UHF receiver / pager for local PD?

[Gilligan]

There's a local police department that's very close to my home. They are a small jurisdiction about 6 square miles in area and have a very powerful UHF repeater w/ PL tone. I have seen those fire pagers that are often issued to volunteer departments and I know that they make them for UHF as well. What kind of reception could I expect on them in close proximity to the repeater (5 miles or less) and about how much would I expect to pay to get one and get it programmed? It would sure be nice to just have a little pager to listen to my local PD instead of carrying around a scanner.

So far the only things I've found are the Minitor and Apollo series pagers and they are pretty expensive. I'm talking about something cheaper than that -- nothing fancy.

 

[rescue128]

it would work great actually, find a minotor 3, those can be had for a reasonable price. mintor 4's are much better though in my opinion, but you will pay a little more. programming can be had at any local radio shop or a local ham that is a firefighter in the area if you know any.

 

[nexus]

Or a Motorola Keynote... I agree with Rescue128, being in a small area and having a repeater provided it has good output power you should have no problem using a small pager to receive them. Check ebay, and local hamfests in your area.

 

[rescue128]

most of us around here have 2ch minitor 4/5's. one channel on county page, the other on county fire, that way we dont have to carry our radio in the grocery store, gas station etc...

 

[nozzlenut83]

Check out this site: http://www.pwservice.com/pagers/firepagers/used_pagers/used_pagers.aspx

They offer some used pagers. A good choice for you might be the "Monitor Only" Keynote since you do not need or want to pay for tone alerting. They run about $135 programmed which is certainly cheaper than a Minitor III or IV.

Hope this helps
nozzlenut83

 

[SCANdal]

Gill,

For some comparasion shopping, don't forget G & G Communications either http://www.iinc.com/ggcomm/ Gerry should be able to put together a decent package consisting of the pager (on the correct rx freq), battery, and charger for you to fit the bill just right.

SCANdal