Batboard

I'm not familiar with console programming but I'm trying to piece together some advice for our local tech. Our situation: Gold Elite consoles, UHF analog and ASTRO 800MHz radios. We currently have page buttons setup with QCII tones that go out over the UHF radio, and a bank of different buttons that send call alerts over the ASTRO system. Is it possible to make a single page button that will do both? What I mean is one button that will send a QCII page over UHF and a call alert over the 800MHz at the same time (or stacked)? What about stacking multiple call alerts (say to four different radios) on a single button? I'm being told it can't be done and I'm not sure I believe it...Any help would be appreciated.

Shouldn't be a problem. As far as the console knows, its just another resource. The issue is that tones (any tone) sounds like crap in the digital world.

If the resource is available, and you know the four digit paging code do this:

Select manual entry, highlight the two resources you want to page with, enter the code and then page/signaltalk (whatever its labeled) and see what happens.

The paging resources are just programmed to go on whatever channels programmed. You can do one or 15 channels at a time.

I can help you with this.

Currently our Gold Elite pages (all QCII or Plectron tones) go out over two of our sites. Of course, the Gold Elite cannot handle them at the same time, so it will tone off the first site, then switch to tone off the second site.

To set up the single page button you need to create a "page group".

Go into the ADM (Alias Database Manager) and look at the top of the window. You will see a "Book" and "System" drop down menu. In our ADM, if I open the "System" drop down I see a "Page Group" selection. Now in the "Book" drop down, you may or may not have a "Book" which is where the information on the groups is stored. If so, find yours. If not, go to the menu bar and click the "Books" menu. Then click "new book...." Name your book, then click "OK". It should now appear in the "Book" drop down.

If the book already existed, or if you have just created the new book, click "Add..." down on the bottom of the window. Another window will pop up. Here is where you will set the name of the page group that will eventually appear on your console screen, so make sure you can understand what it is. Then click "Memebers".

Now ANOTHER window will pop up. Again, you'll see a menu on the left side that says "Does Not Include". These are the lists off all the pages/signalling/etc that exists in your ADM. Again, find your "System" and "Book" in the drop downs where your pages live. When you find them, click them and press "ADD". You'll want to do this for both the UHF analog and the 800MHz resources so eventually you'll see both in the "Include Members" window. When done adding your individual pages to the group, hit "Close" on the right side. Then press "Close" on the Add page group window.

You'll want to do the above procedure for every group you create. If you have sixteen pages that you're trying to combine (8 analog UHF and 8 ASTRO 800MHz pages) you'll need to do it eight times, each time adding the UHF and 800MHz version of the tone to the group.

When you're done all that, exit the ADM. Now open your Elite Admin program. Click "Edit" in the menu bar, then "Resources" in the menu. A window will pop up where you can configure how the new page group icon will appear on the screen. Find your page groups in the list, then go through the "Resource Header" and "Features" and make it look how you want it to look.

When that's done, click close and go back to the main Elite Admin screen. Back to the menu bar, back into the "Edit" menu, then to the "Folders" menu. Find the folder in the drop down where you want to add the new page group icon. Then find the page group in the list on the left, click the right pointing arrow, and repeat as much as you need to. I would recommend doing one at a time however. Now click close to go back to the main screen. Now you should see the page group icon appear somewhere on the screen. Drag and drop it where you want it.

When you're done moving them all around, go to the menu bar, click "Configuration", then "Save As". I typically save the new configuration with a brief word of what changed then the date so if the dispatchers need to restart the program they know to use the one with the most recent date.

Now go to one of your consoles, shut down the Elite Dispatch program, reopen it, when it gives you the option to pick a configuration you new one should show up. Open that, let it download whatever it needs to download/update, then test away to make sure it all works. If it does, have all the consoles restarted. If not, you can revert back to your old configuration on that console until you go back into the ADM and figure out where you messed up.

I don't think I missed any steps, so if I did, please someone chime in. If you have any questions or need more clarification please don't hesitate to ask!