What Kind Of Pagers Do Yahs Use

[ndvfd_ff33]

I'm just doin a lil survey to see what most depts use for Fire Pagers...I'm checkin too see how many dept's are back in the dark ages like us with most members using the big red brick aka minitor 1...

[Michael13]

nope we use the old siren on top of the hall, no jking. we use minitors 3's and 4's

[ndvfd_ff33]

Our siren on top of the hall still sounds with every call day or night...I've actually been woken up by the siren and i live 1 1/2 km's from the firehall....

[ndvfd_ff33]

Sorry for double post...I've been awoken by the siren when i miss the pager or it is turned down

[whitewater-409]

Hey about 15 years ago we had the tornado siren on the roof, and fire phones in bussinesses, then to the pager system with the old grey brick one, then to Motorola minitor III, with in the last 8 months we are updating to minitor IIII. with the repeat function on the minitor IIII we no longer have to ask dispatch what the 10-20 was...

And our prayers go out to the family and friends of the young man killed on the west coast.....

[remya]

We run the minitor 2's with a few 3's to keep people guessing. The people with the 3's seam to miss calls that the 2's pick up.

[Michael13]

I agree. those minitor III's suck. I have a II and wouldnt trade it for anything. The III's just dont want to work.

[ndvfd_ff33]

I'm gonna have to show this fourm to my Chief..lol...He must think everyone still uses the 1's...The only 2's we have are for our 4 lt's,4 captains and the Chief's and D/C's have III's....All 38 FF's use Minitor I's...

[whitewater-409]

The Minitor III pager has been for the most part reliable for us,
We have had a few issues with the buttons on top, the cover keeps slipping off and we loose them, also with the clip system on the back, dropping them in the lake or losing them on the highway to return and find them run over and scattered to the four corners of the world. We do find that, if there is a group of us together, and a page goes off some of us get it and then some don,t but thats only if your standing within a few feet, The new Minitor 4 has been really good, who ever has one likes it. We have never missed a page. They have always come thru, so those of you that are having the problem with lost pages check your base it could be something to due with your tower.
Stay safe and keep low... Wade

[g-01]

We still have a bunch of IIs but got a slew of IVs. I really like the IVs even though the chief at the time didn't get the repeater function. The range of the IVs is great.

We also have a bunch of Motorlola Keynotes issued out. They still work well, except that they don't have an automatic reset so they kill batteries if you don't reset them.

Scotty

[ndvfd_ff33]

Well if only i could persuade my Chief to purchase newer pagers even than what we got....But then again to them i'm just the dumb 19 year old kids.....Because I've only been around for 4 years and they have 40, I don;t know what the h**l i'm talking about....Ah well

[g-01]

NdVFD_ff33

One thing I have learned in the FF business is that communications is key - and especially so in the Volunteer branch. How many times have you been paged out to a call and have only a few personnel show up, only to find out the next day (or on the drive home) that they were home and available but their pager didn't work. I have a box of spare pagers that get issued as soon as someone misses the weekly test page or a real page (they aren't repeaters or monitoring but they squeal on demand). I go out of my way to ensure that all the pagers get timely repairs. The last thing I need is to be calling for mutual aid for a call when I have members sitting at home unaware that there is an emergency going on (and I really don't have time to call them on the telephone because I saw their lights on or vehicle in the drive on the way to the hall, but I do).

My advice: make the business case. Do it professionally. Get as many statistics as possible. Present it in an organized manner, detailing how the benefits to the department outweigh the costs. The Chief will be hard-pressed to ignore it. Besides, what self-respecting administrator will turn their back on an employee who is willing and able to aid them in doing their job!

Just my humble opinion.

Scotty

[Michael13]

why dont you do daily test pages? we have pager malfunctions too. some calls we get 4 people show up, but thats because people work or take off on weekends. that why everyone has mutual aid. what would do with out it?

[brucebag]

hey everyone we use to use min 2 an3`s now we have digital text pagers.

