Minitor V issues

[SBLGFD]

Anyone having issues with the Minitor V and computer / electrical interference? We have significant issues where our V’s go into a long tone alert when they are exposed to what I would guess is some type of RF interference coming from computers. In the station we have a 16X16 foot office with two computers and if you are anywhere near the computers you almost have to turn your pager off. Several of our guys work at the local sewer and water treatment plant and they have to turn their pagers off when they enter the building or they are in a continual long tone alert mode. We have tried adjusting the sensitivity with no change. Other departments in the county are having the same issue. Anyone else with this issue?

Thanks SBLGFD

[pgfd65]

I have a similar issue. Mine isn't triggered by anything in particular though. I can sit anywhere and once every few months it alerts itslef.

[HoustonMNChief]

Our dept switched from the trusty old reliable Minitor II to the new Minitor V, and boy I miss the II. The V will get interference from routers, cable boxes, and computers, and the adjustments do not work. You are not alone with this problem. Doesnt seem to effect the reception of page tones.

[SBLGFD]

I agree it doesn’t seem to effect the reception. Our issue is the guys at the plant have to turn their pagers off when they are in the building due to the interference and they miss calls, and then they at times forget to turn them back on when they leave the building. We are in the habit of calling their phones now to make sure they get the calls. Kind of defeats the purpose.

When your pagers open up do they produce a long solid tone or is it the traditional beep – beep- beep alert?

[HoustonMNChief]

I leave mine on selective call, and the interference is not an issue then. It is when you are on the monitor channel that we notice the problems. I sit at a desk, and can not leave the pager on monitor. Our pagers have not had many false page issues, a few, but not many. Those have been near computers or computer hardware.

Do you have selective call and vibrate? I have a probie that is a well driller, he is able to use the vibrate and selective and that helps him.

If the interference is causing false pages, i would invite the motorola rep over for a visit.

[SBLGFD]

Thanks for the input –

Yes we have selective call and vibrate. The interference is getting in and opening up the pager even when on selective call setting. Again opens up with a long tone, that actually exceeds the normal long tone in length.
Anyone with a good inside contact at Motorola?

SBLGFD

[nmfire]

It is simply RF noise from the computer that happens to match you paging tones. There is nothing you can do about it. It isn't a problem with the pager. The pager is actually working properly. The only way to make it go away is turn the pager or the computer off.

[pgfd65]

Mine is a short quick beep and it usually happens when I have it on selective call. I don't think it has happened near a computer either.

[SBLGFD]

We get that too almost like a half alert followed by no message - just open static. But more troublesome issue is the continuous alert around electronics that causes people to shut their pagers off.
SBLGFD

[nmfire]

The pagers alert beep plays for the duration of the paging tone. With the noises your computer generates, it will not be continuous like the paging tones from the radio console. So hearing a very short alert and static is NORMAL because that is all noise the computer is making.

[pgfd65]

ok. thanks for the info!

[Pelican631]

If you don't use a long tone (also known as group call) for alerting, you can eliminate this problem by removing the long tone/group call from the pager.

Most departments use a two-tone page consisting of an A and B tone. Sometimes a long (8 second) A or B tone will be used to tone out multiple departments or user groups that all share the same A or B tone. For example:

Department 1 - 707.3 Hz/746.8Hz
Department 2 - 707.3 Hz/387.5 Hz

A "long" 707.3 Hz tone could be sent to tone out both departments IF the pagers are set of for A tone group call.

IF you don't use group call and IF your pager is set up to accept group calls, you can fix the problem by "deprogramming" the group call/long tone. Many radio shops leave the group call/long tone enabled even if the department doesn't use it.

Traditionally (M2 and unhacked M3 and M4) the group call sets off the long beeeeeep while the standard two tone page sets of the "beep beep beep". However, this is all programmable in the M5 so it's not always a good indicator.

The probability of electrical interference setting off a two-tone page is much much less than setting off a long tone page. Any interfering source that happens to modulate RF at your tone frequency can set off a long tone pager. I've had it happen to my M5 from the electrical system in my truck a few times, and a wireless router. Unfortunately we use a long tone as our primary tone so I'm stuck with the problem.

