Batboard

Hello all, I found this board looking for help with setting up the new Min V's I purchased for my department a few weeks ago. I am new to radio work so bear with me. A retired FF who use to sell Johnson radios was able to hook up to our station base and read off the frequencies and tones for me. I was able to purchase the programing cradle / interface / software with the new pagers to get away from our local monopoly dealership ( 380 each vs 430 they wanted to sell at - how do they do it so cheap?) I don't have the cradle to read the codeplug from one of our 3's or 4's.

I was able to program everything so it works but we are having one main issue - getting tones and then losing / not getting voice. - but not all the time. Reading thru older threads here I think I just need to change the code plug reset function from the current factory setting of automatic. Some of our dispatchers are putting in a few second delay between the tones and starting the voice. If I understand correctly in automatic that delay is allowing the pager to "reset" and close the channel, and then with it reset it won't open up again until it hears the tones. - IS this correct????

SO, I think I need to change to the revert or revert N setting. And if I understand correctly in either case the guys would need to hit the reset button or turn it off / on or change channels to "reset" the pager after a call is completed so they don't get woke up in the middle of the night later on when dispatch is talking to another department in the county on the same freq. Is this correct as well?????

If my above assumptions from reading the past info here and the help file are correct I guess I don't see then what difference Revert N makes? or is is more to do with the SV funcion?

One more question, in monitor mode(what I have set up as my B channel on all units) it is fairly common to have the channel open up to static for no reason, espicially around computers. Tell me about the squelch settings, I have it set on the default 3 right now, does moving it up to 4 or 5 make it less or more sensitive? The flip side of that is I have to have my personal scanner with me anytime i am in my shop with the overhead doors closed as any pager I've had (this new V or the pair of 3's I had before) as I won't receive a call unless the doors are up.

Thank you for any help / information - great board and info you have here.

Hi Twr

Glad you found the board, there are many knowledgeable people here.

We have a variety of Minitors in my volunteer department - and I try to keep them all up and runing.

I am able to use the automatic revert on our pagers, but our dispatchers do not let the carrier drop between tones and voice. If it does drop they resend the tones again. It sounds like your dispatchers unkley for a few seconds after the tones and then come back with the voice. If that is the case, you will need to use the revert settings to basically leave the pager open for receiving after the tones. You may have to experiment a little to find a value that works for your situation. The down side to this is that you get open squelch from the pager after the tones when the carrier drops.

I have not changed the squelch setting on ours. We have another agency two counties away using the same VHF frequency so we get alot of noise from them if we reduce the squelch setting. The M V's we have receive much better than the III's and IV's we have. Sounds like your station may be in one of those spots where the signal is a bit weak.

Hope you find what you need to get them working. Some of the other pager experts may have more to offer.

I had a similar situation and you need to change the reset function to one of the dealy options. You can have either delayed N which will reset after N (number) of seconds, or revert N which will revet to the monitor mode after it has waited so many seconds.