[whitewater-409]

We have test pages once a week, if we had a test page every day we would have several firefighters having heart attacks all over the area. We have the abbility to do paging from our hall so if a few show up we page again, How do you like the text messaging system, and how big of an area does it cover..

[brucebag]

the text messages pages are ok were slowly getting all the bugs out it covers an area app 60 sq miles and is dispatched out of ottawa.

[TiSme]

We use mainly 2's .... we have some 3's but they are for coverage when of the main units need to be sent for repairs. We have also found issues with the 3's. Right now we are upgrading to the 4's as budget allows. So about half of the officers are now running with the 4's. But the 2's have been solid for us.


Let's be safe out there

[Michael13]

whitewater how many calls a year does your dept go out on? our test pages usally come in at 6:00 everynight, so we kinda get usd to it. i know what you mean when guys would have heart attacks. when i first joined it was a surprise when the pager goes off, but now im used to it. the worst is still when you're in a dead sleep. i turn my pager away from me on my nightstand so its not so loud.

[whitewater-409]

We currently answer between 30 and 40 calls a year ( STN 4), and we don,t do water recue. we have light extrication and we might use it once every few years, thier is 5 Stations in our region with station 4 having the largest area to cover. This year to date stn 4 has had 20 calls. In all we probably answer over 130 calls a year between the 5 stations. Wednesday night is our pager test, and thats often enough. i attatched a picture of one fire we had in March that we responded to with Station 5....

[Headrick]

Hey are department is using the minitor 3, It seems to work quite well especially now it seems to speed up the process of getting to the hall. We can actually here the call coming in before it is paged out.


Stay safe

Headrick
Namao F/d
Alberta

[Whitewater_419]

I would imagine that text paging would be awesome for fire services - Not only would you not have to request a 20 if you missed the call, but special instructions/warnings could be sent out and have a much better chance of being known by everyone on scene, as well :)

[FireEMTGuy]

We use minitor II's with good success. Some members who live out of town a little ways (who also have portables) have the tones go off in the II's but not their portables.... We do daily radio checks at 1315 with good success. Also the other VFD's in our area do daily radio checks at 1915hrs with good success (cheif always answers unless away)

[telesquirt]

we use all minitor 3's at our hall and havn't had many problems but i seem to recall a notice given out by minitor concerning problems with the 3 not getting some pages---i think the problem lay with the frequency of the dept's system operating at too low of a range and had to be bumped up by whoever sets up your radio systems-----if anyone wants more info on this i will try and find the dispatches we got from minitor and post them here.

[WFD999]

We finally took the jump from the fire phones and sirens to pagers about 4 years ago. We are tied to a 911 center now that sends a alfa numeric message to use over motorola memo express pagers. These are great gadgets, Not only tell us there is a call but also send out messages to the group without sitting on the phone for a hour calling all the members up. If you can I highly recomend such a system.

[ehetu]

We use older Motorolas -- I think they're called "Elite", or "Prestige" (or is that the name of my Aeroplan membership?). Anyway, here's a picture of it being modeled by my daughter.

edmond
Chelsea FD

[JGallagher]

Mine says a Motrorla Minitor 2!!

[JGallagher]

Here ya go!!

[firefighter9calt]

We use minitor 3. work good but look like crap with the buttons off of them. Lot of problems with buttons falling off and other technical problems.

[shaneb]

One of our halls (Madsen) still has the "air raid" siren on the hall. We all just recieved new Minitor 4 pagers to replace the 2&3's still kicking around. And I even have a Big Red Brick that my kid pretends with.

[Toxic]

Originally posted by ehetu
We use older Motorolas -- I think they're called "Elite", or "Prestige" (or is that the name of my Aeroplan membership?). Anyway, here's a picture of it being modeled by my daughter.

edmond
Chelsea FD

Wow guess you don't have a minimum age to join your dept ehetu! LOL

I carry a minitor II and like it. When on the fireground I can turn channels and hear all of our UHF traffic. Can't do that with t he III's. We don't like the III's for the same reasons that have been cited already. I've never even seen a IV...

