phone over RF?

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petergriffin

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I was wondering why i hear from time to time conventional government frequencies, a "ringing" like you would hear if you placed a call. then some one would answer and the person would say reporting for duty etc blah blah. or other time it seemed like the person is checking their voicemail... what is that? and what are they using to activate the frequency? (a phone, radio??) why can't they just call in via a regular phone? and can anyone elaborate on this type of communication
 

Grog

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They are likely using a radio that is patched to the telephone system. Used to be much more common but it still around. I used to use one for my job from 1995-1999 when cellphone rates were not as cheap as they are today, and it was free for me (as my company paid the flat rate for the service).

We could also switch to that channel and receive calls as well. It was a shared business use repeater and all the businesses had their own code. Someone would call the same telephone number and then punch in a code, that would send a two-tone page that would tell our radio that we had an incoming call. We would enter our cide via the DTMF mic and talk to whoever was calling us.

The downside to that shared system was we had to sit on that channel if we were expecting a call, so I would leave the HT on our primary repeater frequency and set the mobile on the phone patch channel.


There are quite a few ham radio repeaters that still have an autopatch setup.
 

mrweather

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Years ago there was a police department near where I lived that used such a system. Many times only one officer would be on duty and whenever he left the station (leaving it empty) any phone calls coming in would "ring" on their single-channel radio system. He could also place calls from the cruiser if need be.

There really was no dispatch per se.

I know lots of amateur radio repeaters that have autopatch for making calls; I don't know many that allow incoming ones.
 

Grog

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I know lots of amateur radio repeaters that have autopatch for making calls; I don't know many that allow incoming ones.

Me neither, but I have not heard a autopatch used on a ham repeater in almost ten years so I'm not the best judge with that.
 

Buttonville

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MR WEATHER : Growing up , I recall a small PD doing that as well...after 6 PM one car had a phone in it , and the officer would answer all incoming calls, was rather funny when drunks called in!
 

DaveH

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Years ago there was a police department near where I lived that used such a system. Many times only one officer would be on duty and whenever he left the station (leaving it empty) any phone calls coming in would "ring" on their single-channel radio system. He could also place calls from the cruiser if need be.

There really was no dispatch per se.

Haha, reminds me of the Kemptville PD (south of Ottawa) who operated exactly
like this on their 159.315 repeater (long gone, since OPP took over).

Some of these systems use simplex i.e. operate half-duplex, which can be a bit
confusing to the party on the phone side (who may not understand how the system
works).

Dave
 
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mrweather

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Me neither, but I have not heard a autopatch used on a ham repeater in almost ten years so I'm not the best judge with that.
My club still has an autopatch at its 2m machine. I use it on occasion usually if a) the battery is dead on my cellphone, or b) I forget to bring it in the first place!

Yeah, it's a hamsexy way to keep in touch but it works.
 

Grog

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My club still has an autopatch at its 2m machine. I use it on occasion usually if a) the battery is dead on my cellphone, or b) I forget to bring it in the first place!

Yeah, it's a hamsexy way to keep in touch but it works.



At the old company I worked for, we had two repeaters we leased space on. A regular one for our ops (and after hours we were the only ones on there) and the other one for making the autopatch calls.


I had a spare car one night and the mobile radio did not have a DTMF mic, so I held the microphone to the earpeace of my old motorola DPC550 cellphone and keyed the mic while entering the tones to make the call. That was when you'd get 30 minutes for $30 and I sure was not going to burn them up for the company, hence me using the autopatch whenever I could :lol:


That's a Hamsexy autopatch
smileybaby.gif
 

RobKB1FJR

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Don't forget campus police/security departments some of which still use phone patches in place of a dispatcher or night time work.
 

mrweather

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I had a spare car one night and the mobile radio did not have a DTMF mic, so I held the microphone to the earpeace of my old motorola DPC550 cellphone and keyed the mic while entering the tones to make the call. That was when you'd get 30 minutes for $30 and I sure was not going to burn them up for the company, hence me using the autopatch whenever I could :lol:


That's a Hamsexy autopatch
smileybaby.gif
Yep that's Hamsexy. But I thought you were going to whistle the DTMF into the mic!

I was going to add a c) in which I use the autopatch when it's a long distance call for me to make on my cellphone. There are certain areas of the GTA that are long distance to call from one city to another but I can get into the repeater just fine.
 
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