Minitor III problems

[ChiefDavid]

Even after participating in the exchange program, I seem to be having constant problems with the Minitor III from the rubber knobs coming off, to the alert tone failing to alert, to the charging unit flickering and not charging properly. Is anyone else having problems and if so, what is the result from your dealer and/or Motorola?

[NYSmokey]

We switched from low band paging to high band paging approximately 3 years ago. Our county decided to go with the Minitor III because it was compatible with our new frequency, had a vibrate feature, and it allowed the user to listen to dispatch.

Many of us wanted to get alpha/numeric pagers which could have cut down on asking for the information again. The call would have been right in front of you so you could write it down or review it later. We don't have printers in our stations. Some of the officials said the alpha/numerics would not work because we wouldn't be able to get updates as easily. A message would have to be sent again over the pager and it would be difficult to look at if you were driving to the station.

Also, someone in the "powers that be" brought up the fact that not all of the fire personnel in the county can read! Can you believe that was a reason against them? I'm sorry, but if you can't read FIRE or RESCUE and know enough to go to the station maybe you should take up something safer

In the first year of the pagers we had to send them back to have some of the "guts" replaced. One of the boards in it was defective I guess. It resulted in numerous members throughout the county missing the initial call. Dispatch had to hit the tones twice each time a company was sent out. It was a real pain in the a** whenever you had to send mutual aid with all of those tones. Not too long after we got them back we had to exchange our charges because they were defective. None of the pagers would work for an entire day. My issued pager is currently in the shop getting repairs because apparently I was too rough with it. I brushed up against the door a few times and must have knocked something loose. My advice to people who have a choice in replacing their pagers....shop around!

Just my two cents!

Stay safe out there

[PlattsFire1]

Our dept just recentley purchased minitor 3's also. They were neat for about two weeks, then the complaints started coming in. Some wouldn't alert, others won't hold their charge, even others seem to lose the functions in the knobs. (vibrate, alert, silent)
I can't really tell you my own personal experience, because about two days after I received mine in took a two foot fall from my knee to the floorboard of my truck. Hasn't worked since.

[SBLGFD]

We have switched to the III's over the past year. We are having trouble as described by the others. WE can have a room full of guys put out the page and half of them wont get the alert. We changed our tones to be more in line with the Motorola Specs with no improvement. Also knobs falling off and the selector switch getting bumped and changing from position A to B/C/ or D. OVer all we wish we still had the II's

SBLG

[nonameFF]

We got six of them last year and have only had one rubber knob cover come off and no other problems. We will be buying more in the upcoming months.

I wonder if the toning problem you experience is due to the dispatch equipment.

[BFD196]

All the officers in my department got III`s sometime last year. We haven`t had any problem with knobs falling off but we did have an instance where no III`s went off for a call to a structure fire. Since then they`ve been sent back, repaired, and have worked fairly well.

[OLE]

We had problems right away with the pager not picking up the page, knobs falling off, not recharging correctly. Chief wants us to wear the protector and that seems to help quite a bit. I see that Motorola has a recall ad in Firehouse, Firechief, and Fire Engineering magazines of old. We sent ours back and are some what satisfied. Talk to your dealer.

[Jmatteau]

I just got the minitor 3 about a week ago, and so far I love it. It opens up a lot clearer than my 1 and 2 ever did, and and I haven't missed anything so far. The knobs are to tight, and yes they do seem to be made a lot cheaper, but so far I love it. Just my .2 cents...Jay

[postal79]

we were going to purchase 20 minitor III's but after our dept heard all the problems with them we decided to go with usalert's nova, have nothing bad to say about them, work great and the size is smaller much better than the M2 or M3, also have a digital face that time stamps the calls