Minitor 5 Feature Question

Two Tone · Post by **Two Tone** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:25 am

I was wondering what kind of new features you all would like to see in the Minitor 5 if they ever come out with one.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:45 am

I've heard that it won't be much more than a narrowband version of the Minitor 4. Whatever it ends up being, it'll probably still be crap.

Gigs · Post by **Gigs** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:14 am

First and foremost, better reception. Second, and ease of use, would like to see (mainly under the "user" coding option) the option (such as you can change the on/off duty function choice), the ability to have a "beep" alert or a "steady" alert tone by choice of each tone. Additonally, I wish the option of having BOTH alert and vibrate (at same time) was available.

Two Tone · Post by **Two Tone** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:44 pm

Different types of alert tones would be cool

Post by **alex** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:48 pm

Gigs wrote:I wish the option of having BOTH alert and vibrate (at same time) was available.

That would be cool...

The difference with the beeping/steady tone:

Beeping would be an individual call, and a steady tone would be a group call -

We have 200 pages here for administrative issues for example, and 980 pages for an emergency... 980 would be the staggard alert tone, 200 would be the steady tone.

-Alex

Wes · Post by **Wes** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 4:38 pm

First of all, it would need to work properly, then if they get that figured out I would like to see.......

A) The option to have vibe & alert together if wanted.

B) The option to have priority or non-priority scan while in the alert (muted) position.

***I KNOW THE POSSIBILITY IS THERE THAT YOU CAN MISS A PAGE!!! I STILL WANT THAT FEATURE)

C) A third and fourth channel if needed. (Total of 3 or 4 different rx freqs.)

My $.02....

Wes

Post by Pj » Mon Oct 11, 2004 5:56 pm

My new Min4 does beep for the dept, tone for the all call...

kf4sqb · Post by **kf4sqb** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 6:58 pm

Personally, I would like to see it actually work. The Minitor III I used to carry was a total POS, and the IV I carry now is an even bigger POS.

fire_master_21 · Post by **fire_master_21** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:12 pm

kf4sqb Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:58 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Personally, I would like to see it actually work. The Minitor III I used to carry was a total POS, and the IV I carry now is an even bigger POS.

I agree the III was a POS but I like my IV. My IV works better than the dept. portables ( but not better than mine

) in the next town over.

jim · Post by **jim** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:41 pm

I'd like to see Kenwood design them.

Wes · Post by **Wes** » Tue Oct 12, 2004 6:50 am

Jim, I'm with you all the way!!!!!!!!!!!

Wes

frodo · Post by **frodo** » Tue Oct 12, 2004 6:53 am

Being able to program PL's for the open channels would be nice.

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Tue Oct 12, 2004 7:11 am

jim wrote:I'd like to see Kenwood design them.

What?? WHY! Then it would be better, cheaper, more durable, last longer, better service, and easy to program for the end user. Who would want that?!?!!?!?

WB2IID · Post by **WB2IID** » Tue Oct 12, 2004 8:08 am

I've heard that the Minitor 5 is supposed to be a little taller to accomodate a better lowband antenna. Also, the battery may be a slide-on/slide/off thing rather than the cell type batteries used in all the others.

As a result the Min III/IV chargers won't work, the batteries will be unique (and more expensive) and who knows what else. Supposedly the thing will be in production by the end of Q1 2005.

Yeah; we'll see.

nyghthawk · Post by **nyghthawk** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 2:33 pm

Used to work for a rotomola shop who did a lot of pager work. The most common reason for min 3s failing that we saw was the controller chip popping off the board (big M says it was designed with the controller chip on a stress point of the board.) 'M's offical fix was a piece of foam rubber with a sticky back which you stuck on the inside of the case to press down on the chip. Not the best fix in the world, still got all sorts of weird problems from loose controlers.

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:02 pm

WB2IID wrote:I've heard that the Minitor 5 is supposed to be a little taller to accomodate a better lowband antenna. Also, the battery may be a slide-on/slide/off thing rather than the cell type batteries used in all the others.

As a result the Min III/IV chargers won't work, the batteries will be unique (and more expensive) and who knows what else. Supposedly the thing will be in production by the end of Q1 2005.

Yeah; we'll see.

Ok. So add "incompatible" to the stupid list for the Minitor.

Ett1033 · Post by **Ett1033** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:40 pm

telescopic antenna

a few more tones

different alert tones

important to keep knobs for the function, the other brands that have push button require you to look at the unit to make a function change

Hoseman292 · Post by **Hoseman292** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:40 am

Different alert tones would be SWEET.
An indicator that flashed until the pager is reset manually.
Compatible with Minitor III & IV programming hardware.
Voice storage being factory standard and not optional.
Color choice (white, black, charcoal, or red) like the Minitor I & II's.

Jay911 · Post by **Jay911** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 6:57 pm

Here are the notes I took during the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs conference in 2002 during a Motorola seminar.

Paging - Minitor pager line has been taken over by CGISS from Paging as of the IV. Concepts being discussed for the next generation (MinV) include liquid crystal displays, trunked and/or digital reception, etc.

fire_master_21 · Post by **fire_master_21** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:11 pm

Quote:
Paging - Minitor pager line has been taken over by CGISS from Paging as of the IV. Concepts being discussed for the next generation (MinV) include liquid crystal displays, trunked and/or digital reception, etc.

