Q for all you pager gurus... simple POCSAG decoder?

Post by **akardam** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:37 am

Maybe someone here can point me in the right direction. Here's what I'm after...

We run a VHF POCSAG paging system. Troubleshooting occasionally needs to be done in the field. What I'm after is some way to display on my vehicle computer the raw POCSAG data stream.

Now ideally what I'd like is something akin to a pager with no screen and a serial port output - something that would just RX the POCSAG data, and spit it out as ASCII or spit it out raw for processing on the PC. For each message all I really need to know is capcode/groupcode and text of message.

Any thoughts? I've come across some software and hardware decoder solutions out there, but none of them really seem to fit the bill.

aaknitt · Post by **aaknitt** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 2:04 pm

I've never used it personally, but I've heard good things about PDW:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~atron/flex/

Lots of other info out there...just google POCSAG decoder

Andy

Post by **akardam** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:47 pm

Yes, that was one of the options I came across when conducting my aforementioned google searches, and as I mentioned I didn't feel that any of them really fit my needs.

I'm really more looking for an off the shelf integrated solution, one where all I have to do is to plug in power, serial, and antenna (if need be) and off I go. If anyone here knows of something like this please let me know.

Post by **Wowbagger** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:18 pm

akardam wrote:Yes, that was one of the options I came across when conducting my aforementioned google searches, and as I mentioned I didn't feel that any of them really fit my needs.

I'm really more looking for an off the shelf integrated solution, one where all I have to do is to plug in power, serial, and antenna (if need be) and off I go. If anyone here knows of something like this please let me know.

Well, I know of one solution for that - find yourself a COM-120B on eBay or the like. If you just want to see what is going over the air, you don't even need the computer - just start the POCSAG decoder and the decoded data will scroll on the screen.

Post by **akardam** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:43 pm

Are you talking about one of these beasties?

http://www.testequity.com/products/496/

Too big for the car, and really way overkill for what I'm looking for. Our RF guys have something similar, but it usually sits in the shack, which is about 100' away from the paging base antenna. I'm trying to monitor out in the field.

The search continues...

Post by **Wowbagger** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:53 pm

akardam wrote:Are you talking about one of these beasties?

http://www.testequity.com/products/496/

Yes, although TestEquity needs to be slapped - the COM-120 was NEVER a "Marconi" product.

As for the size - well, I've run mine in the car, but YMMV.

Post by **akardam** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:00 pm

Heh. I drive a sardine can with 5 radios already stuffed into it... that thing would fill the cab almost to exclusion of people. Needless to say I'm looking for something a wee bit smaller.

Spatch713 · Post by **Spatch713** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:14 pm

You need to check out:

http://wipath.com/pagingproducts.html

I use a PDT2000 now for similar stuff and its AWSOME. Check out the specs on it. Let me know if you have any questions.

Asst17-1 · Post by **Asst17-1** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:03 am

Spatch713 wrote:You need to check out:

http://wipath.com/pagingproducts.html

I use a PDT2000 now for similar stuff and its AWSOME. Check out the specs on it. Let me know if you have any questions.

How much do the PDT2000's run?

Spatch713 · Post by **Spatch713** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 8:23 am

They are around $675 a piece. Let me know if you need anymore info or would like to purchase one.

Post by **alex** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 8:54 am

That's actually really cool!

I don't know if it's $675 worth of cool, but it's cool none-the-less.

-Alex