Pager FAQ’s

Here are a few frequently Asked questions I receive about pagers most if not all of these should be considered before purchasing a pager ,

Q1 ) What is a pager ?

A ) Pagers are one of the oldest forms of wireless mobile communication, allowing the exchange of short messages and alerts. Although they’re no longer as popular as they once were, these devices continue to play an important role in various industries.

Q2) Who uses pagers these days , I thought they were gone the way of the DODO ?

A) Pagers are Primarily used by a range of emergency services in Australia , some services have crossed over to 4G or sms messaging , these to some degree can still use the form of a pager , these are also still used internally by hospitals , hotels , doctors , industry just to name but a few ,

Q3 ) What do I need to enable or use a pager ?

A) Firstly you will need to know if the pagers being used are on a 4G pager or on vhf Network be it local or wide area , most pagers unless its for the emergency services in Victoria will be on a local network or transmitter , the wide area paging services around Australia closed down some years ago

if you have determined your network type and freq then you will also need the baud rate and cap code , you will need to have these details before purchasing a pager with out these you will not be able to use the pager ,

YOU are responsible for locating the correct details for use of the pager , these are not supplied or implied ,

if your with an emergency service such as the CFA or SES then speak to your comms officer or other members there are a few that play around with their own pager “decoders” and can provide this info , this is not part of the service I offer or imply

I am selling you the DEVICE that is all , Returns due to misunderstanding and not having the correct details of the service will not be accepted , so its very important to have these details before purchasing a pager with out these you will not be able to use

Q4 ) What the Heck is a Cap Code ?

A) Each pager has a specific identification sequence called a Channel Access Protocol (CAP) code. The pager listens for its unique CAP code. When it hears the code, it alerts the user and may provide additional information this is some what like a phone number for your pager ,

in some cases in situations like the CFA the pager can have several different cap codes for different uses such as personal cap code , region , group , alert , bmt , to get all messages you must have all cap codes ,

if you only want the brigade alerts , example would be if you want to watch what the brigade in the next town is doing then you could program the alert cap code with out the others and receive their alert pagers ,

as mentioned with out these cap codes the pager will not function , its your responsibility to obtain these and have ensured they are accurate before purchasing a pager , I will not advise or distribute cap codes ,these can be obtained from your system administrator or some times on online forums and pages

Q5 ) What the Heck is a Baud rate ?

A) “Baud,” abbreviated “Bd,” refers not to some legendary mother computer’s operation, but to Émile Baudot, who invented the Baudot code in the 1870s. Like the Morse code, this system was used to encode letters over a telegraph line, but instead of a series of dots and dashes, it used 5 bits to represent each character. The shortened version of his name, “baud,” or “baud rate” is used to represent the number of signaling events — i.e. symbols — across a transmission medium per second.

The same concept applies to RF applications in wide use today, where a limited spectrum range is used to transmit information through the airwaves. One obvious application is WiFi, where various modulation schemes allow for increased speeds, while still remaining within the rules of physics (and the FCC). Consider that the original IEEE 802.11 standard specified a rate of 2Mbit/s. Subsequent iterations improved, and today we have the IEEE 802.11ax standard which can reach up to 11 Gbit/s.

Such techniques are used in a wide variety of arenas to increase data. I touch on quadrature phase shift modulation in more detail here. To summarize, baud rate (Bd) is not the same as bit rate, or bits per second. To simplify, given various overhead factors, one is a function of the other, with Bd x (bits/symbol) = data rate in bits per second, or bps.

In most cases this will appear as 512BPS OR 1200BPS

For CFA or SES it will more than likely be 512BPS most others will be 1200bps but again this is up to you to confirm before the purchase

Q6) What the Heck is the Frequency and where do I find it ?

The paging frequency will be known by your service or system administrator failing that have a dig around on radio hobby forums or the like most are pretty easy to find ,

Q7 ) How do I program the pager ?

A) Some if not most of the pagers I sell are keypad programmable this means you can program them your self including on the fly in case of any changes ,

On the sale of the pagers I can provide in most cases a link to a youtube video on how to program these or a instruction manual or sheet , in other cases i can program them before they are dispatched ,

how ever the above applies you are responsible for providing the correct information absolutely no support is given in relation to gathering cap codes or other network info

Q8 ) Is it legal to own and use a pager ?

As described above the pager is in its simplest form a receiver rather than receiving voice it receives data and text , in some case some CFA groups have been against your own pager for what ever use , however they are not illegal per say

Q9 ) Do you provide any support at all for the pager ?

Of course if the pager is faulty or not operational then I will of course provide support , how ever if this is found to be due to the information being incorrect then I will either refuse support or charge for my time (see my Min service fees on my Terms and conditions page)

Q10) My pager will not turn on , What’s the trick ?

Remember when turning on the pager generally , all pagers require you to hold the models power button for around 5 seconds a quick momentary press will not power on the pager

its also important to ensure that the pagers batteries are in the right way – correct polarity , , and they are seated correctly

Q11) I have a 4G or Sim Pager and I’m getting a error , what’s the trick to get it to work ?

These use a sim card its important to ensure the Sim card is seated correctly in the place holder provided normally behind the battery , if this sim card is not seated properly the sim card will not register in the device and you will not receive messages

if you have any other questions you think haven’t been answered here send me an email at sales@secomms.cm.au and il answer it