paging problems

[asstchief700]

we are currently paged out for fire/rescue/ems through alphanumeric pagers. they are based off of a commercial system, and sometimes have long times from time of dispatch sending it out to the pagers receiving the actual call. it has on occassion taken HOURS for the call to go through.

looking for any viable options to replace/ back up this current system. the voice paging system is too expensive. does anyone know of any way cell phones can be utitilized.. for example text messenging or voice calls through the phone? any help is appreciated.

[ncoliva1200]

we are currently paged out for fire/rescue/ems through alphanumeric pagers. they are based off of a commercial system, and sometimes have long times from time of dispatch sending it out to the pagers receiving the actual call. it has on occassion taken HOURS for the call to go through.

looking for any viable options to replace/ back up this current system. the voice paging system is too expensive. does anyone know of any way cell phones can be utitilized.. for example text messenging or voice calls through the phone? any help is appreciated.

Are you Vol. or Career?

[nmfire]

The cell phones will be subject to the same delays a commercial paging system is subject to. Actually the phones will probably be worse.

You need to install your own paging system, whether it is voice or alphanumeric.

[asstchief700]

Are you Vol. or Career?

volunteer.

[SWFD22]

we are currently paged out for fire/rescue/ems through alphanumeric pagers. they are based off of a commercial system, and sometimes have long times from time of dispatch sending it out to the pagers receiving the actual call. it has on occassion taken HOURS for the call to go through.

This is a good example of why NFPA 1221 requires the paging system to be under the control of the agency.

Is there any regional entity that has a radio system that blankets the area such as a county sherrif or state police? It might be that you can piggy-back onto their infrastructure.

Is your topography such that there is one high hill in your area that already has a radio tower on top that you might be able to get space on? There are departments that use alpha-numeric paging as their primary dispatch circuit, it's just that they own the equipment/system.

A yes to any of those questions would at least put you in a position to move your paging off of the commercial service and onto a public safety owned system.

If there is no other way than to continue on the commercial service, how about contacting your paging company and see if there is some way that they can prioritize the paging so that your pages jump to the head of the queue.

Brian

[mitchkrat]

We are in the midwest and switched over from a local alpha paging service to Verizon paging and have had very little delay or problems.

When we have had delays - normally traced back to issues with dispacthers computer - or the dispatch center getting swamped and the dispatcher not typing the page in a timely fashion.

We get a pre-page via tones/announcement over the radio from one dispatched while the 2nd dispatcher is typing the page.

[spareparts]

looking for any viable options to replace/ back up this current system. the voice paging system is too expensive. does anyone know of any way cell phones can be utitilized.. for example text messenging or voice calls through the phone? any help is appreciated.

Couple of questions:
* Your existing system. Are you individually paging each device (pager) separately or you paging a group or leader number?
* Are you paging via a modem number or are you paging through an internet web page?
* How many people are you trying to contact at once?
* The other question is do your members use Verizon cellphones? Verizon requires you to send messages from off-net as e-mail as there is not an SMS gateway . E-mail can have delays as well There's a work around, but it's not cheap.

[asstchief700]

Is there any regional entity that has a radio system that blankets the area such as a county sherrif or state police? It might be that you can piggy-back onto their infrastructure.

we use the same paging as the county sheriff, which they use to contact off duty, detectives, admin stuff like that.

Is your topography such that there is one high hill in your area that already has a radio tower on top that you might be able to get space on? There are departments that use alpha-numeric paging as their primary dispatch circuit, it's just that they own the equipment/system.

the only available tower, the owners of it want a rent paid per foot, dont know the exact amount but know it was expensive.

If there is no other way than to continue on the commercial service, how about contacting your paging company and see if there is some way that they can prioritize the paging so that your pages jump to the head of the queue.

tried that, still have problems at times

[asstchief700]

Couple of questions:
* Your existing system. Are you individually paging each device (pager) separately or you paging a group or leader number?
* Are you paging via a modem number or are you paging through an internet web page?
* How many people are you trying to contact at once?
* The other question is do your members use Verizon cellphones? Verizon requires you to send messages from off-net as e-mail as there is not an SMS gateway . E-mail can have delays as well There's a work around, but it's not cheap.

*pages as a group
*modem i believe
*25 volunteer firefighters
*some do but not all

[jmoran18251]

http://www.secondsignal.com/

Check out this link. When a tone is sent out over the radio, it automatically records the call and sends a message to your cell phone. You can then call in and listen to the call as it was dispatched. I haven't used it, but I have heard good things about it. Doesn't seem to be too expensive either.

[LVFD301]

To all... ISO won't recoginze a primary paging system that works through a commercial provider. They simply won't.

Commercial paging providers are not dependable for public safety. As in the words of a certain comedian "I know, I is one".

Your own alpha paging system can be set up and deployed CHEAPER than
a voice paging system. The advantage of course of a voice system is you
can also use the repeater for your voice traffic.

