Minitor 3 pagers used for ARES and Skywarn

[KC8UWK]

Has anyone used a Minitor 3 pager on the 2 meter ham band for a pager with ARES or Skywarn? If so how did it work? Any advise?

[W4WTF]

Why bother, when most amatuer 2m transcievers can do DTMF paging, cost less, let you talk back, don't require overpriced software and interface to function, and don't require a paging encoder to activate?

[KC8UWK]

Well one reason is hospitals. We did a desaster drill in my county last year and found out that one the new equipment ther hospital installed can be taken off line by any radio. The hospital does have a in house cell phone system but there having problems with that. So If the ham radio operator needs to get a message to someone they have to physicly leave the radio room (on the other side of the hospital) and walk to the person. Having a minitor pager with select call and monitor will at least keep the operator up to speed on stuff. The hospital even makes the Police offiers turn there radios off.
Another reason is that to use a HT with DTMF tone alert means using the radio itself. If your battery is abut to die when you get a call do to monitoring then your out of luck. So power conserving is another.
Third would you want to carry a brick or a antenna jabbing you in the side 24 7. Its small.
Another problem is that alpha pagers sometimes dont work. and in emergencys like 9-11 cell phones where useless.

But thank you for the reply.

[wx4cbh]

Has been done and is possible for you IF the repeater controller is capable of activating external functions with a specific DTMF input. Program the controller to accept a particular multi-digit DTMF tone sequence and in turn it can activate a Comm Spec two-tone encoder. Some of the controllers can handle several external functions, i.e. several tones, and other controllers can generate the tones themselves if programmed to do so. There's also the possibility of adding a DTMF decoder to the station to activate the two-tone encoder in the event the RC won't do it.

[KC8UWK]

Right Now Our Skywarn Director who is also a Fire Comand Officer and I have a HT 1250s. They can be set up to page out a two tone audio tone.
Any other advise? Does anyone do this on there repeater? Please?

[wx4cbh]

It's been done in the Triad (NC) Skywarn area and is done elsewhere in the state, so I hear. Problem on this end is that few want to purchase, modify, and carry the pager in addition to the HTs, so it doesn't get used like it could be. I personally use a JT1000, an HT1250, Maratracs and Spectras to work the USAR and amateur frequencies and, yes, they all are programmed for the Quick-Call stuff. I use it and like it.

[Susan157]

We Have Setup The Motorola Vhf
HT1000 To Do The Signalling.

We Use The Side Button To Tx The
Signal And We Can Decode Also.

It Was A Test When We Needed A Number
Of Personnel To Be Kept Informed Of A Situation So
The Question That Was Asked. Could We Use The
Weather Radios For Information?

The HT1000 Worked Very Well As Encoders.

[KC8NIY]

OK, I'm looking to do this exact same thing. I'm looking for a paging solution for our leadership personell such that they don't have to carry HT's around all day solely for voice paging.

Program the controller to accept a particular multi-digit DTMF tone sequence and in turn it can activate a Comm Spec two-tone encoder

I'm not familiar with how the Comm Spec encoders work, so my question is this: When you generate the DTMF into the RC, does it latch the encoder immediately? If I utilize this option, the DTMF will be generated via mic keypad, and I want to know if I have to unkey for the QC tones to be generated or if they will be sent along with any other inherant TX audio following the initial DTMF string.

The simplest way to achieve my goal is to utilize a desktop QCII encoder. Unfortunately that is not an option. It must be achieved by using DTMF to trip a QCII encoder as mentioned above.

[kd5wyu]

Many modern repeater controllers are capable of generating Quik Call II tones without the external encoder. I can say for sure the Link Communications and ACC controllers that I have manuals on hand for are capable of this. It is probably worth checking with the trustee to see what hardware the repeater consists of.

(the Link is a RLC-Club and the ACC is an old RC-85)

Com-Spec has a nice website at http://www.com-spec.com/ but it appears they only have a desktop QCII encoder now.

They have purchased Selectone, and this product should do what you want if your controller can't do it.
http://www.com-spec.com/selectone/npb/s ... st804a.htm

(it works by grounding the inputs in a specific sequence, easily doable with external logic outputs from the repeater controller)

73,
Brent