Alphanumeric Pagers vs. Voice Pagers

[chief14]

Our company is considering switching over to alpahnumeric pagers. We are currently using Minitor II's and III's. What benefits, drawbacks, advantages,...have you experienced?
Thanks for your input.

[lumpy649]

Our department does not utilize any home response, but officers (Sgt. and above) are issued alphapagers to be able to be in contact with the stations should they need to be found. They work fine most of the time, few missed pages, but when the system goes down, either on our computers or the paging company, you're SOL. You then have to resort to hittng the membership directory to locate people, and if you need them immediately, well... good luck! If you can find a reliable service provider, it's probably a safe bet. They are very handy as they can be utilized for department, dispatch, or personal pages, and you can use a computer based paging system to send messages. Very handy... Good luck with whichever you go with.

[Koch.Ch-3]

My County is using Alpha-pagers for approx. 2-3 yrs. Some of the 21 departments are still using the voice pagers also. We had alot of problems with the alpha pagers. I believe do to equipment (pagers)not receiving the pages, Other department believe it is coverage. Central disp. had to have the paging company (private)priortize our pages, and send dual pages 60 seconds apart.

Pros-I can page administative messages thru my personnal computer.
You can have the pager on in Church, or at the movies-switching to vibrate.
The address, scene info, F-tac channel, is right on the pager, and you do not have to ask Central for the info. you forgot.

Cons-You have to read the page, even when your driving to the incident.
Slower response time.
Updated scene info, takes approx. 2:00 minutes to receive.
They are not made for public safety use.
They do wake all my FF's up in the middle of the night.

I would advise you to contact alot of other Departments using this alpha system.


A/C Malesky

[Dalmatian90]

We've been using Alpha-pagers for approximately 1-1/2 years.

The pagers are non-Flex technology thru PageNet. The reason I mention they're non-Flex is that is an older system. It's built out better in our rural area, and doesn't have the volume of traffic the new systems get -- so we typically get pages within 30 seconds of their hand-off to PageNet.

They do have dead spots -- but no more problematically than the voice pagers do. For administrative messages like "such and such is out-of-service" or "We need a driver to take the rescue to the fire academy on Sunday" they work well to reach members like me who work way outside of voice pager range.

Since we share a common voice pager dispatch frequency with two and half counties, administrative messages like those are strongly discouraged since they occassionally delay a 911 dispatch.

When we have a call, the dispatcher at the Regional Dispatch center typically types in the brief Alpha message and hits send. While the computer is dialing PageNet, they blow our tones and give the voice dispatch. Our system is tones-message-repeat message. 90% of the time, the alpha pagers are going off between the message and repeat the message part.

Although not cost-effective for our single department (out of 30 from our dispatch center)...if more departments went to this system we could invest in a direct data line to PageNet, which would keep us from having to use dial up modems. This would mean the instant the dispatch hit "send" the alpha message would be in their system.

We also went with a common-cap code system. Each pager has it's own CAP and phone number. But they're all equipped with a second, common CAP. This allows us to send one page to the common CAP that triggers all the alpha-pagers simultaneously. That saves a lot of time over having to send individual pages to our 60 alpha pagers.

Our regional dispatch center is slowly moving forward with plans for a proprietary alpha-dispatch system...but like the voice pagers, they'll have limited range.

Matt

[MetalMedic]

Better look for some gaurantees in writing. Around here, if there is a lot of pager traffic, they will hold alpha pages in a buffer and it can be several minutes before the message gets sent to the pager. Not a good plan when the house is burning down.



------------------
Richard Nester
Orrville (OH) Fire Dept.

[SFD-129-3]

In PA, I don't think the Firemen's relief funds can be used for alpha pagers. The main contention being, they cannot receive a voice message instantaneously. For example, most of our guys take their pager into a structure, they can hear the orders given out by ic over the fg channel. Alpha pagers cannot. Co's around us have had the alpha pagers, and gotten rid of them. Terrain seems to play more of a role than with the voice pagers. Also, you are limited to the keyboarding ability of the person doing the paging. Here the spelling isn't as critical, but if I were typing a dispatch, transposing numbers or even letters sends units to entirely different ends of town. Also a problem was the time delay from when the paging service sends the page to the time it actually goes out.
We run with the motorola's and have no desire to change them. Hope this helps.

[Adze]

I am a member of two FD's in Connecticut...Broad Brook and Blue Hills. Blue Hills is going to be switching to alphanumeric pagers sometime down the road (I think this year). I'm waiting to see how good it actually is...

[Scottie Schmidt]

at my station and other near by stations we use alpha and minitors. they have there problems but not many.

[Dalmatian90]

Little bit of trivia Adze...

The odd-ball 152.0075mhz frequency which my dispatch (QV) and your's (TN) simulcast 33.80 voice dispatch on was choosen to a large degree...because it is also acceptable to run alpha-numeric paging on that frequency too.

The eventual proprietary alpha-numeric system will mutlicast over both the QV and TN towers for extended coverage...not as good as PageNet for New England wide coverage...but should saturate CT from the Connecticut River to Rhode Island.

Matt

[backdraft663]

we have minitor 2 and alpha pagers i like them but there are those times when they forget to send out the page with the run. also there helpful incase you forget some info like the exact address and which fireground

[Dalmatian90]

Wow, this one get resurrected from the Dead!

The eventual proprietary alpha-numeric system will mutlicast over both the QV and TN towers for extended coverage...

Is now in operation. We dropped Page-Net and went back to only voice pagers for about 9 months until the propreitary system was on line.

Since this summer we've been on the proprietary system, to the extent that when members are now issued alphas, their voice pagers are taken back to be assigned to new members. Potentially looking at in a year or two the "tones" becoming merely a backup system blown if the alpha system is down.

Coverage is very good -- I even sometimes even get them in my office in Worcester -- a downtown office building about 30 miles north of my town.

[EricCSU]

At my department, we are having a few communication issues...

The department is rural, but adjacent to a medium-sized city (about 135,000). That city runs dispatch for the city's EMS provider (hospital-based) and fire department. About 2 years ago, the fire department switched to 800 MHz. This meant that EMS could not talk to fire or my dept. and vice versa w/o relaying through dispatch. The solution to this problem has been to have everyone switch to 800 MHz. It is not feasible or practical for us to switch to 800 MHz, but the city is implementing a new dispatch system (in the next month or two). This system is so high tech that they will no longer be able to send a two-tone alarm. The only alarm they will be able to send is through the Z-tron, which we will not be able to implement until about November.

Our response system is through Minitor III pagers. The tones go out, and members drive to the station (unless they are on shift, which is usually only one or two members, the program is still developing).

The solution that we are currently loooking into is using both voice and text pagers. We want to get the pagers anyway for non-emergency communication. We want to simultaneously have the dispatch info paged to us and the message on the voice pagers.

The EMS service (we are just a first responder, non transporting dept.) will still be able to talk with us, in case you're wondering.

Does anyone else use a similar system?

[ffbaer]

We have been using alpha pagers for two years and found that it takes longer for the 911 center to send the alpha page than it takes to send a voice page, even with county owning the system for alpha paging there where delays. We have gone back to voice pager for paging call's and use the alpha pager for general messages.

[rcrompm46]

There have been discussions about that around here, but if you are responding from home during all hours, what wakes you UP?

We have people that cannot wake up to voice pagers Minitor II & III's turned full up.

[EricCSU]

Thanks for the info so far. Anyone else have any input?

Eric