TK-2312 Pager Tone Code programming help.

[firemedic78]

I posted this in a reply to somebody else's thread, so I am starting a new thread that way I can hopefully get a response. I am having some issues as well with programming the A&B Tone codes. I guess my issue more or less as are on programming the codes, I have everything set up and programmed correctly, my problem is I am not receiving in the alert noise when I set my tones off from another radio. The A and B codes are correct, 445 .7/358.6 are my A&B Tone codes. Right now, I have to have two zones set up because I want a pager channel is well, and since the audio control has to be different then the zone that scans and monitors all the channels I have programmed in the radio, I had to add zone 2 as my pager zone so I could do the QT/DQT +(and) optional singling, that way everything stays muted until our tones are set off, therefore, alerting the pager section of the radio. Right now, when I set my pager tones off, weather I'm monitoring on Zone 1, or in pager mode in zone 2, when the A/B tones emit, while in zone 1, scanning my channels, or just monitoring our county fire channel, I hear the tones physically go out and I can hear a quick pause, to where an alert tone would then start if it were correctly programmed, and then my blue LED light blinks telling me it received the selective call. Then, in zone 2, with the audio control setting asQT/DQT +(and) optional signaling, I hear nothing until the second tone is emitted, the speaker unmutes, and instead of hearing the program alert tone that I have programmed in there, which I have gone under Channel edit tab and have it set as 2-tone 1, under the optional signaling tab. I also have optional signaling set as 2-tone 1, on the main Zone page where you and put all your frequencies, encode/decode, channel name, ect... then, under zone 2, I haven't set the same way as channel one under zone 1. I have the RX and TX frequencies, which are the exact same as channel one, zone 1, which is our County Fire frequency, and I have the optional signaling set to 2-tone 1, so I know my numbers are correct but for some reason I am still not getting the audible alert noise when our tones alert. Under the channel edit tab, the same as Channel 1, Zone 1, everything is set the same with the exception of the channel name which I have is pager. The optional signaling edit box is also the same, 2-tone 1. Here is the following that I have in my channel edit boxes, which are all the same for channel 1 under both zones, again, which is for my County Fire frequency and tone A&B code....
Freq Tx/Rx-154.2350
QT/DQT Decode-None
QT/DQT Encode-146.2, which is our County Fire frequency PL tone code for transmitting on our Portables and mobile radios to talk to our dispatch console.
Channel Name-PAGER
Wide/Narrow-Narrow
Transmit Power-High
Optional Signaling-2-tone 1
Busy Channel Lockout-No
PTT ID-Off( we do not have any ID numbers or names for the PTT ID for the dispatch console to see who keyed up the radio like most bigger cities have).

All that edit information is the same for both Channel One under Zone 1 and Zone 2, and Under the zone information page I have the optional signaling set for 2 -tone 1. Now, on the right side of the channel edit window, are the following boxes to check or uncheck...
Beat Shift- unchecked
Scan Add- checked
Compander-( which I do not have any idea what it is, even with the help menu) unchecked
PTT ID Pause-unchecked
PTT ID Mute-unchecked
Lone Worker-unchecked
VOX- not highlighted as an option to check or uncheck.

Under the Scrambler setting box, Voice Scrambler is unchecked and Scrambler code is not highlighted to be able to enter anything.

These are the very exact settings I have, again, for both Channel 1 in both zones. It's just simply that zone 2 is pager Channel only so it stays muted until the tones go off and then I hear the last part of my B tone, which is when the radio unmutes, and I can see the blue LED light blinking, but I do not hear the audible call alert tone that I have programmed under the common one tab of the optional feature edit. Here is what I have programmed for optional features and their prospective tabs...