Andy

[SBLGFD]

There is the answer was looking for. Unfortunately we do use the group call function a lot. All our mutual aid calls all run on a long tone- group call. Host department get the only individual page otherwise its group call to alert 6 other departments – frees up the radio and less work for dispatch. Any other work arounds for this other than dropping the group calls – Won’t have much luck pushing this thru the county dispatch center?

Thanks for the help - kind of good news / bad news

[Pelican631]

Unfortunately I don't know of an easy solution. With modern pagers that can alert on multiple tone sets (M3, M4, M5) you could set up a specific two tone page for mutual aid paging. However, you'd have to program that new tone set into every pager in all six departments, plus the dispatch consoles. That's a lot of work. We're going to be switching to a new dispatch frequency sometime in the future and I'm going to take that opportunity to switch us from a long tone to two tone page to eliminate this issue since we'll be reprogramming everything anyway.

Andy

[volemt44]

I found the answer to my problem - Can't find the cancel button for the post. Sorry to waste the space

[SWFD22]

There is the answer was looking for. Unfortunately we do use the group call function a lot. All our mutual aid calls all run on a long tone- group call. Host department get the only individual page otherwise its group call to alert 6 other departments – frees up the radio and less work for dispatch. Any other work arounds for this other than dropping the group calls – Won’t have much luck pushing this thru the county dispatch center?

Thanks for the help - kind of good news / bad news

volemt44 kicked this back to the top, and I had a thought on a possible fix for you, but of course it would require a change at dispatch. Possibly not a big deal, but you tell me.

We run on our own dispatch frequency and do not share with anyone close so we do not use the Long Tone or Group Call. We do have different stations, and some service calls we will only dispatch the closest station. Most calls go out to the whole Dept. We only use the A-B or Two-Tone, and what we do is have a common A tone for every page, then change the B tone for each station. We stick a common A-B tone set into every pager, and use that as the All-Call. So if we have a service call we might just tone out Station One, but if it's a box, structure, MVA, etc, it gets the All-Call setting off every pager.

Could you rework to get rid of the long tone and go to a special two-tone for the mutual aid?

Brian

[CalvertFD168]

At least ya'lls are going off.. ours seem to miss calls depending on where they are located in houses or offices.. and we are within 4 miles of our repeater on level ground. Minitor Vs SUCK!

[SWFD22]

At least ya'lls are going off.. ours seem to miss calls depending on where they are located in houses or offices.. and we are within 4 miles of our repeater on level ground. Minitor Vs SUCK!

Ok, so how about a little more info. You are within 4 miles of the repeater, on level ground and by that I think you mean there are no hills between the repeater and you.

* Are you on a VHF system?
* Do you page out on seperate frequency than you then operate?
* Do you have any other Minitor models or other brand pager in the department, if so, which ones and do they have any trouble activating?
* What is your tone sequence (2-tone, long tone, etc)?
* What is the frequency of those tones in Hertz?
* Do you self program or do you have a radio shop?
* Anyone else paged on this same freq, and anyone else paged from this same repeater/tower site?

Brian

[CalvertFD168]

* Are you on a VHF system? Yes
* Do you page out on seperate frequency than you then operate? No
* Do you have any other Minitor models or other brand pager in the department, if so, which ones and do they have any trouble activating? We went from IIs to the Vs.. IIs never had any issues.
* What is your tone sequence (2-tone, long tone, etc)? 2tone
* What is the frequency of those tones in Hertz? Im not sure.
* Do you self program or do you have a radio shop? Radio Shop
* Anyone else paged on this same freq, and anyone else paged from this same repeater/tower site? Yes, 4 other depts

[Firewalker918]

Mini 5 are junk products that Motorola is trying to pass off on us firefighters as the old "quality" product that they made before they moved operations to mexico.

Ask your Motorola rep where the pagers go when they send them in for factory service, they will say the mail them to San Antonio but then they just ship them across the border to Mexico for underpad labor to mess them up for you.

Whatever happened to supporting USA jobs?