you can try legitimate values in your radio.
Thanks, I do try and stick to the standard tones...
I am becoming more convinced (but haven't proved it yet), that my problem really is with Sound Recorder. I take these 30 minute .wav files, lop off the unwanted parts and make them 5 second files to reduce storage size and ease manipultation. I have another system where I had a couple of pesky tone sets I could never get to trigger, and I just went back and looked and lo and behold those stray tone sets also have a B tone "error" of 20Hz with respect to the rest of the family that work! So I suspect when I truncate the .wav files it is subtlely shifting the frequency about 2% UP, which is about 20 Hz. So that is consistent from system to system which is a real clue. I've now got the radio set to compensate... I've reduced all the "apparent" out-of-family tone frequencies (A and B) by ~2% to a close standard value... so I'll see what happens, but I am optimistic! I've been struggling with this for weeks....
I am becoming more convinced (but haven't proved it yet), that my problem really is with Sound Recorder. I take these 30 minute .wav files, lop off the unwanted parts and make them 5 second files to reduce storage size and ease manipultation. I have another system where I had a couple of pesky tone sets I could never get to trigger, and I just went back and looked and lo and behold those stray tone sets also have a B tone "error" of 20Hz with respect to the rest of the family that work! So I suspect when I truncate the .wav files it is subtlely shifting the frequency about 2% UP, which is about 20 Hz. So that is consistent from system to system which is a real clue. I've now got the radio set to compensate... I've reduced all the "apparent" out-of-family tone frequencies (A and B) by ~2% to a close standard value... so I'll see what happens, but I am optimistic! I've been struggling with this for weeks....
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Fire Tone Out For BR-330T
Can someone explain what Modulation is for, AUTO, FM, or NFM?
Can Someone explain what Attenuator is , On or Off?
My chief just gave me Tone A of 2575 and Tone B of 1180
Trying to figure this out. Our Freq. is 154.235
Any help would be great.
Rick
Can someone explain what Modulation is for, AUTO, FM, or NFM?
Can Someone explain what Attenuator is , On or Off?
My chief just gave me Tone A of 2575 and Tone B of 1180
Trying to figure this out. Our Freq. is 154.235
Any help would be great.
Rick
dgoodson said:
I use a program called Scanner Recorder (V 1.9) it's freeware available at http://www.davee.com/scanrec/
It can be send to be volume activated. I leave it recording sometimes for 12-13 hours at a clip. I wind up with a wav file size depending on the channel activity.
(has been between 6-45 min) only records when something is going on.
I've got decent results with this.
I then open the wav file with audacity to decode the tones. can do DTMF too.
I too have had one tone set that will not trip the fire tone out no matter what. The audio clip was clean, and I've consistently gotten the same readings. I use a tone chart from:
http://www.iinc.com/ggcomm/reeds.html
Scroll down.
ARC396 Pro
I have found the inbedded recorder with the ARC program to be really nice. It records the material very clearly and combined with Audacity I have been able to make and decode decent recordings of my local dispatch. I recorded my entire county's weekly pager test and have gotten hits on maybe 5 of the 12 or so. I decoded them the same way so I have a good feeling that they are accurate.
I have found the inbedded recorder with the ARC program to be really nice. It records the material very clearly and combined with Audacity I have been able to make and decode decent recordings of my local dispatch. I recorded my entire county's weekly pager test and have gotten hits on maybe 5 of the 12 or so. I decoded them the same way so I have a good feeling that they are accurate.
an update to my post of 5/17 (in particular the last paragraph regarding Sound Recorder)
I have compenstated the A tones about 2%, (the amount the B tones seemed to be "Off") and now tone sets that never used to trigger ARE triggering. So I think my manipulation of the very large .wav tone files made with Sound Recorder was in fact making slight alterations of the frequencies when I truncated the unwanted portions of the file... not particularly perceptible to me and my ear, but clearly enough to fool the radio. This has been quite a discovery! I've been fighting these tones for weeks.
Thanks for all the advice and encouragement. I really appreciate Audacity being brought to my attention, that's a great analysis tool.
I have compenstated the A tones about 2%, (the amount the B tones seemed to be "Off") and now tone sets that never used to trigger ARE triggering. So I think my manipulation of the very large .wav tone files made with Sound Recorder was in fact making slight alterations of the frequencies when I truncated the unwanted portions of the file... not particularly perceptible to me and my ear, but clearly enough to fool the radio. This has been quite a discovery! I've been fighting these tones for weeks.
Thanks for all the advice and encouragement. I really appreciate Audacity being brought to my attention, that's a great analysis tool.
In FTO Tone Set Up, what does "Delay Time" = "none" mean?
Disregard- I figured out that None=0, and the radio reverts from HOLD to STANDBY as soon as the carrier drops, not as soon as the trigger occurs. Wonder why the firmware doesn't use "0" instead of "none" for consistency. I was *hoping* it would revert to standby as soon as it triggered, so you could catch multiple hits during a single transmission, but that isn't how its set up.
