I promise you that this will make you laugh

[supaduparocka]

Hi. I am a volunteer firefighter with WYFD Station 1 in York County PA. We have been burning at least 3 structures a week since the year started. Sadly I have missed them all. Every damn one.

The reason for this is that my Minitor III isn't loud enough to rouse me out of bed. I just now rigged it up to put it on vibrate, and put it on my ceiling fan. If all goes as planned, it will fall and pull the light cord, effectively flipping my lights on in my room.

As I said, I feel bad missing calls, but it's nothing I can conciously help. Any suggestions besides the expensive amplified chargers?

[fire0099881]

Hi. I am a volunteer firefighter with WYFD Station 1 in York County PA. We have been burning at least 3 structures a week since the year started. Sadly I have missed them all. Every damn one.

The reason for this is that my Minitor III isn't loud enough to rouse me out of bed. I just now rigged it up to put it on vibrate, and put it on my ceiling fan. If all goes as planned, it will fall and pull the light cord, effectively flipping my lights on in my room.

As I said, I feel bad missing calls, but it's nothing I can conciously help. Any suggestions besides the expensive amplified chargers?

make sure the fan is directly over your bed, and make the cord just long enough that it will pull the cord to turn the light on, and then hit you in the head!! that should wake you up!!!!!!! hahahaha

[ROOKIELZ]

Put your pager on vibrate then stick it on an aluminum pie plate beside your head.

And get more sleep overall!

I think your first idea is going to cost you another run....:cool:

[Cappy05]

Buy a poodle and train him to go ballistic when the tones drop!! Of course after 20 or 30 calls you will probably want to kick the Sh-- out of that dog!!!

[supaduparocka]

Either way, the dog idea might not be such a bad one.

[dmleblanc]

Buy a poodle and train him to go ballistic when the tones drop!! Of course after 20 or 30 calls you will probably want to kick the Sh-- out of that dog!!!

Or just buy a chihuahua or any of those other "nervous" little dogs and you won't have to train him at all...:cool:


Seriously though, you've missed THAT many calls just by the pager not waking you up? Do you have the volume turned all the way up? You need to figure out something...

Besides, what are you going to do over the summer when you might actually want to use the ceiling fan?

Do you guys catch all your structure fires in the middle of the night or something? That's odd.

Sounds like you could have used the old Minitor 1 that I had when I first started....the charger also had a speaker/amplifier that you could plug in for extra volume. I only plugged it in once....after I peeled myself off the ceiling, I never felt the need to plug it in again...:)

[supaduparocka]

Yea, most of our jobs are at night. We live in a ****ty section of PA, right outside York City, so we get their rejects who like to burn things.

And yes, the volume is turned the whole way up, and it still doesn't rouse me.

In either length, the light idea worked last night. It was only an automatic alarm, but at least it worked. I'm back in the game.

PS. In about a year, we're all switching to high-band and getting alpha-numeric pagers. Anyone know how loud they are?

[doughesson]

Did you inherit that pager from someone who got one of the new ones on your department?
It could be that yours has been soaked/dropped/runover/pocket carried to the point that the speaker is fooched and doesn't work right anymore.
See about using an old toothbrush(or your ex wife's/girlfriend) to clean out the grille on the front and see what that does.You might have a lot of dirt and pocket lint up in there muffling the sound.

[jacklrd]

Did you inherit that pager from someone who got one of the new ones on your department?
It could be that yours has been soaked/dropped/runover/pocket carried to the point that the speaker is fooched and doesn't work right anymore.
See about using an old toothbrush(or your ex wife's/girlfriend) to clean out the grille on the front and see what that does.You might have a lot of dirt and pocket lint up in there muffling the sound.


I broke the belt clip on my minitor II (AHHH its a jr with a pager :eek: :eek: ) and when i replaced the casing it was twice as loud.

[mcaldwell]

You should still be able to find a desktop charger/amplifier for your III.

If that isn't loud enough. You're Dead!:p

[jerry4184]

Yeah, I keep the charger/amp for my III turned almost all the way down, and it's enough to hear it outside the house. I made the mistake exactly once of turning the volume up on that thing, cause i didn't think id wake up to it. THe first time the tones went off at three am, I think I woke my grandma up, and she lives four blocks away. My cat nearly jumped through my ceiling.

[vfdguy]

PS. In about a year, we're all switching to high-band and getting alpha-numeric pagers. Anyone know how loud they are?

We are on vhf with Motorola Advisor alpha-numeric pagers. If you sleep through a minitor, you're gonna be screwed with the alpha. I have missed a dispatch when I had the pager on my belt and was just talking to a couple people outside, and that's with the beep as loud as it will go, and I have very good hearing.

I miraculously (sp?) haven't missed any calls during the night yet.

I wish somebody made a base charger/amplifier for these pagers like they have for the minitors.

P.S. On the upside it's very nice to be able to actually read the address while in the truck and have your call information right there.

[Cappy05]

I beleive there is a good point that is being missed. The Minitor III was the Sh--iest model Motorola ever made. They were not out very long before the put out the Minitor IV. There were all sorts of issues with the channel selector, volume slide knob, speakers, internall components, etc. etc. etc. This is just a bad pager.

I do not use the A/N pagers but I have heard they are not as loud as the Minitor Models.

[jerry4184]

I've never had a problem with my III, but then again, I tend to keep mine in pretty good shape, clean it regularly, all of that. We have had some serious issues department wide with some of them, but that's more due to people dropping them and stuff.

[Cappy05]

I've never had a problem with my III, but then again, I tend to keep mine in pretty good shape, clean it regularly, all of that. We have had some serious issues department wide with some of them, but that's more due to people dropping them and stuff.

That is the porblem. Motorola tried to cut the cost of the manufacturing of the pagers. Knowing that firemen were going to be using the pagers they still made them cheaper. The old Minitor I models could be dropped, kicked, burned, submerged in water and any number of other destructive means but they would still work. The II's were alright. They started to get back on track with the Minitor IV and finally the Minitor V's seem to get back to the same constrcution of the I's, very solid. Motorola has been supplying the fire service for so long they should have known to make a solid product instead of cutting corners which they did with the IIIs. They had so much warranty work on the units they had to start going back to a more solid design. I fact towrds the end of the IIIs product life and the beginning of the IVs cycle they simple replaced the guts of the II with IV guts. It is good you take excellent care of your pager. Lord knows they cost a lot and low funded or really any department can not afford to just keep buying or repairing them. But, you should not have to treat it like your mother's fine china for it to keep working.

[kswartz79]

Heyyy, I used to run with 36 in York Co.

Hated to leave but had to--- needed an education. Great people, I hope to go back after graduation and my time in the military is up

That sucks about missing your calls, that's happened to me a few times. Depends on how much sleep your getting usually.

[Dasvigo]

See if your dept has an old minitor2 the big block shaped ones, Im a light sleeper but if i wasnt this thing would sure as hell get me up, its has a loud dorrbell sound to it, quite startling in the middle of the night