BCD436HP/BCD536HP: Two-tone decode on an EDACS analog talkgroup

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902

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Hi everybody,

I currently live in an area that's covered by an analog and Provoice hybrid EDACS system. They have two analog dispatch talkgroups for sections of the county, and there's a two-tone decoder wired to a control station at every firehouse. It works pretty nicely for them.

So, I figured I'd like to try something: I wanted to set up my 436HP so that it would tone out when my local fire station is alerted for a call. I also wanted the fire officer call-out.

What I did was go into Sentinel, then program each of the frequencies of the trunked system along with both sets of tones and the alert tone/light options. I waited much of the weekend to see how it would work, and right before this post, the officer tone went off. And my scanner didn't.

I know this isn't a common way of doing things and I've got no expectations from Uniden whatsoever to make this work. It would be nice, though.

My question is, has anyone actually set up tone-out on an EDACS trunked system and had it work? There are 16 channels in this system, and each of those 16 channels is programmed up with the tones and what to do once the tones go off. But they don't.

Do they only work in conventional? I probably wouldn't want to scan the system in conventional as I don't know which channel the alerting tone would come through... unlike Unications, this system can assign any valid voice channel.

Thank you!
 

UPMan

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Tone-Out Standby will only monitor on one RF frequency. Unless the tone-out happened to occur on that frequency, the scanner would not be expected to detect it.
 

902

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Tone-Out Standby will only monitor on one RF frequency. Unless the tone-out happened to occur on that frequency, the scanner would not be expected to detect it.
Thank you for the reply, Paul. They actually do. The EDACS system operates on 16 frequencies. So, in the Tone Out tab in Sentinel, I programmed No. 0 - No. 15 to each of the 16 frequencies of the trunked system, FM, then Tone A and Tone B. From No. 16 - No. 31, I duplicate the list of frequencies again, and have the other A and B tones for the officers.

When dispatch keys on the talkgroup to send the two-tone sequence, it always ends up on one of those 16 RF frequencies.
 

UPMan

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The scanner itself does not scan the RF frequencies. It is going to sit on the frequency programmed into the slot you left the scanner in when you went into Tone-Out standby mode.

Unless I missed something and you have 15 scanners, each set to a different RF frequency. :)
 

902

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The scanner itself does not scan the RF frequencies. It is going to sit on the frequency programmed into the slot you left the scanner in when you went into Tone-Out standby mode.

Unless I missed something and you have 15 scanners, each set to a different RF frequency. :)

I got 'cha now! No, just the one scanner, but parked on a talkgroup and scanning the RF channels. Thank you!!!!!
 
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