Time-out Timer(TOT)-60
TOT Pre-alert(s)-off
TOT Relay time(s)-off
TOT Reset Time(s)-off
Squelch Level-5
Microphone Sensitivity-Normal
Transceiver Password-blank
Power-on Text-blank
Display Character-Channel name
MuteHold Time(ms)-600
PTT ID Pause time(s)-1
Calling Alert Tone-10
Mode Reset Timer(s)-10
Data Zone-Channel-none

Here is what is on the right side of the common 1 tab window

VOX-Unchecked

PTT Release Tone- unchecked
Data Transmit with QT/DQT-checked
Scrambler Status Memory-unchecked
Auto Backlight-checked

The following is what is under the common 2 tab under the optional features window...

Left side of window:
Zone Edit box-
Zone Name-checked
Zone Name Text Length-none

Mode Box
Clone-unchecked
Self-programming- checked
Firmware Version Information-checked

Battery box
Battery Indicator-LCD & LED
Battery Warning-Always
Battery Saver-unchecked
Battery Warning Time-checked

Right side of window:
PTT ID box:
PTT ID Type-DTMF
Beginning of transmit-blank
End of Transmit-blank
PTT Proceed Tone:
PTT Proceed Tone-unchecked
Proceed Tone Delay Time(ms)-not highlighted, but says 0
Tone box:
Power-on Tone-checked
Control Tone-checked
Alert Tone-checked
Warning Tone-checked

From there, Tab 3 and 4 are irrelevant. I know a lot of this is useless with my question, and it is a very lengthy question. Basically, I just need to know what I am doing wrong to where it is not emitting the audible alert tone that I have programmed into it when are two tones go off. Again, I know this is lengthy, but I wanted to give as detailed information as I could about this software and what I have programmed, checked and unchecked for the particular boxes, and everything else you may need to know to help me. Like I said, I finally got it to where I can at least set it to pager mode on Zone 2 and at least hear after our second tone goes off but obviously I want it to work correctly and actually emit an alert noise like I have set for alert number 10 to go off when our tones are paged out. I know it can be done so I am honestly just missing something. I don't think it has anything to do with Fleetsync and the special alert tones for that but I also don't understand Fleetsync either. I don't know if fleetsync is a trunking system or if it really has to do with this. I am just totally out of options and down to my wits end on this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. One extra question, is there a setting on here for fixed volume? On my Motorola, I have fixed alert tones to hear each tone beep loud no matter how low the volume is. Example, when I am in scan mode on my Motorola ht1250 or ht1000, no matter how low the volume is, it'll be beep louder when the priority Channel is sensing traffic, or when my pager tones are paged, and the alert is always loud, no matter how low the volume knob is. Basically the same thing as fixed alert for a Motorola pager. Something to that effect as well I am asking to know if there's an option for that on this radio so I can have the volume low but if I am scanning, I hear priority channel on my traffic it'll be loud, no matter what the volume is. Thank you very much for taking the time to read all of this and for any and all of your input. You can reply here, or email me at
firemedic78@msn.com.......I am really needing help!!!!

Chris

 

[chief21]

Hi Firemedic78 -

You've posted LOTS of information, but it's kind of hard to follow. Check out this former thread on the same subject to see if it might be of help...

http://forums.radioreference.com/kenwood-forum/258296-kenwood-tk-2312-a.html

 

[firemedic78]

I know that I have posted a lengthy post, but everything that I seen in the above thread that you just talked about I have done. All my pager codes are in there for a and b and everything that I know of is checked. All the boxes and everything that I can think of that should be right are checked. But my radio will still not alert when our pager tones go off. I can hear the. Actual tones when I am in zone 1 monitoring everything, but when I am in zone 2 with the pager frequency Channel, it opens up after the b tone emits, but all I hear is the tone itself not the alert noise that I wanted to hear. I know the radio is receiving the A&B alert tone codes because as soon as the A and B go off, the LED blinks blue and pager mode it opens up, but I don't hear the alert I just hear the end of my b tone. There's something I am not doing apparently, I don't know if it has to do with the special alert tone or not. I went into that window and you can enter up to 8 alert tones so I went to enter my A&B Tone codes in Hz, but my a tone is 445.7hz, my b tone is 358.6hz and the lowest I can go is 400 HZ. I am just asking if anybody else has any other advice on what I may be missing. Thank you.

