Patriot2120
Member
How would I use Radio Reference to find the POSCAG or FLEX frequencies in my area, Sarasota Florida? Thanks.
POSCAG or FLEX
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Paging is not normally shown on FCC records in an easily searchable format so asking in your states forum and mentioning your city may get you the best answers. Post in the Florida forum and mention Sarasota in your post.
Probably best to click the "Report" link below you post here and ask that your post be moved to the Florida forum.
Be advised the monitoring and decoding of paging signals in the US is technically a federal offense under the ECPA rules.
Many don't know or believe this but it's true and follows the same rules as monitoring cordless phones that can still be monitored by a scanner.
Private company paging monitoring is legal I think. As is monitoring paging (tone-out) from fire districts that still use analog tone-out signaling.
It's basically the nations large paging carriers that are technically illegal to monitor in the US. They are still used heavily by the medical field like for hospitals and doctors.
As for POCSAG or FLEX, both still very well used.
Some paging systems actually have a form of encryption available to the end users today. Unication sells Pocsag and Flex pagers with the encryption option.
If you delve into FLEX paging, any FLEX signals above 1600 Baud (most are 3200 or 6400 today) will usually require what's called a 4-level data slicer circuit for the 4-level reason as well as to simply handle the higher baud rate. The old audio type discriminator taps usually won't work on FLex above 1600 baud. I think Pocsag can all be decoded with a discriminator tap into your computers line in but it's been years since I messed with it so things could have changed since then.
I also think I read that there may be some software today that can decode 4-level FLEX and of course POCSAG using some of the cheap SDR tuner dongles but I never messed with that.
Probably best to click the "Report" link below you post here and ask that your post be moved to the Florida forum.
Be advised the monitoring and decoding of paging signals in the US is technically a federal offense under the ECPA rules.
Many don't know or believe this but it's true and follows the same rules as monitoring cordless phones that can still be monitored by a scanner.
Private company paging monitoring is legal I think. As is monitoring paging (tone-out) from fire districts that still use analog tone-out signaling.
It's basically the nations large paging carriers that are technically illegal to monitor in the US. They are still used heavily by the medical field like for hospitals and doctors.
As for POCSAG or FLEX, both still very well used.
Some paging systems actually have a form of encryption available to the end users today. Unication sells Pocsag and Flex pagers with the encryption option.
If you delve into FLEX paging, any FLEX signals above 1600 Baud (most are 3200 or 6400 today) will usually require what's called a 4-level data slicer circuit for the 4-level reason as well as to simply handle the higher baud rate. The old audio type discriminator taps usually won't work on FLex above 1600 baud. I think Pocsag can all be decoded with a discriminator tap into your computers line in but it's been years since I messed with it so things could have changed since then.
I also think I read that there may be some software today that can decode 4-level FLEX and of course POCSAG using some of the cheap SDR tuner dongles but I never messed with that.
ecps92
Member
Search - if paging is actively in use, you will find the local frequencies rather quick
wiki.radioreference.com
Keep in mind, many of the older paging channels have been repurposed [Auctioned off for other users] in many regions
wiki.radioreference.com
Paging - The RadioReference Wiki
Keep in mind, many of the older paging channels have been repurposed [Auctioned off for other users] in many regions
Part 22 Paging Channels - The RadioReference Wiki
I lived in Orlando. 929-931 was busy. The 152ish band I believe too. PDW does a good job if you have a disc. out.
My IC-R8500 did a good job of decoding. You just have to take time and find the right settings and levels. Flex is a little finicky but once your signals decode, you'll know it. My data slicer did a good job after I built it but software does just as good really. That's once you find the right combintion of settings. Poc32 works good too.
My IC-R8500 did a good job of decoding. You just have to take time and find the right settings and levels. Flex is a little finicky but once your signals decode, you'll know it. My data slicer did a good job after I built it but software does just as good really. That's once you find the right combintion of settings. Poc32 works good too.
I can guarantee you will miss a ton of FLEX pages if you are not using a 4-level slicer and proper hardware discriminator tapped signal source if trying for 3200 and 6400 baud FLEX data from a 4-phase FLEX system. PDW will usually not even detect the C and D Flex phases without a 4-level slicer and proper hardware based discriminator tap.
Read page 4 or so in the manual. There's a chart there that shows some FLEX signals will not be detected or decoded at all without the proper data slicer and discriminator tap for the 4-level slicer. If you don't need FLEX support above 1600 baud, then a simple 2-level slicer does work fairly well but you still need unfiltered baseband audio for the discriminator source.
