Are your pagers narrowband-ready?

[koechler]

I was wondering how many of your fire department pagers are narrowband-ready and how many are not. The Minitor V has been out for a long time now but I think there are still a lot of fire departments that carry a variety of pagers that cannot be switched to narrowband.

We've actually run some test on how wideband pagers perform on a narrowband network. While its really not that horrible a narrowband pager definitely performs better in a narrowband network.

[nmfire]

For the purpose of paging, it is not neccessary to have a narrowband pager. A "wideband pager" will receive and alert just as well as one that actually supports narrowband. Any Motorola dealer that tells you anything otherwise is lying to you and you should find a different dealer.

To the best of my knowlege, the Minitor V is the only voice pager on the market that supports actual narrowband operation. All the old II/III/IV pagers that are wideband only will work just as well sitting right next to the narrowband M5.

[LVFD301]

Until you get on the fringe, or you get adjacent channel users....

[nmfire]

I always lived on the fringe (in respect to RF!) and it never got noticably worse than it already was to begin with. Adjacent channel users could become a rare problem that would have to be addressed. But for the 99% of people that are just reprogramming existing equipment from wide to narrow, their existing wide pagers will continue to work fine without interference.

[Lump532]

Our radio guy says for $75 he can convert our 3's and 4's to narrowband. He said something about replacing a chip inside. He also told us they will work without the conversion. We are just deciding if we want to spend the money.

[PaladinKnight]

Narrowbanding applies to Transmitters. Pager are only a receiver. The older pagers will still work, unless you have one of the new frequencies it is not capable of receiving.

I would not spend the money unless you begin to receive adjacent or same channel interference.

You can always consider PL (Private Line), which blocks out anyone that does not have your tone. This becomes more of an issue for units transmitting and receiving in the field trying to cut through adjacent or same channel interference.

(I have tried to keep this in layman terms.)

I am amazed how many are getting their shorts in a wad over narrowbanding.

If you have older equipment, you might have to replace it. But everything manufactured in the last 5 years is already Narrow-band Compliant.

Think of Narrow-banding like a row of chairs. Someone comes along and places new chairs in between the original chairs. The new chairs make the new spacing between chairs more narrow, so you are more likely to hit elbows with someone next to you. This is the interference we all hear about.
So new rules are you keep your elbows to yourself to limit the chance you will bump with your neighbor. In terms of radios, we modify the transmit attributes of the radio. You may experience range issues.

Whether you experience interference will be determined by whether anyone takes up residency on the new frequencies adjacent to yours. The same adjacent channel assignment factors still exist, so if the coordinator is doing their job, you will be contacted before someone just drops in.

[LVFD301]

I always lived on the fringe (in respect to RF!) and it never got noticably worse than it already was to begin with. Adjacent channel users could become a rare problem that would have to be addressed. But for the 99% of people that are just reprogramming existing equipment from wide to narrow, their existing wide pagers will continue to work fine without interference.

I will agree - but it is a possibility that needs to be considered. The fringe part is certainly deep fringe.

Adjacent channel issues will hopefully not be an issue for a while, but as the channels start clogging up again they could be.

[LVFD301]

Narrowbanding applies to Transmitters. Pager are only a receiver. The older pagers will still work, unless you have one of the new frequencies it is not capable of receiving.


You can always consider PL (Private Line), which blocks out anyone that does not have your tone. This becomes more of an issue for units transmitting and receiving in the field trying to cut through adjacent or same channel interference.


I am amazed how many are getting their shorts in a wad over narrowbanding.

If you have older equipment, you might have to replace it. But everything manufactured in the last 5 years is already Narrow-band Compliant.


Whether you experience interference will be determined by whether anyone takes up residency on the new frequencies adjacent to yours. The same adjacent channel assignment factors still exist, so if the coordinator is doing their job, you will be contacted before someone just drops in.

A couple of points.

On the technical side the recievers play a BIG part of narrowbanding. If you have recievers that normally open up with a PL of .3 or .4, in the wideband world, and you suddenly put all the transmitters narrowband at .25, the radios will never decode the PL. BIG issue.

PL Deviation for wideband is often set .5 or .6, when you go narrowband cut that in half.
Your wideband recievers, using PL, may or may not work.

The wideband recievers are much more likely to pick up adjacent channel, or even 2-3 X adjacent channel interference when used in the narrowband world.

The manufactured date is more over 10 years now. If the radio was manufactured in the past 10 or so years, it is capable of narrowband. (Usual caveats, part 90 type accepted radios)

Don't expect your coordinator to do that. Expect your local shop to do the research, and monitoring. If you get the interference, use that local shop, or do it your self to fix it. The coordinator .... Well you get the idea. Some of the public safety coordinators are less then helpful.

Your local shop can't handle it? Get rid of them.

[LVFD301]

Our radio guy says for $75 he can convert our 3's and 4's to narrowband. He said something about replacing a chip inside. He also told us they will work without the conversion. We are just deciding if we want to spend the money.

Uh, yeah.

This I would have to see to believe.

No offense, but I think you are being snowed.

[nmfire]

This is the salesman that also offers a package deal with the Brooklyn Bridge for 1/2 price?

[LVFD301]

This is the salesman that also offers a package deal with the Brooklyn Bridge for 1/2 price?

Wow.. What is the minimum quanity of units to qualify?

[nmfire]

20. But if you pre-order the Minitor VI, you get 1/2 price on the bridge.