[mutts252]

our department runs Motorola Minitor III for the most part, with the chief and captains (and a couple other luckys sods) having Minitor IV (dual-frequency, so they can listen to neighbouring departments and have a heads-up on possible mutual-aid calls). none of our III's have dual-freq on them, although it is possible to get. our test pages are at 1700 every day - a friendly reminder it's quitting time... LOL.

our biggest problem with the pagers is that they break/malfunction fairly often, and they take us FOREVER to get repaired! if anyone knows a good service company for them in Ontario, pleeeeeeaaasssse let me know so i can pass the info on, the turnaround times are driving the chief mad (well, among other things...)

we still have the ol' air raid siren on the roof, too... and god is it loud! doesn't get used except for festival-y stuff, but it's in prime working condition.

[Scuba]

I hear ya on the service issues.........our problem is a) the turnaround time and b) the fact that 1/2 the time the company we use 'fixes' it.....it comes back in the same condition it was in, but with a repaired tag on it.....

As for what we use, all the old'er guys have their Minitor 2's. Anyone who joined the department in the last 4 years have minitor 3's, and the cheif just got upgraded to a minitor 4.

As everyone else has stated.....Minitor 3's are CRAP

I live about a block from our 55 watt base tower, and just 5 minutes ago I got one of our test pages, and missed the second one......it's just sad.

[mutts252]

yeah, they *are* a little, erm, unreliable... (trying to be kind...)

mine had a nasty issue of not 'announcing' when the volume was all the way up - it went really quiet when the volume was cranked, and anything that actually did come out of it was gibberish. so i have to leave it at about 2/3 volume all the time. also, it never played the beeps - just the tones.... which, i might add, is a colossal pain in the butt when 2 departments are on the same frequency. that and the fact that the beeps are way louder than the tones usually...

ugh. i should just buy myself a IV. :p

[Scuba]

2 departments? lol

We have 14 running off the same frequency.........

[mutts252]

14?
oh god, that's gotta suck...

[Scuba]

meh. Calls are prioritized and people switch off to OFM or M/A channels if there's something big elsewhere......

[dave5171]

I'm kind of curious as to how you department are paged out for calls. I relize most departments have voice pagers, as well as my but were currently switching over to new digital Alpha nummeric pagers. (There currently in test phase) Does anybody have these pagers and if so how do you like them?

[LTPVFD]

We are still using voice pagers (Motorola Minitor II, III & IV's), and have no plans at this time to switch to digital.

Stay safe !!


LTPVFD

[Punctualdeer]

I'm kind of curious as to how you department are paged out for calls. I relize most departments have voice pagers, as well as my but were currently switching over to new digital Alpha nummeric pagers. (There currently in test phase) Does anybody have these pagers and if so how do you like them?
We got Alpha nummeric and I like it because i can use it for personnal call.

[Hosehog176]

I have just traded my Minitor 2 In for a Minitor3 I'll let you know how I like them.

[BCFFFV]

Great I can't wait to hear about the new pager!!!!!

[gaga]

Minitor IV's. We have had them for about a year now and havn't had any problems yet. 260 calls last year.

[bcfire]

[QUOTE=ltpvfd]We are still using voice pagers (Motorola Minitor II, III & IV's), and have no plans at this time to switch to digital.

Stay safe !!
mintor II"s-no issuesBCFIRE

[dave5171]

Well were running both pager now together, Text pagers and Minitor II's. So far I found the text pagers handy because we got a call this weekend for a medical but I didn't get the whole address. With our voice pagers if you miss the first call your S.O.L. it won't be repeated on less a officer with a radio requests it. But with the text pagers the full address popped up on the screen and the nature of the call, it was cool. Now I knew exactlly where I was going. So far I'm for the new pagers and the range for them is far greater than the voice.

[vff25]

We are using Minitor II...

