Batboard

Our department is dispatched by the county, and we would like to be able to have a backup paging system that we can use. Are there any of the Jedi series radios that do paging such as the HT1000, MT or MTS2000 that will do paging. If not, what is a good alternative? We would also like a paging terminal maybe working with one of our truck radios that we could page with. Some time ago, a truck I worked around had a radio & a paging terminal mounted above it with the encoder pad etc. I believe it was a GM300 that would do tones. We're basically just looking for a couple of inexpensive emergency backups for when the county dispatch terminal goes down (as it did for about 48 hours last week). Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Craig

The Waris radios will encode quick call.

Almost anything made by Kenwood will encode QC2 as well.

If I was looking for a backup in case the county fails, I'd contemplate the repeater system failing as well. A 110-watt mobile at your firehouse with an antenna on the roof or on a short tower, programmed to transmit on the repeater output (only for use when the repeater is down) would allow you to set off most of your FFs pagers (assuming your district isn't huge) without any infrastructure.

Our county is dispatched via two channels, fire one & fire two. Fire one is a repeater channel fire two is not. We are dispatched on fire two (non repeat). Our service area is very small & would be able to be dispatched from our station and would not need a great deal of wattage to reach everyone in the town. What mobile would be a good inexpensive choice to page from the station & what portable would be a good inexpensive choice to page from? Also, which series radios are the waris, Ht750,1250, 1550?
Thanks
Craig

Craig,

There are any number of radios that can do what you want starting around $275 and up or a good used Maxtrac or GM300 would do it. Icom makes a great little mobile, F121, that does fine at around $325 and portables as well. Be glad to help you find something. Give me a call, Danny Smith, Eastern Arkansas Communications in Forrest City, 870-633-3294

how about the astro spectra? i have a base station mic which looks like it can alert QC2 tones but i have no idea if it can actually be set up to do it?

What activates your pagers now? QC2?

My Maxtrac has QC2 encoding capability for pagers and MDC alerting for radios by default. With the MDC alerting, I can page individual radios, a group of radios or all radios.

A county fire system in my area has control stations at each firehouse that are capable of doing countywide paging. I remember when severe weather hit a couple years ago, something got hit either the repeater system or dispatch. All dispatching was then sent to each station and each station did their own tone outs.