 

[chief21]

It sounds like you might be on to something with that special alert tone setting. 400 Hz and up sounds like audio frequencies rather than pager codes and most audible alert tones are up around 1000 Hz or so. Poke around in the software and make sure that you haven't inadvertently turned something OFF that should be ON (or vice-versa).

According to what I've read, the software does have a HELP menu. Does that give you any suggestions?

(Is the Kenwood software you're using freely available online? I don't have a copy so I can't give you any more specific advice.)

 

[olderookie]

I know that I have posted a lengthy post, but everything that I seen in the above thread that you just talked about I have done. All my pager codes are in there for a and b and everything that I know of is checked. All the boxes and everything that I can think of that should be right are checked. But my radio will still not alert when our pager tones go off. I can hear the. Actual tones when I am in zone 1 monitoring everything, but when I am in zone 2 with the pager frequency Channel, it opens up after the b tone emits, but all I hear is the tone itself not the alert noise that I wanted to hear. I know the radio is receiving the A&B alert tone codes because as soon as the A and B go off, the LED blinks blue and pager mode it opens up, but I don't hear the alert I just hear the end of my b tone. There's something I am not doing apparently, I don't know if it has to do with the special alert tone or not. I went into that window and you can enter up to 8 alert tones so I went to enter my A&B Tone codes in Hz, but my a tone is 445.7hz, my b tone is 358.6hz and the lowest I can go is 400 HZ. I am just asking if anybody else has any other advice on what I may be missing. Thank you.

I believe you need to go the section that tells it to open up the audio. I don't have access to my program right now but I remember it has to know to pass audio upon receiving the tones.

 

[firemedic78]

Well unfortunately I don't know where I go to do that. I have not seen anything that suggests opening up audio, and all of my boxes are checked and everything so I am just not sure what to do. I even had a Kenwood dealer look at it and he just can't figure it out, so I guess if a certified Kenwood radio programmer can't figure it out and his advice was that there is a bug somehow in this particular radio so I'm just going to send it back and get a refund. Unless anyone else has any other advice that's what I'm going to do. Too bad because it is a nice radio however I did end up getting the wrong model anyway. What I wanted a tk-2180. I got the model number mixed up and instead of looking for a TK- 2180, I got a TK 2312 thinking that was the one I wanted that I had seen at a previous fire School's Kenwood vendor booth so I'm going to have to buy that now as well. I guess I will post an ad in the classifieds to see if anybody selling one. Thanks again. And if you have any advice on this current issue please let me know, because if I can get it to work I may keep it. I am assuming though, with 2 certified Kenwood radio technicians looking at it and trying to figure it out, when they have the experience of setting it up as a pager because that's what they do with our Kenwood radios for our fire department, and with him saying that there must be a bug with this particular radio because it's not doing what it's supposed to do, I am assuming the radio is a bad radio and somehow I just got one radio that happened to be broke.

 

[chief21]

Sounds like a plan. Better to return it now than have to deal with similar issues in the future.

 

[toastycookies]

I know that I have posted a lengthy post, but everything that I seen in the above thread that you just talked about I have done. All my pager codes are in there for a and b and everything that I know of is checked. All the boxes and everything that I can think of that should be right are checked. But my radio will still not alert when our pager tones go off. I can hear the. Actual tones when I am in zone 1 monitoring everything, but when I am in zone 2 with the pager frequency Channel, it opens up after the b tone emits, but all I hear is the tone itself not the alert noise that I wanted to hear. I know the radio is receiving the A&B alert tone codes because as soon as the A and B go off, the LED blinks blue and pager mode it opens up, but I don't hear the alert I just hear the end of my b tone. There's something I am not doing apparently, I don't know if it has to do with the special alert tone or not. I went into that window and you can enter up to 8 alert tones so I went to enter my A&B Tone codes in Hz, but my a tone is 445.7hz, my b tone is 358.6hz and the lowest I can go is 400 HZ. I am just asking if anybody else has any other advice on what I may be missing. Thank you.