[Fire_scuba]

We use Minitor II's still, but unfortunaltly alot are starting to break down and are becoming unrepairable so after trying to talk the chief into getting the new minitor to test it out. He finally bought one to test out. I was looking at it today and they actually look pretty cool.

[FireEMTGuy]

I'd have to agree that the text pagers are a excellent way of keeping track of addresses.

[Squamish-FF]

Our dept replaced all our Minitors, last year as servicing was becoming a problem. Motorolla has said they are getting out of the (fire)pager business as there isn't enough money(I guess)in it.
We got Standard radios that are the same size as a Minitor II with a stubby little antenna. The officers and truck radios use them with full radio capability and the rest of the FF's have the same unit with multiple channels (different company pages) and monitor but the ptt is blocked internally, so it is only a pager. They have been good with no problems and anytime you want to make the pager into a radio it's only software.

[firemedicbern]

I just got the minitor IV. So far it works great. I used to have the III they kept breaking down on me.

[wspfire]

How have the minitorIV been work for peopel, what kind of distance are you guy getting on them?

[mfdff10]

were using the motorola voice pagers still, but they work amazing. i would not want the text pagers at all.... a call at 4 am i wouldn't be able to read lol

[fireman-911]

Ok, I just joined a new department in Edmundston and they are using Motorola Keynote/Voice Memory pagers.

I have never even heard of these. At my old department, we were running with 2's & the on-duty crew was wearing 3's.

Now the worst thing about the pager at my current department is that they have programed the pager with the tone at loud only. No volume control. As well, once the page comes through you need to squelch the pager & don't have the option of leaving it open to listen to the traffic (vehicle leaving & arriving on scene....)

Oh well! Can't complain! At least I'm back in it!

[Muddy]

We use kenwood portable radios and have a few Minitor III and IV. Being a dept. in the sticks we had to answer all the calls on the radio and set off the pagers. We final got 911 service last month so we're still upn the air on paging.

[Toxic]

We have the kind that go off 3 times this morning for false alarms at the local nursing home. I've given up on sleeping for now.

Oh...Minitor II's and III's. We don't really like the III's although the repeat function is nice.

[DCCHam]

Minitor 2's and 3's here as well....but we don't have the "playback feature".....would be nice though. I believe the Chief has a minitor 4.

[Buckster]

If it ain't broke don't fix it, min 2's here

[Toxic]

Okay I'm 90% sure that the playback ones are the III's. But I'm not positive. Basically it remembers the last page. You can manually erase the last page or it will overwrite itself with the next page. You hit a button and it repeats the last page. Great for when you've been woken up in the middle of the night, get the hall and can't remember where the hell 911 said to go...lol

Our II's are setup to monitor our UHF channel on channel 2. I love this as sometimes not everyone gets a radio. That way you at least know what's happenning on the fire ground if you're radioless.

[Josh00]

Only some 5's have the playback feature Deevo.

We use 2,3,4,5 and portables...lol

I have a 2. I'm fairly adament that it's the oldest 2 sitting around, and it's never done me wrong! The beeps are a little squaky but the voice with vol cranked up is loud enough to hear it from anywhere in the house. Definately louder than the 5 my dad has. (haha damn Sr Firefighters and their minitor V's)

[ndvfd_ff33]

My Father just got a 5 a few months ago. His has playback on it. He'll play back calls sometimes when I phone home and he trys to remember the calls they've had.

[st601]

I had alot for pagers over the year, Now I use a Swissphone pager .It as a lots of options, off the shelf parts for when things happen and a $ that makes it the choice when we update old one.

[PellattFire]

We are slowly switching to radios.
10 last year and another 10 next year I hope.
I keep a Minitor III for when I am with customers.
Dispatch said their stress level has gone waaaay down since we call in acknowleging the page and giving them an eta on arrival at the hall.
after the first 4 call in and we know we have a compliment en-route no other radio traffic until truck leaves the hall.

It has come in handy a few times for calling in illegal burning complaints in other departments territories before they get out of control as well.

