Settingup for Pager decoding

POCSAG, Mobitex
Bigdog
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Aug 17, 2008 11:34 am

Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by Bigdog » Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:11 am

Hi All,

Enquiring how do I go about setting one of my scanners up to decode pager infomation, like does the scanner require a discriminator tap, or is there another way.

2nd which is the prefered program to use, and how do u what sort of pager is in use.

If a tap is required is there somewhere in the South west of Sydney that can put one in, have had a look around and see where the point is but do not have the confidence to do it myself.

Thanks in advance.

criten
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Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by criten » Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:38 pm

I can answer some of your questions - not all.

You do not require a discriminator tap for receiving pagers. You just connect the scanner to the soundcard on your computer so you can hear it through the PC.

The RFS use POCSAG so start there.

PDW 110f & POC32 are both appropriate decoders for POCSAG.

soupbones
Posts: 455
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:23 pm

Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by soupbones » Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:25 pm

This is correct, but don't expect to get a good decode rate when running audio out from the speaker or earphone jack. If you want a decent decode and less headaches, then a discriminator is the way to go. Any radio tech should be able to do it for you. Instructions can be found in various places across he net as well.

Longreach
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Location: Goulburn NSW

Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by Longreach » Sun Jan 10, 2010 9:11 pm

hi all. If you already have pdw and want to give it a try acars does not require a tap. Least you'll see how the program works. Given how busy acars is you'll soon learn on how to work the program. Virtually everything else that you want to decode using pdw requires a tap. I never had any luck decoding pagers using the normal earphone jack, and i only live a few kilometres from all the paging towers in my area. The frequency for acars is 131.55 mhz.
VK2MRC

soupbones
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Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by soupbones » Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:16 am

I have had the exact same issue when decoding pagers from just the earphone jack. You get such a bad decode rate that you just cannot get anything intelligible. Using a discriminator tap, or even a slicer worked the best. Another trick I learnt, but it depends on your location, is to use an in door antenna for pager decoding, to help attenuate the signal. If your in a city or suburban area and out door antenna will pick up pager signals ok, but due to pagers running thousands of watts in power they tend to over load most scanners. Using the antenna supplied with your scanner, either the rubber ducky supplied with hand helds or the telescopic supplied with many base units.
Again this method depend on your location, but if our in a city, suburban or even outer suburban area this is a good idea. Out in the country this is not such as issue. You can usually hear if your scanner is overloading when monitoring a pager signal anyway. This over load will certainly effect your pager decode rate.

Longreach
Posts: 1085
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:38 pm
Location: Goulburn NSW

Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by Longreach » Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:49 pm

Hi all, am using a outside antenna just a UHFCB antenna though. i get paging signals far away (quite often 100 + km) but i also get a lot of crap too and get messages either garbled or 'TONE ONLY' dont really bother me though i get the messages from neighbouring districts even some from the Wollondilly and marcarthur areas and cooma monaro in the other direction. ill go along with soup though and say that the supplied antennas are more than adequate. given im running a 6.5db elevated feed with 8m of RG58 coax and im picking up what i do, you dont need a lot.
cheers all
VK2MRC

centralcoastscanman
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Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by centralcoastscanman » Wed Jan 13, 2010 4:29 pm

keeping in mind with rfs paging sometimes you will get messages from other districts as they share paging infrastructure, eg

Gosford RFS, The Lakes, Hornsby RFS all use the same paging infastructure but different codes which is good as at least if your out of your own district but within response time you can still respond to firecalls if your in a field brigade.

This was confirmed by the radio tech that looks after the Gosford District RFS paging system...

centralcoastscanman
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Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by centralcoastscanman » Wed Jan 13, 2010 8:36 pm

any pointers on what i'm doing wrong with pdw..

I've got a paging freq and on my scanner I can hear it quite strong
The scanner is connected to my computer via a discriminator tap to my computers soundcard
I'm using a scatx antenna with a magmount on my filing cabinet which appears to suffice as a groundplane...

PDW refuses to keep the signal at the same rate, the little dial will go between full signal and nothing even though the scanner can still hear the channel very strong.

citabria
Site Admin
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Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by citabria » Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:31 am

Can you describe the discriminator tap and the connection to the soundcard? Are you using Line in or Microphone input?

soupbones
Posts: 455
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Re: Settingup for Pager decoding

Post by soupbones » Thu Jan 14, 2010 9:39 pm

As i suggested, try an indoor antenna, as you may be getting over loaded. Second only feed into a line in on your PC as mic in can sometimes be limiting or overloaded as well for PDW. Play with the sound card decode settings a fair bit. There are lots of options and combinations you can try to get the right decode.
Time consuming I know, but if your serious enough to want this to run, you will spend some time getting ti to run.

Also check your cabling and discriminator tap as well. Longer cables can and sometimes do pick up interference from your receiver. Use shielded cable if you can.

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