Sonoma County Fire Dispatch Tone-outs

[Cocobleach]

Hello. First time posting here and I am not that educated on everything yet. I’ve been monitoring local departments for a few years now but recently I got more involved with the purchase of an HPII instead of only relying on my 536HP which is mounted in my car. I have a question regarding toneouts, if that’s what these even are. I am monitoring Sonoma County fire dispatch from California. My understanding is that one center takes calls and dispatches for many different departments throughout Sonoma County.
So, why do they send two beeps and give a less detailed description of the incident, then send out very quick tones then give more details? They do it a lot and sometimes they have traditional 2-tones and those faster ones in the same call back to back. These quicker ones are something i can not find anywhere on the internet and I’m wondering if there are pagers that can decipher these. I’m attaching links to some examples I have heard. Thank you to anyone who has information.

 

[ramal121]

When a call first comes in dispatch will send a "pre alert" for the department that is monitoring the channel. This is a heads up a call is coming in. When the necessary information is acquired then the pager tones are sent followed by the full announcement. Sometimes a response to whatever the call is about is not needed and dispatch will come up with " XXX disregard pre alert".

Sonoma county uses a mash of paging formats. Two tone QCII, DTMF which is a fast dial of four digits, and 5 tone which is more of a european thing. Not all manufacturers support the 5 tone format. 5 tone is the very fast braaap that is in your videos.

 

[Cocobleach]

When a call first comes in dispatch will send a "pre alert" for the department that is monitoring the channel. This is a heads up a call is coming in. When the necessary information is acquired then the pager tones are sent followed by the full announcement. Sometimes a response to whatever the call is about is not needed and dispatch will come up with " XXX disregard pre alert".

Sonoma county uses a mash of paging formats. Two tone QCII, DTMF which is a fast dial of four digits, and 5 tone which is more of a european thing. Not all manufacturers support the 5 tone format. 5 tone is the very fast braaap that is in your videos.

Amazing. Thank you for clearing that up for me. So if I pay attention, it seems that I will hear only certain agencies using the 5-tone while others with have the 4 quick dial and others will have 2-tone? We had a huge fire out here about 6 years ago and I’m shocked they haven’t shown any attempt to move to a trunked system like the East Bay RCS. Anyway thanks for your response. You cleared it up for me.

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