Motorola Minitor 6

[jmr3865]

well, the 5's were a nightmare, Has anybody heard anything about the 6's coming out. What would you like to see in the 6 besides a pager that actually works!?

I'd like to see an amp charger that works and the pager be a little skinnier. I'd like to go back to the AAA batts too.

[yardbirdjr]

I wish they would make it skinner and make with more than two channels.

I wish Motorola would design a trunking pager, since the big rush is one to do trunking

David

[firetech792]

I think M should just give up in the voice paging business.
Hey Kenwood......when is your engineers gonna start designing something that will work?

[jgilkey]

I'd love to see one with a text display on it. That way call details (street address, call type, etc.) could show up right on the pager.

[tvsjr]

Text display? They make them - they're called alpha pagers.

As for the Kenwood comment... Stan, are you listening? There's a huge market for pagers... and it's not going away anytime soon... hint hint hint.

[nmfire10]

1. The V is no disaster. It is leaps and bounds better than the III and IV.
2. If you want to listen to more than 2 channels, get a scanner. Pagers are for paging, not to be a small scanner
3. There is definately no big rush to go to trunking
4. If you want an alpha pager, get an alpha pager.

[Balki]

1. The V is no disaster. It is leaps and bounds better than the III and IV.
2. If you want to listen to more than 2 channels, get a scanner. Pagers are for paging, not to be a small scanner
3. There is definitely no big rush to go to trunking
4. If you want an alpha pager, get an alpha pager.

I have to agree totally. In 33 years of firefighting I have used everything from the old Plectron to the Minitor 1, 2, 3, & 4's (still can't afford the 5's yet). I have yet to get a truly bad one.

[firefighter13669]

I have never had an issue with any of them i have used 2 3 4 5.They could make it lighter weight,skinner (less bulky) and go back to triple a batteries.

[firetrux]

yeah i think an extra space for another battery can be good .. then again .. a pager is a pager not a radio.

[pluto1914]

I would just ike to see PL/DPL capabilities!

[Jim1348]

I am giving some thought to buying a new or used pager. Is there a clear winner here? It will be for VHF high band, I would like at least two RF channels, and would prefer to have it be PC programmable. I don't want to deal with crystals or reeds, so I guess that means Minitor III, IV, or V. Also, PL will not be required. What about the other choices out there? Are the Apollo, Cobalt-AV, SCA, Swissphone, and US Alert good alternatives or are they a waste of time?

[tvsjr]

I am giving some thought to buying a new or used pager. Is there a clear winner here? It will be for VHF high band, I would like at least two RF channels, and would prefer to have it be PC programmable. I don't want to deal with crystals or reeds, so I guess that means Minitor III, IV, or V. Also, PL will not be required. What about the other choices out there? Are the Apollo, Cobalt-AV, SCA, Swissphone, and US Alert good alternatives or are they a waste of time?

Minitor V will fill the bill nicely. Despite all the whining about them, I've had pretty good luck out of the M5s... got about 50 in the field right now.

I have far too much experience with the SCA Sceptar... total and complete pieces of shite.
I've heard the Swissphones are pretty fragile.

[Mikey]

You'll never see Motorola go back to AAA batteries in there Pagers, i talked with one of the engineers at Mother M and he said that that was one of the biggest repairs seen at the paging depot was when customers would put regular Alkaline batteries in there pager and then forget and pop it in the charger overnight.

[yardbirdjr]

I have a Minitor V finally.

The only problem I had with the first one was the volume knob was very loose and quit viberating when in vib mode.

I sent it back to the depot and when it came back it was in great shape. The volume knob is tight and alerts great.

The only problem is now. I wish it was as small as the Minitor IV. That was a nice small pager

David

[BurnCe]

Anyone heard anything about a P25 option?

[sourapple613]

Anyone heard anything about a P25 option?

First off.... Why?
P25 conventional I assume you mean?
I just dont see a huge market for it. Does anyone else see a big market for it?

[tvsjr]

They make one. It's called the XTS4000.

[BurnCe]

Well if they did release a model that had it I am in for about 120 units plus I could stop toning out on both platforms

I would love to get my hands on an xts4000! Someday maybe

[tvsjr]

OK, let's say Moto was planning to build a P25 pager.

First, you're currently "toning out" on both platforms. I assume this means you're broadcasting your two-tone signalling and voice over the P25 platform, right? P25 mungs steady tones - fact of life with a lossy vocoder. So you can forget using the two-tone for alert. So how do you do it?
Second, have you noticed the battery size vs. battery life for the XTS portables compared to older models? Jedi batteries were typically 1200-1500mAh. Put a 1500mAh battery on an XTS and compare the battery life between the two radios. You'd need a significantly larger battery on the pager to deal with P25 decoding. Ask one of the lucky owners of an XTS4000 what their battery life is like, and consider that their batteries are running twice the voltage and more than twice the capacity of the current M5 battery. Also, the M5s do tricks, such as switching the receiver off to save battery. With P25, you're going to have to decode every transmission looking for your sel-call ID. If you're talking trunking, not P25 conventional, then you're monitoring the control channel 24x7.
Third, you realize that the IMBE CAI flash option for the ASTRO/ASTRO25 platform costs more than a complete Minitor V, right? It's already hard enough to justify ~$450 for a tricked-out Minitor V. Do you think your agency is prepared to drop a grand a pager?
Fourth, why? It's typically not a major burden to keep an analog channel (VHF or UHF) up and running for paging purposes. It doesn't even have to be repeated - just a high power base station or base stations (simulcast). A drop in the bucket compared to that P25 system.

If .gov ever succeeds in pushing everyone to P25 (or some other digital standard), expect to see the death of voice pagers, supplanted with data devices such as alpha pagers, Blackberry, etc. (all crappy options IMO, but why let common sense factor into any .gov decision?)

I would be very surprised to ever see a P25-capable Minitor.

[kj4bnd]

The only reason i would see M coming out with the 6.. Maybe is to shrink it back down to size.. I'm now unfortunately used to bulky radios (XTS4000 and the M5) but maybe one day..

My other option to my M5 is my Icom 3021 VHF Portable. I have a channel setup to act just as a pager and I transmit inhibited it. It works ok but then it is double the size of an M5 and if you scan through an entire bank you will miss a tone out. The only plus is having the VHF Available should i need it..

Our county did disable the two way comms from VHF to 800 so 800 users cant hear the vhf users but we can hear them thanks soley to the fact they have to utilize the VHF System for our pagers.

Oh well maybe one day communications interoperability will mean just that..

[RFguy]

The word that I heard from IWCE was that the Minitor 5 is the end of the line. There will not be a Minitor 6. End of story.

[ai4ui]

Too bad they are ending tone & voice paging simply because the vendor says so...

[123]

I think the problem is since everyone is pushing for Digital only comms how are you going to "properly" encode QCII over the air? You can't. So you have to create something to fit the digital voice world. I think this is their mind set. What will they create? Thats yet to be seen...

Will I miss analog fire tone outs? Sure, I think most firefighter's would agree with me on that.

Heck, I still have my old Station tones on cassette tape from 1994! I need to convert that tape to DVD someday