The Special Alert Tone is what your 2-Tone uses to alert you of a call.


Alert Tone allows you to configure the Alert Tone number which sounds when the received 2-tone code matches the 2-tone code preconfigured for the transceiver.

Alert Tone can be configured in the Special Alert Tone window.

 

[chief21]

OK Firemedic... It looks like Toastycookies may have saved your bacon! Don't pack up that radio just yet.

Good luck.

 

[firemedic78]

The problem I am having is that when I go to the special alert tone option under the edit menu, there are 8 alert tone tabs. 1 through 8. Each one has two columns of up to so many times you can enter but none below 400 hz. I am able to type in the 440( our A tone is 445.7, B is 358.6), and it won't let me do odd number so the lowest I can go is 440. When I do that, and I have the option to test the sound, it just plays a long tone that sounds like our A tone going off. Then, when I said our phones off from my Motorola ht1250, I can hear the tones go out if I'm on Channel 1 or scanning, and if I'm in zone 2 which is set up for pager only, the alert tone that goes off is the actual A tone sound. Yes, the radio opens up now from pager mode when it is silent, but I get no special alert tone or anything like that, I just hear the A tone, where is the same tone you hear when the first set of our two tone sequence goes off. I guess I don't know how to say this without confusing anybody and myself as well, LOL. Basically, I have the alert tone 1 tab under the special alert tone configuration set to 440, which is the closest I can get to 445.7. Therefore, when my tones are transmitted through either my other portable or our County dispatch console, I hear basically our A tone repeating itself after the A/B sequence is transmitted and then the alert goes out, but it's actually the A tone sound that I am hearing as my alert. I don't think that is the proper way of doing this and I think I am still doing it wrong. Under my two tone window for edit, the decode 2-tone1, I have my one as a /b and my LED as blue and then for the alert tone I have set number 1. Transpond no. I have nothing set for long time because we do not have long tone paging in our County. And then obviously below that I have my A tone frequency put in there and my B tone frequency put in there. Then I have to seleccall LED box checked and I play with it a little with the short decode checked and unchecked as well. My auto reset box I have set for 60 and and also set it for off while playing with it and all three boxes there are checked as well. Now, the person who sold me the radio is telling me now that I am using the wrong software. Currently I am using the KPG-134D. He says I need to get the DK version in order for it to work. I don't know if he is just playing games with me because you don't want to refund my radio or what. I did order a DK version for $37, since I could not find a download for it. Again I have no idea if this is correct or not with the two different versions. He may just be playing games with me so he doesn't have to refund me the money, I don't know. He says that he's been doing this for years and that out of every radio he sold, a hundred percent of them work just fine and that I should not be having issues with mine, and that it's on my end because I am not using it the DK version. Actually, I need to correct this. He originally stated that I needed the DNK version, which after spending several minutes searching and contacting my Kenwood radio technician, there is no such thing as a DNK version and all he can think of is possibly him meaning DK version. He goes on to state that I need to go into the configuration menu and set one of my programmable function keys to call alert. Well, I can do that with the D version that I have now, under the key function setting menu, the drop-down menu for every single key that you want to set to that key, there is a call alert feature. After playing with it for several times and adding that as a feature for one of my function keys, I hit it and sure enough it didn't go to alert(pager) mode, but rather at midnight, when I hit the key that I had set for call alert, it actually set our tones off over the air. None-the-less not too many people were happy with me after setting our tones off at midnight. So obviously setting a key function to call alert is not the answer. All that did was set our pagers off with the push of a button at midnight. Again, not too many happy people when I did that at midnight. This is getting so frustrating, I just want to throw the radio and the software into the river behind my house. Everything else works just fine, all I want is to figure out how the heck to get this radio to audibly alert me when I have it in zone 2 channel 1, which is the pager mode. And as I have had to explain above, and most of you know this already, I had to create a second zone for pager mode because of the optional signaling and / or issues. I also want it to alert me when I am in zone 1, while scanning or simply just monitoring our County Fire frequency. Again, it does open up when in pager mode and when I monitoring in zone 1 it alerts but it's not an alert tone that I probably want. All it is, the A tone of our two tone sequence that basically comes on when your pagers would alert once the second tone of the two tone sequence goes off, and that's when I hear my A tone constantly go off until I reset it and the blue LED light blinks which is the way I have it programmed for the LED light. So I guess I am part way there because I can at least get it to open up when it's muted End Zone too and it makes the noise and Zone one, it's just not your typical alert noise. So I don't know if anything you would have to do with the special alert tone menu where you have to type in the hertz frequency. Again, the lowest I can go is 400, so I can't even enter our B tone in that special alert tab. What I am wanting is something similar to what is in the optional features menu where you scroll down to were calling alert is and there's like 10 options you can choose from and you can play each tone to hear which one you like. I don't know if I've confused everybody or not, I feel like I've confused myself again and again, so I just don't know what to do. Maybe this guy is right and there is two different versions that makes a difference, I don't know. I have the DK version coming, unless somebody here knows a way to download that version, and then I can do it right away and try it, but I don't think setting a function key to call alert will do me any good since I've already tried that with the D version, and all that did was pissing quite a few people off by setting all of our pagers off at midnight. So with that being said, I appreciate everybody's help thus far, but if anybody can elaborate on this alert tone thing more I would appreciate it. I seen the screenshots posted prior to this, and the screenshots are the same as what I see every time, and I am not quite sure that the special alert tone menu has anything to do with making the audio open and making an alert tone go off. again, I know you have helped me out a lot and tried to give me advice, but I think I have tried everything that you guys have told me unless I am just simply missing something. I believe I have all the boxes checked correctly and unchecked correctly as well. Again I am not sure about the special alert tone menu, I don't think that has anything to do with it because I have to enter frequencies, butt I have my call alert to number 1 under my two tone decode 2-1 tab. Again I thank you for all your help and any more help will be greatly appreciated.