The bad part is that they(Motorola EX500) are supposed to double as pagers and not be so noisy until our tone is used but we haven't been able to get them to work that way successfully yet.
That's why I still keep a pager so I can sleep at night when other departments are dealing with a call.

[Blacknose]

We all use the KENWOOD TK-270G VHF portible radios.

As a officer it is nice to be able to hear who will be responding to the calls,

Sometimes it gets a little busy at times but a little training/reminders help a couple times a year.

Every mutual aid partner's frequency is programed in the radios so it is a good tool when giving mutual aid. There is a "PAGE" option which makes the radio quiet until the tones go off. This is really nice as I am a shiftworker who sleeps during some of the days.

Through the 911 Dispatch Centre we have the ability to be linked to anyone who has a phone, or radio that we do not have their frequencey programed. RCMP, Flight Services at the Airport, any one. VHF or UHF it doesn't matter. This comes in very handy at times.

Depending on the users ther can be a long delay to get all the repeaters open to talk. so a 2 to 3 second pause before you talk is sometimes required or you will miss the begining of the sentance.

[FireChef]

We are currently using Motorola Minitor IV, we have had a couple of issues with them, my first one actually lost its ability to make the tone sounds, so it had to be sent away for damn near a month, another guy had to take his in for the same thing. Other than that, they have been good pagers. We are looking at going to smaller red ones, that are not Minitor's. Dont know much about them, the Chief, D.Chief and one of the Capts have them, they have a repeat feature and a couple other features.

[janesee]

The newer members have Motorola Minitor II SV's and the senior members/officers/chief get the new pagers that just came in... I believe they're Minitor 5's... but not positive. All I know is they are freaking LOUUUUD!

[firefighter26]

We are slowly switching to radios.
10 last year and another 10 next year I hope.
The bad part is that they(Motorola EX500) are supposed to double as pagers and not be so noisy until our tone is used but we haven't been able to get them to work that way successfully yet.
That's why I still keep a pager so I can sleep at night when other departments are dealing with a call.

Back when I used to carry a radio (16 channel, Motorola HT1000), we had it set up to act like a pager. IE, channel 16 was "pager" meaning the only thing you would get is the "BEEP BEEP BEEP" followed by dispatch, just like you would on pretty much any minitor (I, II, III, IV, V).

From there, the other 15 channels were whatever we had programmed (dispatch, operations, mutual aid FDs, BCAS, Forestry, RCMP, etc).

We had plans in the works to slowly replace our MII's with a base model Kenwood 4 channel Portable for only about 150 extra per unit (vs an MIV); and basically set them up the same way as the HT1000.

Currently I have a Minitor II. It took a bit to get used to the different tone it makes for a call vs the MIII I used to have (and later the HT1000); but it is definitely the LOUDEST of the three!!! I can hear it all over the house without any problems (even if I forget it in my jacket pocket that's hanging in the closet).

[Nagrom]

I have a Minitor II. I have not had another pager, so I can't really compare, but I can say that it works fine, and is everything that is needed (playback would be nice, but I don't really need it). The two things I notice with it is it acts up at the walmart checkout and beside pop machines, and when volume is all the way up, messages are very hard to hear. Then again though, the thing is loud enough all the way up would probably cause hearing damage.

Morgan

[nolcor]

I also use a Minitor II and it doesnt get service in Wal-Mart for some reason, but otherwise it has really good range. Our fire departments use some of the newer Minitors n they say they dont have as much range

[Dubya]

Minitor II all around in our crew. They work very well - although all we have to compare to is the Minitors we used to have :^S

[Jon_ACVFD]

I had a 4 up until a few months ago, but i think the board inside of it broke and it would randomly beep or vibrate. So i was issued a new 5 and i like it so far, only thing is is that the pager is kinda big.

[Pumphead]

got a three. Love the play back and vibration. Vibration is all I use at night when its in the charger.( you don't wake up the whole house).Some guys are getting newer ones now as these things die, but they seem larger than the 3. That seems like they are going back to the size the old ones were . (the size of a brick and just about as heavy)

[MFR334]

Daviscomms BR802 Alphanumeric pagers, as well everyone is issued there own radio to take home...