Disregard- I figured out that None=0, and the radio reverts from HOLD to STANDBY as soon as the carrier drops, not as soon as the trigger occurs. Wonder why the firmware doesn't use "0" instead of "none" for consistency. I was *hoping* it would revert to standby as soon as it triggered, so you could catch multiple hits during a single transmission, but that isn't how its set up.
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- Joined
- Dec 19, 2002
- Messages
- 560
I have a few tone pairs programmed in my BCD396T with the same RX Freq, Attenuation, and Modulation settings and I notice that when in standby mode, the scanner flips rather slowly through each pair of tone-outs. Couldn't this slow scanning speed cause you to miss tones once in a while?
That is for display only. The scanner will activate on any tone programmed on that freq/att/mod setting, regardless of which one it happens to be displaying at the time.
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2002
- Messages
- 560
So internally, the scanner is scanning much quicker than the display? If the RF frequency is different for each tone-out pair, how quickly does the scanner jump from one RF frequency to another? Is there an easy way to turn off/on individual tone-out pairs? How do you delete a tone-out pair from a scan list? Thanks.
Internally, the scanner isn't scanning. It is sitting on that one RF frequency waiting for any transmission, at which point it compares the detected tone against all the tones stored for that frequency.
It never goes to another RF frequency in tone-out mode.
The easiest way to turn on/off a tone pair that shares RF, ATT, modulation with other tone pairs you want to continue to monitor for is to turn on (or off) ATT for that tone pair (since the settings will then not match the other pairs set for that RF, it won't be included in its compare).
It never goes to another RF frequency in tone-out mode.
The easiest way to turn on/off a tone pair that shares RF, ATT, modulation with other tone pairs you want to continue to monitor for is to turn on (or off) ATT for that tone pair (since the settings will then not match the other pairs set for that RF, it won't be included in its compare).
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2003
- Messages
- 5
Software 2-tone decoder
http://comtekk.us/two-tone-decoder.htm
Works great. Worth the money in my opinion.
They also have a tone generator...
http://comtekk.us/two-tone-decoder.htm
Works great. Worth the money in my opinion.
They also have a tone generator...
My department uses Motorola pagers and I opened mine to determine which tone frequencies are used. Here is the printing found on the two reeds in my pager:
Motorola Permacode Active Filter
P15 1180.0 Hz Malaysia 9038 C
P22 1598.0 Hz Malaysia 9030 C
I'm confused -- 1180.0 Hz isn't one of the Quick Call 2 frequencies presented in the (presumably) complete list linked to above. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks,
Cav
Motorola Permacode Active Filter
P15 1180.0 Hz Malaysia 9038 C
P22 1598.0 Hz Malaysia 9030 C
I'm confused -- 1180.0 Hz isn't one of the Quick Call 2 frequencies presented in the (presumably) complete list linked to above. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks,
Cav
MetalCarnage
Member
shane_oneal said:
A little overpriced lol, that software probably took like 1-2 days to write, lol
buildintechie
Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2007
- Messages
- 6
I'm a firefighter in Durham, NC...and my department is currently out of pagers...I've got a BCT15 (plan to use it to monitor the Ops channels enroute to a scene), but would like to use the Fire Tone-Out feature as well.
In one of our stations, there was a device in one of the bunk rooms (that didnt have a station buzzer) made by Federal Signal that toned out when we got a call. I turned it over and it had the following information:
RF:154.13
A/B Tones
391.1, 358.9 (1-3)
391.1, 741.3(1-3)
I've added this information to my scanner, and have not been able to get it to tone out when my department is paged.
I entered the following:
Tone-Out 1:
Frequency: 154.13
Modulation: Auto
Attenuator: Off
Tone A 391.100
Tone B 358.900
Delay: Infinite
Tone-Out 2:
Frequency: 154.13
Modulation: Auto
Attenuator: Off
Tone A 391.100
Tone B 741.300
Delay: Infinite
Thoughts/suggestions on what i might have done wrong or could try to change?
Thanks
In one of our stations, there was a device in one of the bunk rooms (that didnt have a station buzzer) made by Federal Signal that toned out when we got a call. I turned it over and it had the following information:
RF:154.13
A/B Tones
391.1, 358.9 (1-3)
391.1, 741.3(1-3)
I've added this information to my scanner, and have not been able to get it to tone out when my department is paged.
I entered the following:
Tone-Out 1:
Frequency: 154.13
Modulation: Auto
Attenuator: Off
Tone A 391.100
Tone B 358.900
Delay: Infinite
Tone-Out 2:
Frequency: 154.13
Modulation: Auto
Attenuator: Off
Tone A 391.100
Tone B 741.300
Delay: Infinite
Thoughts/suggestions on what i might have done wrong or could try to change?
Thanks
buildintechie said:
Set the Modulation type for both tone sets to "FM", for some reason the BC15 does not work well when set to "Auto".
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