Paging question with silent scan

[swwifty]

This thread is very helpful, but I'm still a bit confused.

I have a Unication G3, which has an analog channel for two tones. I only want to hear that channel when a specific tone is dropped. I have two other frequencies/channels that I'd like to hear all the traffic on.

It looks like silent scan does the trick for this (although I have not been able to confirm on the analog channel yet, cause the tones it is listening for hasn't dropped yet) and I'm able to hear all the traffic on the other channels like expected.

The only strange thing is, there is no priority scan in this mode, so if traffic is coming in on the other channels I could miss a page entirely.

Hopefully my question makes sense.

 

[w2lie]

if traffic is coming in on the other channels I could miss a page entirely.

You could miss the page entirely, but according to my conversations with Unication the pager will not sit and silently monitor a voice channel in silent scan mode. If the pager does not sense a tone, it will resume silent scan.

The other option is to lower your tone timer settings so that it takes less of a tone length in order to verify that the tone is valid. Ex, Fast Plectron has faster timing than Motorola. However, sometimes this shortened timer could cause false alerts if there are other tones on that same frequency that could confuse the pager.

I have my G1 setup to monitor 8 departments on their own dispatch frequencies. This means there are 8 channels in my scan list. Each dispatch channel has a few tones (Chief, General, Rescue, etc) and I haven't noticed any issues. However, most of the time my G1 just sits on a single channel selective call for the FD that covers my town.

 

[swwifty]

You could miss the page entirely, but according to my conversations with Unication the pager will not sit and silently monitor a voice channel in silent scan mode. If the pager does not sense a tone, it will resume silent scan.

The other option is to lower your tone timer settings so that it takes less of a tone length in order to verify that the tone is valid. Ex, Fast Plectron has faster timing than Motorola. However, sometimes this shortened timer could cause false alerts if there are other tones on that same frequency that could confuse the pager.

I have my G1 setup to monitor 8 departments on their own dispatch frequencies. This means there are 8 channels in my scan list. Each dispatch channel has a few tones (Chief, General, Rescue, etc) and I haven't noticed any issues. However, most of the time my G1 just sits on a single channel selective call for the FD that covers my town.

Thanks for the info, but I don't think that's the behavior I'm seeing with my G3.

To be clear, I have a channel that is in silent scan mode. One of the frequencies in there is associated to only go off with specific two tones. The other two analog frequencies are programmed to receive all traffic on them.

If I talk on one of the analog frequencies I will hear the traffic the entire time i'm talking. Same with the other analog frequency. The channel with the tones associated, I don't hear traffic on even when I talk on it (I'm assuming because its behaving expectedly and not opening the squelch unless it hears the proper tones).

I hope this makes sense. Some of the terminology unication uses is rather confusing in their software.

 

[w2lie]

Ok, you are in NORMAL Scan mode, not Silent Scan mode. Think of silent scan as "selective call scan".

Then you are correct, the pager would miss a page if it is monitoring a frequency that you can actively hear. You may be able to put in Priority scan, but it might miss tones if you aren't on the dispatch frequency long enough to get a full sample of the tone set.

 

[swwifty]

Ok, you are in NORMAL Scan mode, not Silent Scan mode. Think of silent scan as "selective call scan".

Then you are correct, the pager would miss a page if it is monitoring a frequency that you can actively hear. You may be able to put in Priority scan, but it might miss tones if you aren't on the dispatch frequency long enough to get a full sample of the tone set.

I'm actually in silent scan mode. I had the issue previously in priority scan, where I'd hear all the traffic on my fire channel regardless of the tones being associated with. This is why I was trying to determine a mode where it could still scan the frequency with the tones, and then hear all the traffic on the other frequencies in that channel.

I guess there's not a way to do this like I expected?

 

[w2lie]

I think the problem here is this thread has now been highjacked from the Op's initial question.
And I'm not clear now on what you are asking.

How exactly is your pager setup? Are all 3 of these different frequencies you are monitoring in a single scan list? Or are they in 3 different positions?

You can email me the code plug if you'd like and I'll take a look when I have some free time. I'll need to know the exact zone/key position you are referring to with this issue. phil@eastcoastpagers.com
I may or may not be able to review this today.

 

[swwifty]

I think the problem here is this thread has now been highjacked from the Op's initial question.
And I'm not clear now on what you are asking.

How exactly is your pager setup? Are all 3 of these different frequencies you are monitoring in a single scan list? Or are they in 3 different positions?

You can email me the code plug if you'd like and I'll take a look when I have some free time. I'll need to know the exact zone/key position you are referring to with this issue. phil@eastcoastpagers.com
I may or may not be able to review this today.

I can start another thread if its necessary. I was just trying to not create a duplicate thread.

It's 3 frequencies in a single scan list. They are NOT different knob positions.

Sorry if I'm not clear, the terminology Unication uses is rather confusing.