Chris

 

[toastycookies]

Not to be a dick but that wall of text is very hard to read.

Could you post some pictures of your settings?

You can use the PrtScr (print screen) button near the upper row to the right side of your keyboard to take a screen shot of your computer screen and then open up Microsoft paint or any other image editor and hit CTRL + V to paste it into an image. Save as a JPEG then upload to some free site like imgur.com or whichever you fancy and then link it up in your post.

Ok. You should not have to mess with anything in the Special Alert Tone menu.

Those are audible tones that the radio plays back to YOU, the listener, they are not transmitted.

They are NOT the 2-tone you are looking for.

You need to configure everything in the 2-tone window like I pasted in my last reply.

 

[chief21]

Firemedic78 -

Dude, I think you might be making this harder than it needs to be. As I mentioned earlier, I don't have the Kenwood software. But just by looking at the screen shot provide by toastycookies, here's what I would do...

go to the Decode 2-tone 1 tab

double-check that A tone and B tone are the correct pager tones for you

select Alert Tone 1

set the Auto Reset Timer to something between 20-30 seconds

check all three boxes (LED / ALERT TONE / MONITOR)

go to the Special Alert Tone section and select a value of 1200 (or something close) for the first tone of Alert Tone 1
(note: this section has nothing to do with the actual pager tones. It is only about the frequency of the audible alert)

set the timing for the first tone of Alert Tone 1 to 2000 ms (or something close)

(you could add additional segments of audible alert if you prefer a "beep..beep..beep", or something similar, rather than a single beep)

save the file and upload it to your radio

Here's hoping this helps.

 

[chief21]

Firemedic -

I was able to get access to the KPG134D software. If the above suggestions do not work for you, you can send me your file (off-line) and I'll fill-in the necessary info and send it back to you.

John AC4JK

 

[firemedic78]

Well, I took the advice of someone who posted above me about not looking too far into this so I did just as you told me and programmed a special alert tone to 1400 and then another one to 1200 so I have a 2 tone alert sequence and it's working fine now. I appreciate everybody's help, you've all been great. Thanks again.