As you mentioned, POCSAG is much less finicky than FLEX is. Many of the older 4-phase FLEX systems operate today in just 2 phase mode. In that case, you can get by with a simpler 2-channel data slicer but FLEX systems running faster than 1600 baud will still suffer greatly without a decent and proper hardware based discriminator tap.
The loss of many high speed 4-channel FLEX systems is usually the result of the much lower demand for high capacity paging systems compared to back during the paging boom. Cell phones pretty much killed a lot of the paging systems that were in use across the country.
I think at least one of the nationwide FLEX systems may still operate at 6400 baud in 4-channel mode but like I said earlier, it's been ages since I messed with paging decoding.
The last I saw of the main paging user base here was made up mainly by those working in the medical field including the physical mechanical plants that ran the large hospitals.
a large user base mainly in the medical field like hospitals as well as equipment monitoring of the physical equipment plants used at those hospitals.
I don't recall what other common type of users still use pagers today. I think it's still primarily used by the medical field though.
Also in my area there are two VHF (152 MHz) POCSAG systems still on the air that are both very active mainly by the medical industry. The antennas are often mounted atop the areas tall hospitals. They also run with crazy powerful ERP output levels in the VHF band and will often desense many of the GRE designed scanner front ends. A notch filter for the 152 MHz segment is a necessity if you have other interests in the VHF high band and live near the hospitals. The 152 MHz band was the only VHF band still carrying VHF paging systems in my area when I stopped messing with paging. Looking between 152 to 153 MHz with a spectrum analyzer shows the two super high power signal levels
450/460 MHz paging bands are also silent here. I don't think any of the old UHF paging systems are still on the air at all in my area.
The 929 to 932 MHz range was also a very active paging band with a mix of both FLEX and POCSAG systems. Also mainly used by the medical field more than anything else. There's was also at least one nationwide paging system in the 900 MHz band that was still on the air.
I think one of the 152 MHz POCSAG systems here was also a nationwide service.
The signal levels from the 900 MHz paging systems were much less than the VHF systems.
I recall seeing encryption in use on the POCSAG systems in both the 152 and 900 MHz bands. Paging message encryption was a new thing back then. I'd guess the need for paging message encryption was driven mostly by the medical field and the type of info sent over the air. Unication does sell encryption capable pagers to this day.
I don't recall seeing encryption used on any of the FLEX systems still used in this area back in the day.
I can only assume other areas around the country are probably setup similar to this area.
As @ecps92 mentioned, many of the paging service sites and frequencies were repurposed for use by others.
Here in Missouri, the VHF sites used by our statewide Moswin P25 system make use of unused 152 MHz paging channel pairs that were used by the VHF paging market area here. That can make it very hard to receive the statewide system depending on your location and distance to the many hospitals in the area as well as the distance to some of the closest VHF P25 statewide sites. It makes for a real challenge trying to reduce the high power paging system signals without also reducing the lower power statewide P25 signals to the point the P25 signals levels are too low to decode. The easiest way to monitor the statewide systems VHF sites is to use receivers with better selectivity that are not bothered by the high power paging signals as much as some poorer performing receivers.
Some of the P25 signals and the VHF paging signals here are only separated by a couple hundred kHz or less.
Many people think paging is a dead horse today but in reality, it's often still a very active system in many urban areas.
CanesFan95
Active Member
Best bet, just search 929 - 932 MHz and see what you find. You'll get a mixture of all kinds of pages from unrelated entities. Hospitals are usually on VHF or UHF. You just have to search around. Then lookup the frequency on RR under "Frequency Search by State":
RadioReference.com - Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference Database .
CanesFan95
Active Member
4-level data slicers have always been hard to find. Won't a USB dongle work on FLEX instead of a discriminator tap?
Just for fun... if you have a P25RX receiver, you can receive POCSAG 1200 or Flex 1600/3200 with the following commands:
$ pagers 1 (enable pocsag, flex)
$ rssi 0 (disable rssi scrolling)
$ freq 931.2125 (select a pager frequency)
Wait for some pager info to scroll by. Be sure to check your local laws before you listen to something you're not supposed to.
$ pagers 1 (enable pocsag, flex)
$ rssi 0 (disable rssi scrolling)
$ freq 931.2125 (select a pager frequency)
Wait for some pager info to scroll by. Be sure to check your local laws before you listen to something you're not supposed to.
brndnstffrd
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