Text Alert Pagers

[indiana1983]

Ok, question, I am wanting to know if I would buy an Apollo text pager that if it would work for the Bartholomew County, Indiana area. According to their website all you do is enter the frequency you want and then "cap codes" I am unsure what those mean, however am wondering if that is the same thing as pager tone reads for the motorola mintor fire pagers. Also does anyone know how I would be able to get these cap codes that they talk about. I am wanting to order one of these pagers so I can program it for Bartholomew County Fire. I am on the fire dept and am looking for better ways to be able to monitor county fire dispatch. I am very serious in getting one of these pagers so am an looking for instructions.

Any help would be appericated.


Thanks

 

[SCPD]

Most of these types of pagers you can not just change the frequency it is burnt into the chip of the pager from the manufacture and the cap codes are basically an electronic serial number to identify the pager you would not be able lets say pick one up on eBay or Craig’s list and make it work some of the newer ones can be programmed from a computer with software from the manufacture

 

[AK9R]

Most of the alphanumeric pagers available to the general public operate in the 900 MHz band. This is determined by the paging service that you sign up with. The paging service also uses the cap code of the pager to direct pages to your pager. Bottom line, an alphanumeric pager is probably going to be useless unless you subscribe to a paging service.

Your fire tone out Minitor operates on the frequency your department uses for FTO, which is probably around 154 MHz.

 

[indiana1983]

Text alerts

ok I know that the Apollo pagers can be programmed to the frequency you want but my question was after that how would i be able to get the texts. The pagers get text of calls instead audio like a mintor pager or scanner.

 

[AK9R]

You have to subscribe to a paging service. The paging service will provide you with a phone number that is to be dialed by a telephone modem controlled by either a standalone console or a program running on a computer. Once the modem connects to the paging service's modem, the text message is delivered using your account number. This is known as the TAP, The paging service then broadcasts the page via their transmitters. Your pager listens on the paging service's frequency and when it hears a message for your pager (as identified by the CAP code), it displays the text on the pager's screen.

The other methods of getting pages into the system are SNPP or WCTP. Either one is an Internet-based protocol so there's no need for a modem to dial the paging service. In SNPP or WCTP, the paging service provides you with a web address for the SNPP or WCTP server. The text message gets delivered to the paging server then goes out to their transmitters.

Like I said before, you have to subsribe to a paging service. I used to be an Airtouch customer, but that was years ago. Indiana Paging Network may still be out there, too. Now that most cell phones can do SMS text messaging, the market for text pagers is drying up. I finally quit carrying a pager and now just get everything on my cell phone.

 

[indiana1983]

text alert

Thanks i am wanting to know if i can program my current county fire frequency and be able to get text alerts. Thats my question. Any help is nice.

 

[Citywide173]

Text, or alphanumeric paging is entirely different from the tone reeds found in the Motorola pagers. Unless your dispatch center is utilizing a two way alphanumeric paging system (which would be on a different frequency than operations), this will not work for what you want to do.

Capcodes are "digital addresses" that act in the same manner as a PL tone does on a voice frequency. When a page is sent that has the capcode matching the one(s) in your pager, it accepts teh message, while rejecting those that do not match. While there are voice to text programs out there, technology has not become advanced enough to do this in the application you are looking for.

 

[AK9R]

Ok, question, I am wanting to know if I would buy an Apollo text pager that if it would work for the Bartholomew County, Indiana area.

Are the dispatch consoles in Bartholomew County sending text pages or are they sending FTO tones? You will have to find out.

According to their website all you do is enter the frequency you want and then "cap codes" I am unsure what those mean, however am wondering if that is the same thing as pager tone reads for the motorola mintor fire pagers.

No, text pager CAP codes and FTO tones are not the same thing. A text pager's CAP code is a digital "address" that the paging service uses to identify pages as being for your pager. The CAP code and the text message are sent from the paging service's transmitter as a stream of digital data. FTO tones are audio tones that simply open the squelch on a receiver so the listener can hear the voice transmission that follows the FTO tones.

Alphanumeric text pagers = digital data
Voice pagers using FTO = analog voice

 

[NeonEMT319]

the 911 center or whoever dispatches for your dept should have the cap codes required as well as pagers that they issue the fire Dept. may issue them just depending on preference either way you will have to contact the dispatch center for the cap codes and frequencies and most likely they won't give them to you but instead program it there selves.

 

[W9NES]

154.310 is your County Fire Dispatch frequency from the Database for what you need.I do have contact that will sell you a voice only pager but will not get alpha numeric messages.If you are intrestred please send me a pm.Thank You.Very Best Reguards,Tim DeLong W9NES *Monitoring all of Metro Indianapolis/Marion County and all of Central Indiana*