SWFD - What part of the world are you located in? We may be able to help, or send you in the right direction for help on that tower....

[blinkd44]

Are you SURE you can't invest in some nice minitor's? Try even going with the minitor 2. Seriously. It's well worth it!

[RadiomanWA]

I have a used Zetron Model 640 Paging terminal, if you're interested. Two Tone, Pocsag, Golay etc.. etc..

Just the terminal, you will need to interface it to a transmitter, or I can do that for you also.

Just got the model 640 back from Zetron. Had it gone through and tested complete, replaced the memory batteries and everything.

PM me if you are interested.

[LVFD301]

The 640 would be a dandy terminal for an agency looking to go alpha.

[firebuff880]

Chief,

We specialize in providing service to small agencies like yours with our shared services model. If you would like to discuss options and capabilities I would be happy to talk with you.

Many times it's the process of getting the message to the carrier not the carrier, and we can distribute a given messages to multiple devices in parallel mode. Pager, Cell, E-mail, Other....

Firebuff880.
http://www.dapage.net

It has on occassion taken HOURS for the call to go through. Looking for any viable options to replace/ back up this current system. the voice paging system is too expensive. does anyone know of any way cell phones can be utitilized.. for example text messenging or voice calls through the phone? any help is appreciated.

[SilverCity4]

We use alpha paging as well. We've had the same problems, although 95% of the time, no issue. Of course, if it's YOUR house that's on fire, that 5% seems pretty significant.

After the meeting with our ISO rep last week, we are now looking at going to radio paging.

The only way ISO will recognize alpha paging is if an agency has control over the system, which we don't.

I'd like some info on what it would cost to set up our own alpha system, if anyone has it.

We already have the frequency and dispatch capabilities to go with radio paging, just not the right radios. I've got quotes from Motorola on pager/radios at $5000 for 15. I also got a quote for Icom radios for $3000.

Anybody know anything about Icom?

[LVFD301]

its kind of interesting that you are in OK. We have discussed the commercial paging issue with a number of departments near Tulsa, and they never seem to understand that ISO will not recognize commericial paging.

And no offense to firebuff880, but passing off products like dapage notification server as a method of paging for "CRITICAL MESSAGING" is
a terrible disservice to the Fire Service.

Perhaps clearly identified as a SECONDARY messaging service, but never, never, never a critical service.

Nextel is also guilty of this, to the extreme of getting cities to DROP THEIR
two way radio systems for Nextel. The cities end up coming back to the
two way radio systems in the end normally.

I have said it before, you can put in a good alpha paging system, owned by
your agency, for less than you can put in a good voice paging system.

[SilverCity4]

I have said it before, you can put in a good alpha paging system, owned by your agency, for less than you can put in a good voice paging system.

Where can I get information on this? I've got a presentation for our Board tomorrow night on our communiciation issue with ISO. One of the possible solutions is installing our own paging system, but unless it can be done for less than about $3500, it's more cost-effective to go with radio paging.

The only information I've found on paging systems is for the systems they use in hospitals and industrial settings. I need a paging system that will, at a minimum, cover 24 square miles. The radio system we have set up out here covers just about the whole county, and it's at half power right now.

[firebuff880]

No offense taken. Some departments cann't afford anything else, so we try and improve the success rate and delivery throughput with our product. But one point I did not make clear, and our product happens to do well as do others, is that any quality product should be able to deliver the same message to multiple carriers using multiple protocols with the same urgency.

Since we support parallel feeds, we can drive a Zetron or Prisim encoder over an Agencies network at the same time we are sending the page to Verizon, and USA Mobility. Our concept was you need to know and we don't need to know rather your in your agency car, home on the couch or in a meeting with the Political management you report to. An it should not matter rather the Internet is up or not.

To answer the other issue here, Zteron and a Georgia Company called Prisim Technology both make quality paging encoders for the POSAG data protocol that you can hook to a quality Kenwood, Daniels, M/A-Com, Motorola VHF base station and have your own system in house either standalone or in parallel to the commercial systems.

We are also working on paging right to the Field Portables with a Short Message Format text message.

Good Luck..

http://www.prismpaging.com/product-paging.htm
http://www.zetron.com/data/site/temp...roducts/paging

And no offense to firebuff880, but passing off products like dapage notification server as a method of paging for "CRITICAL MESSAGING" is
a terrible disservice to the Fire Service.

[nmfire]

Many times it's the process of getting the message to the carrier not the carrier, and we can distribute a given messages to multiple devices in parallel mode. Pager, Cell, E-mail, Other....

Firebuff880.
http://www.dapage.net

Actually, no it isn't. The bottleneck and slowdowns are almost always the carrier and nothing else. I watch it happen daily. The messages leave the building lickity split. The bottleneck and delays are 100% carrier. And all the carriers have the same problems. There is NOTHING you or anyone else third party can do to fix it.