Federal Signal Informer Alert Receivers not alerting.

[n7maq]

I know this is a bit OT, but I wanted to get this out to as many people ASAP. This is an issue that needs resolved ASAP and Federal Signal is saying they have not heard of the problem. So PLEASE don't lock this right away.

We have been experiencing some issues with the new informers that are narrow/wide band software selectable. We are not the only shop in the area to experience this issue. Pages are not getting decoded. It seems that they are not resetting automatically as programmed, but I still can not say with certainty that is the issue. The Minitors and Swissphones are just fine. Some of the things that we have seen is the RF frequency will change after programmed, and the firmware rev window shows gibberish. Has anyone else had any of these issues?

The timing is correct. Also as a side note there is an easy way to edit the Informer's data file for a .25 sec A tone if anyone needs that feel free to PM me.

Thanks,

Jim

[kb4mdz]

I too have seen Federal Informers doing wacky things. It's hard to place my finger on what's happening, 'cuz they ain't very troubleshootable. Just shootable.

But among other things, check your wall-wart power cube; had one recently that was acting bizarre esp. not alerting, but changing the 'wart seemed to cure it.

Others: Brain-dead or stuck in stupid, have tried updating firmware code, but that didn't do anything, and now they want me to send it in for repair. Most of my lot are almost 10 years old; that's old enough that when bizarre problems start cropping up, I look for different methods.

I'm moving toward just replacing the whole lot with CDM1250's.

[Andy Brinkley]

I haven't had any trouble with the new ones (yet).

If the internal 6 volt battery gets old they will start doing flaky things (like activating for a tenth of a second and then immediatley resetting.) Solution is to replace battery and / or the power supply to one that will source ~ 1 amp.

[n7maq]

I have not been impressed with the stock wall warts, we have replaced a few of them over the years. But the issues that we are seeing are with the new units with software selectable bandwidth that have only been shipping for the last three or four months. They do have new f/w out to fix the vol up issue.

Jim

[kb4mdz]

Wall warts suck, plain and simple. IMNTBHO, putting such a cheap wall-wart on a box to alert fire stations, etc. is a crime against A) engineering, B) your wallet, and C) your future service calls.

+1 on the comment about the internal 6v battery.

[n3obl]

I have one that has extremely low audio. Wanted to find out what kinda price to repair them.

Frank

[kb9suy]

FYI: I found a few shops installing and programming these in our area. Every department runs a two-tone for the station alerting. They have been having very intermittent alerting issues. After reading the the help file oh yes I read the instructions lol I found out they were programming the decode timing as 1.5 for the A tone and 3 sec for the B tone. Well the problem is with the informer it has to decode 1.5 sec of the A tone and 3 sec of the B tone before it will alert. So I changed the programming to 1.o sec for the A tone and 1.5 for the B tone. All the alerting problems went away.

[kb4mdz]

I'm sorry, but this is a basic setup of decoding two-tone QC-II; Unless there is something very strange about the setup of the console/paging channel, 1 sec./3 second is standard for QC-II.

Did the 'powers that be' learn of the whole mistake??

Shoulda sent a bill to the shop(s) that originally put them in.

I mean, wow, that is just ... uhh, ummm, ... No, I'm going to hold my tongue. I will NOT say the words stupid, ignorant, borderline criminal, fraudulent, malfeasance, uncaring, unprofessional, or anything else.

FYI: I found a few shops installing and programming these in our area. Every department runs a two-tone for the station alerting. They have been having very intermittent alerting issues. After reading the the help file oh yes I read the instructions lol I found out they were programming the decode timing as 1.5 for the A tone and 3 sec for the B tone. Well the problem is with the informer it has to decode 1.5 sec of the A tone and 3 sec of the B tone before it will alert. So I changed the programming to 1.o sec for the A tone and 1.5 for the B tone. All the alerting problems went away.

[Andy Brinkley]

I hope these "radio shops" aren't programming anything that can transmit.

[n7maq]

Timing is not the issue. This issue is only with the new style units that are software selectable for narrow or wide. The have only been shipping since around Q2 of 2011.

Some of the issues with these are,

Volume up key does not work. (there is a f/w now)

Some frequencies will get changed, if you enter in 154.205 and write it then read it it will now show 154.20495. Not a big deal as far as freq error, but it is another bug in the unit.

The new 3_6 software will not read the new units on some computers (with real RS232 ports) but will read the older units just fine.


Thanks,

Jim

FYI: I found a few shops installing and programming these in our area. Every department runs a two-tone for the station alerting. They have been having very intermittent alerting issues. After reading the the help file oh yes I read the instructions lol I found out they were programming the decode timing as 1.5 for the A tone and 3 sec for the B tone. Well the problem is with the informer it has to decode 1.5 sec of the A tone and 3 sec of the B tone before it will alert. So I changed the programming to 1.o sec for the A tone and 1.5 for the B tone. All the alerting problems went away.