Batboard

I was listening on my scanner last night to a local fire department when they sent a series of alert tones. It started like a normal Quick Call II, but then went to these weird set of tones. The tones sounded more like a pulse, like a machine gun almost, then ended with the same QC II tones that the alert began with. For example:

Tone A---Tone B ************** Tone A---Tone B

* Representing the pulse noise.

I too have heard these tones at our county ema on 46.14mhz. They are coming from a far away station but I couldn't pinpoint which state they were coming from as we are in PA and on this receiver it is nothing to hear fire depts. in California do their equipment/radio checks on Sunday evenings. If I were to guess I would say it is some kind of acknowledgement from a base radio after it receives the tones.

Im not sure but these tones you are hearing are probobly old plectron tones.

If I can record the tones, ill put them up.

the description sounds a little like a data transmission you might here from an alphapaging transmitter. listen to 929.5125 or 929.9375 Mhz and see if you hear a similar sounding noise.

That description does sound like the older two tone unit page/alpha data message type system that paging companies used to utilize and some still do. There are several of these in use around the country in public safety/emergency services dispatch systems. The tones alert the selected pagers and the data stream puts the call info on the message screen. The advantage is that the system is compatible with both alpha pagers and voice pagers within the same system.

possibly knox-box tones?

Found a good clip of what it sounds like. It is almost exact except my local FD has two A-B tones before the "blast" tone. Is there anything that will create these tone on UHF? Portable, Mobile?


http://box54.org/clips/TankerTurn.wav

Sounds like QCII two tone sequential paging, followed by an abnocious warbling Alert Tone.

Yeah, that's an alert tone generated by the console. I've heard that from several downstate NY dispatch centers. Maybe some of the downstate (or southern upstate) folks can confirm.

Sounds like it could be Pocsag for data. We use something like that in Pa.

Bartman, no that clip is a Console generated obnociuos warbleing ALERT tone, not POCSAG data.

Yea, thats just a console generated alert tone. Nothing special.

Yep, that's common around here in central NJ. I've always suspected that's there for folks listening to the frequency in the background, rather than using pagers.

The theory behind these "wake up" tones, sometimes known as "hot shot tones" and sometimes called "human preamble," is that it takes a while for a listener who is not expecting a call to start paying attention to the substance of the message; sort of a human squelch delay. The tones are supposed to get people's attention while at the same time not sending anything they have to remember, so that when the real message starts, they will be listening. The point is to minimize responses along the lines of "Dispatch, 10-5 the location, please."

I'm told that there are studies showing that the tones do accomplish what they are designed to do, though the prior responses show that they can be irritating to some folks.

It's just a VERY obnoxious console-generated "birdie tone" to get ones attention before the dispatch.

These are often leftover relics from the days of alert monitors that merely opened the receiver upon QCII tone receive and didn't have a built-in alert tone generator to get the listener's attention. They use a similar sound right in my town.


Very annoying.

What company makes or made these tones? i.e. motrola, plectron,etc

No one "makes" them. It is just audio. Most any radio console that does paging will do it. It is nothing special.

Will wrote:Sounds like QCII two tone sequential paging, followed by an abnocious warbling Alert Tone.

I agree. A dispatch center near here does something similar, with different warbling/zapping/chirping noises depending on which station or unit is being toned out. I guess I don't see hte benefit of them.. to me, the tones themselves should be an 'alert' enough. There are a couple agencies with tones very similar to my department, and when I hear them, I'm just about ready to go out the door.

Another couple local departments request that our dispatch center send their tones twice because the first set opens their radios up, and the second gives them something loud and alerting to hear.

Looking for a couple different makers of consoles. I'm looking for a way to broadcast similar tones to alert people in emergencies. I'm interested because I found out that our fire/ security system can connect to a radio system and when properly connected to a console/reading device, will broadcast locations of system troubles/ alarms etc. either over the air or by word/numbers.

If I'm not too far off, that sounds like an paging "noisemaker" tone that comes from a Zetron Console.

I had this setup on the Zetron console for my agencies. At 3 AM, it gives you a couple of seconds to wake up and comprehend what is going on. Served it's purpose well...

Our county fire paging channel does the same for the agencies that requested it...it's an attention getter.

Zetron 4010 or 4000 console generated alert tone.

Does anyone happen to know what the tones and timing are for the Zetron 25's fast siren alert tone are?

I have a recorded sample from the policeinterceptor site and I have repeatedly tried to analyize and duplicate using cool edit. The sample has a ctcss tone of 141.3 in the background and doesn't seem to be clean enough for me to analyze.

I have been trying to duplicate this alert tone for quite some time. My county back home had the plectron tones with this alert tone and I listened to it for darn near 10 years at least 30 times a day, not to mention 30 times in a row with plectron tones at 6pm when they did their daily pager test. They no longer use the fast siren alert tones for some reason. Man, that would really get your attention at 3am on the old plectron boxes with the volume cranked at about 3/4 full.

I want to replicate it into an mp3 file to use as an alert on my cell phone when I get a text from our CAD system. The county here doesnt use alert tones, except for one department that is having problems answering calls during night-time hours.

Thanks!

Jeff
Surf City, NC

all the DEPTs on low band around here in CT 46 and 33 mhz use it

The convention around here is that "Alert 1" (steady tone as long as key pressed) is for general announcements, "Alert 3" (series of beeps) is for still announcements to companies on the air, and "Alert 2" (Zetron "warble") is for urgent messages (typically building evacuations). The sound in the clip is Alert 2.

If it truly was the same tone after the warble tone its possible that it was just a noob to the console also. I used to be guilty for double toning companies. The send page and the ptt were both red and close together on the centracom II I dispatched from, so if you weren't paying enough attention after you hit the alert tone and hit the send page button again...you basically set the pagers off again and started from scratch. I know I made some people mad with that...sorry.