[PNEFD]

I just got my Minitor 3 (no playback) tonight. So I'll reserve judgement on it for now.

I've had a keynote up to now, only single channel, the range was pretty horrible, and they really aren't that loud.

Most of the Dept. has 5's with playback, and I know we have 4 or 5 new ones in the Chiefs office. (Guess they don't trust us probies with 'em!)

[DementedGreg_87]

We have a mix of minitor III, IV, and V's, all with the repeat function..... if it still works. I currently just have a radio but am trying to get my hands on one of the pagers as well.... I hate having to radio dispatch or another member and ask them for the civic if i didn't quite catch it lol.

[BigDawg99]

These are the ones that we use..they are great..they are Daviscomm's br802 Pagers..And i also got a Motorola Hand Held

[North_of_60]

We have a mix if Minitor 3's and 5's. Officers & Medics carry radios.

Our Siren can be heard at the Elders Cabin 19 km away (flat with no trees...but that is still loud!!!!)

[lwiltenb]

We've got a mix of Minitor II's, III's and IV's but I've been using the Swissphone RE629 for over a year now and it's as good or better than the Minitor's. One can program up to 16 different tones which is nice. It's smaller than the Minitors and seems to be as durable.

BTW, all versions of the Minitor since the II have had the stored voice option, as well as up to four tones and two frequencies, but those are all options that of course probably cost extra money.

[tanman]

I'm kind of curious as to how you department are paged out for calls. I relize most departments have voice pagers, as well as my but were currently switching over to new digital Alpha nummeric pagers. (There currently in test phase) Does anybody have these pagers and if so how do you like them?

If you are not using voice pagers any more i need a new one.If selling it i want under $30.00 if possible.

[JamesW]

OMNI Provincial Electronics in Newmarket, Ontario is a Canadian distributor of Voice Pagers and Alphanimeric Pagers. Feel free to call Jim at 1-866-780-6792.

Also, they are the distributor of a Vehicular Pager from WiPath the PDT2000 Pagind Data Terminal.

Firedepartments in Mississagua and Brampton, Ontario are using them.

[FIRERICK41]

We have just started using a new tone-voice pager, they are the APOLLO VP200. they come in VHF or UHF and have all of the functions that the new Motorola min 5 has and they are the same size and look identical, the Vp200's work good though!!!, we have had a few depts trying out the new min 5's and they did not work as well as these new pagers and they are much cheaper! all models come standard with (stored voice) not extra like min 5. our local dept purchased these from Zone Tech inc. (zonetechontario@gmail.com) ph: (519)990-9663

1 channel $400.00
2 channel $425.00

[Inspir]

We used to have pagers (Moto 3) but have recently gotten rid of them all and we all have Kenwood radio's now.

We gave all our pagers to the local reporters, journalists, elected town officals, mayor, and public workers foreman.

[Nagrom]

We used to have pagers (Moto 3) but have recently gotten rid of them all and we all have Kenwood radio's now.

We gave all our pagers to the local reporters, journalists, elected town officals, mayor, and public workers foreman.

No problems with people getting in the way on scene, or was that sarcasm?

[Inspir]

Media coverage has gone up drastically and recruitment of public works and town officials has been great... so something is working :D

We let the RCMP deal with the squatters

[ckfirestn9]

We have minitor 4's and when they break they are being replaced with swissphone pagers. They have a built in digital clock and timer display which is kind of cool. Besides that they work about the same as the motorolas'.

[dennis1]

our station uses different kinds of pagers......the one i have is a motorola voice memory pager i dunno how old that is but it works **lol**

[CKL958]

Mostly Minitor 4... A small smattering of Minitor 3 and 5 as well though.

[fortsmithman]

My service uses Minitor V.

[stef0d]

We use the swissphone! Love it! You know what time you got paged & see how much life is left in your battery!