Minitor III stopped decoding after programming

hooknladder · Post by **hooknladder** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 10:25 am

Just recently our department changed tones and I reprogrammed all the Min 3&4's. A number of MIII's quit decoding after being reprogrammed. They receive as good as they ever did but don't beep. I re-read them and the info is correct and reprogrammed them from scratch with no success. I am using software version R6.3.1. Any suggestions?

Nand · Post by **Nand** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:28 pm

To verify the programming, read a working pager and write this to a not working pager. Perhaps this is how you programmed these in the first place, but it guaranties that they have the correct info in them.

Both Min 3 and 4 have problems with solder joints breaking at the decoder IC pins. Applying pressure towards the front of the pager from the upper part of the belt clip may prove this to be the case without opening the pager. The IC in question is located just behind the belt clip and causes most of the intermittent decoder problems in these models.

Nand.

Post by **wavetar** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 7:19 am

Out of curiosity, what were the old tones, and what did they change to? I've seen several cases where departments switched to lower tones and then have their MIII's stop decoding, while their MII's didn't have a problem. The cuprit is usually phone lines to remote paging sites...they attenuate the lower tones because of their 300Hz-2800Hz roll off filters. Often if you try & compensate by increasing the level at the encoder, the waveform gets too distorted. Sometimes you can find a workable balance...other times the easiest thing to do is change the tones to a higher frequency...easier & less time consuming than getting the phone company to change the lines, at least. Sometimes the cuprit is the transmitter itself, especially if a MIC line is used to inject the tones, instead of a FLAT TX audio point. It could also be a couple of KHz off frequency. A quick check of your system might reveal the problem(s).

Todd

hooknladder · Post by **hooknladder** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 8:50 am

Yes the tones did get lower in frequency form 1530+1669 to 349+539. I can set the tones off from my HT1250 from 10 feet away and all I get is the audio of the tones and no decode. I read the pagers again to verify the correct info and dumped the plug back in them but still hasn't helped. I did send some into the depot for this problem and they worked when they came back. It just seems rather odd that it only happened with the Min III's.

Birken Vogt · Post by **Birken Vogt** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:49 am

That was a known problem with the IIIs, maybe it was just the early ones, but since then I have made it a point not to use the low frequency tones. There are plenty of other tones that you can use. Just another one of the many PITA pitfalls to avoid when working with these darn things

Birken