another Minitor 5 Problem

[ncfirfighter]

Need help. We are still dispatching on VHF, have to its a rural area. We have Minitor 5
that are now missing pages. Constantly. If they page a call 3 times , 1 out of three they may activate. Some Minitor 5 activate more consistently than others. But in the last 3-4 months it has gotten considerably worse.


Nothing has changed on the programming side. Same Freq for years.

If you are listening, at times it almost sounds like the repeater was not "Warmed up", you can only hear a half set of tones.

The problems occur more on Private setting, if I am listeneing to the rest of the county
and scanning, the pagers will activate more frequently.

The old reliable Minitor II hit every time!

Any thoughts, any settings on the 5 that we can change.

Thanks and stay safe.

[Deliman1016]

We had the same problem, over the past year many of the Minitor V's just stopped, it is not your system. We changed pager and have found a pager Built in the USA- WatchDog's- the Minitor pagers were never the same after the Minitor II- I found out that the watchdog is built by the guys that built the minitor II- it is about the same size as the II but AAA batteries and I like that I can have 3 Frequencies (I can put up to 5). Sound is loud and clear and alway alert. No more minitors for us!!!

[Don Branner]

I thought I would post a reply to your degradation in alerting sensitivity. There could of course be several issues that could cause this and most are not pager related. However, a degradation in a pagers alerting sensitivity over time has been a recent issue discovered in the last 12 months or so. This issue is related to the 455 KHz ceramic filter in the pager and to a specific manufacturer of the filter. Voice pagers are not the only pagers will this issue. Alphanumeric and numeric pagers are also involved. The repair is to replace the 455 KHz ceramic filter. The bigger issue is finding a shop with the capabilities to identify the problem and also have parts to fix the pager. Most pager manufacture have moved away from this component supplier. No names mentioned. Not sure what the big M has done as their manufacturer is off shore. One clue to this is the degradation period itself. Eventually the pager will no longer receive at all. Due to the nature of the ceramic filter problem the time period can vary with exposure of the pager to environmental conditions. The more harsh the environment for the pager the faster the degradation period will be... typically.

Another clue to pinpoint the problem is if other devices including other pagers are not experiencing the degradation in sensitivity. This would tend to eliminate the system.

Hope this is helpful.

[nmfire]

Proper diagnostic requires knowing everything else going on too. What does it sound like on a normal radio as opposed to the pager? You're saying the transmitter is front-end clipping the transmissions. If so, of course you aren't getting alerts, there is nothing to alert. If your car runs out of gas, do you change the head gasket?

[ncfirfighter]

Two things..

Yes Communications is aware that there is a dispatch problem. The Paging equipment is 17 years old. They have swapped cards, same outcome. Tech advised ssytem needed to be rebooted, but would not do it due to age of system and concerns that the system would not come back up!


However, I have Minitor II's that do work more consistent. When A full set of tones hits
and only 1/3 of Minitor 5 pagers activate. It just seems like we have two problems.

The Paging system is scheduled to be replaced this month or next, equipment is here, waiting on install.