Why would they want LCD in a PS pager? I know there are many firefighters like myself who forget to even take off the pager before fire ops begin. Then they will complain that the LCD's suck and mother M should have never even put a LCD in the thing. Just my thoughts on this.

Two Tone · Post by **Two Tone** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:01 am

It would be nice for the Minitor V to decode MDC 1200 Signalling with the LCD screen. Kinda Pointless but cool.

Hoseman292 · Post by **Hoseman292** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:24 am

I never considered an APCO-25 digital pager to recieve digital transmissions.

My department along with many others simulcasts the primary dispatch channel to convention systems primarily for voice paging and selective calling. I'm wondering with the creation of a pager that would be capable of doing digital transmissions, why simulcast?

Just a thought,

Tim N3WIR
Silver Spring Maryland

Wes · Post by **Wes** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:55 am

Well if it receives digital trunking, it will prob cost $2000 and still suck and they still wont make parts avaliable for it....

Hoseman292 · Post by **Hoseman292** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:29 am

One last item for the MINITOR wishlist:

I recall some time ago in the late 80's Motorola had the Optrix and later, the PMR2000 series alpha-numeric pager.

I'm not sure about the Optrix, but the PMR2000 series had a model where not only would it recieve and display alpha-numeric pages but it also had voice.

It would be great if the next line of Minitor pagers had two recievers built in one pager where one could use VHF or UHF for tone and voice for quik call paging.

The other reciever being on 900 Mhz which would work in conjuction with FLEX or digital paging. This way one could use one pager instead of two to get both digital pages as well as tone and voice alerted.

It would have a nice big speaker for voice and a GOOD SIZED LCD to display the alpha-numeric paging information.

Okay... I'm done with this topic... well, atleast I hope so!

Holla atcha later guys,
Tim
N3WIR
Silver Spring Maryland

Two Tone · Post by **Two Tone** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 3:04 pm

Does anyone have a pic of ethier the Optrix or the PMR2000

Hoseman292 · Post by **Hoseman292** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:17 pm

There's a PMR2000 up for auction now on eBay.

http://i14.ebayimg.com/03/i/01/72/f1/2d_1_b.JPG

I would guess that this pager used GOLAY for paging. Most paging companies these days either use FLEX or POCSAG.

Here is the link to the auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW

Tim
Silver Spring Maryland

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 7:29 am

There was a hybrid version of the Keynote that was Voice/Digital Display. Ive seen a few here and there, mostly ex'gov stuff

Hoseman292 · Post by **Hoseman292** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:21 am

Jason,

I completely forgot about the Keynote. I believe there was an auction for several of these on eBay not too long ago. They were on 154.1600.

What made me think of a tone/voice/digital pager was seeing many of my friends and co-workers wearing two pagers while on call. I'm thinking in this day and age with synthesized hardware and components, what would be complicated about manufacturing a pager that could do both? Well... to answer my own question, the most complicated concept would be installing two completely different systems (analog and digital) in one case.

Anyhow, thanks for the reminder.

Tim
Silver Spring Maryland

jmr3865 · Post by **jmr3865** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 7:00 pm

Ok, after they get the pager straightened out, I would like to see:

at least 4 recieve channels with the scan function
to be able to have select call for two channels at the same time
the min 4 design but yet a better belt clip like the I had which locked but updated.
The minitor 2 beep (the best)
the option to beep and viberate at the same time.
better reception
to adjust the onduty and off duty on the programmer per tone
and finally a new EMERGENCY feature, Since most FF's bring their pagers in the fire with them, There should be an emergency transmitting feature which would allow the pager to have a switch that can be switched and the monitor button could be used as a transmit button for an emergency, yea only 3 watts or so, but its better than a poke with a sharp stick in an emergency situation.

My 2 cents

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 7:43 pm

A big percentage of the world is hoping and praying that it will support IMBE. This is the most important issue with the V.

EOppegaard · Post by **EOppegaard** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 4:17 pm

jmr3865 wrote: and finally a new EMERGENCY feature, Since most FF's bring their pagers in the fire with them, There should be an emergency transmitting feature which would allow the pager to have a switch that can be switched and the monitor button could be used as a transmit button for an emergency, yea only 3 watts or so, but its better than a poke with a sharp stick in an emergency situation.

You're right. That would be really nice. However there are some radios out there both by kenwood and Mother M that are just a tid bit bigger than a minitor, and can do paging as well. Kinda like just get rid of the pager and give them a little radio.

cfdeng3 · Post by **cfdeng3** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 5:25 pm

How about to have a wider range like 460-480Mhz

Cowthief · Post by **Cowthief** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 6:09 pm

Hello.

I will be the first to tell you a know nothing about fire equipment.
What I do know is what is out for paging equipment for RCCs.
A pager with a transmitter is called a talk-back pager, mamma /\/\ has made them in the past.
A pager that can do 2 tone or 5 tone and voice and POCSAG have been out from motorola since the BPR-2000 series.
Yes, this is correctly called a hybrid.
A pager that can do 2 channels at once, with 2 full RF sections,is called a duplex pager or guard band pager.
Duplex pagers were sold to the public under the coverage plus name by motorola, usually a VHF and 900 mix.
And, RCC equipment worked, and worked well.
Almost all cell phones can do alerts and ringtones galore and be set for whatever incoming number.
So, I do not see what the problem with /\/\ is.

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 6:20 pm

As long as the "little radio" can meet the same durability standards as the big fireground radios.

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