Apollo Gold Pagers.

[Pipster]

From what i have heard the Apollo pagers are here to stay, the current pagers have been deemed too expensive to get repaired and parts are becoming harder to find. so unfortunately if you send a pager back to be repaired, dont be surprised if you get an Apollo pager in its place.

It isn't a matter of don't be surprised, it's pretty much a given that your old broken pager will be replaced by a shiny new Apollo!

The probelm with the current pagers is the bulk of them have come to the end of their programmed lifespan (well, past their expected life span) and the spare parts very difficult to get.....  in recent times the more damaged / unrepairable ones were being cannibalised to repair those that could be repaired...

That was before the Apollo's arrived....now you just get a replacement!!!

Pip

[jaff]

From what i have heard the Apollo pagers are here to stay, the current pagers have been deemed too expensive to get repaired and parts are becoming harder to find. so unfortunately if you send a pager back to be repaired, dont be surprised if you get an Apollo pager in its place.

It isn't a matter of don't be surprised, it's pretty much a given that your old broken pager will be replaced by a shiny new Apollo!

The probelm with the current pagers is the bulk of them have come to the end of their programmed lifespan (well, past their expected life span) and the spare parts very difficult to get.....  in recent times the more damaged / unrepairable ones were being cannibalised to repair those that could be repaired...

That was before the Apollo's arrived....now you just get a replacement!!!

Pip

,

A REPLACEMENT, yeh right, like replacing a dumptruck with a wheelbarrow!!
Sugar coat shiiit and wrap it up in pretty wrapping and unfortunately, its still just shiiit!!

[bajdas]

RE: two pagers close together causing corrupt pager message

In regards to pagers being totally passive devices, I suspect they do transmit small amounts of data.

Like any computer on a network (which the GRN radios are) they need to transmit who they are and where they are. The pager would be no different because it would need to securely connect to the GRN network and notify the GRN network which tower it was nearest.

This can be seen by the connection symbol on the pager and the fact that date/time will be synchronised automatically from the network.

So in theory, two pagers close together maybe interfer with radio frequency reception.

Just my thoughts and no proof available.

[DaveP]

Pagers do NOT transmit any data. They are radio devices and do have some background radio frequency radiation that could possibly interfere with another device that is close enough but we are talking about distances of up to half a metre, not sending info back to a tower.

[Alan J]

deleted - DaveP already said it.

[Alex]

Yet another negative i have since noticed...

Alarm tone does not activate for URGMSG, purely programming, but yet another issue.

[bajdas]

Pagers do NOT transmit any data. They are radio devices and do have some background radio frequency radiation that could possibly interfere with another device that is close enough but we are talking about distances of up to half a metre, not sending info back to a tower.

Different people have different opinions on how network connected devices work....that makes the world go around I suppose....

[DaveP]

Having personally designed and built radio paging systems I do know exactly how radio paging systems work. There can be a number of opinions but that doesn't stop some being wrong. 2 way paging systems do exist and one variant developed to become Blackberries that later added voice communications and now are sold as smartphones but the GRN paging and radio paging that existed before that is only one way - transmitter tower to receiving pager.

[bajdas]

Having personally designed and built radio paging systems I do know exactly how radio paging systems work. There can be a number of opinions but that doesn't stop some being wrong. 2 way paging systems do exist and one variant developed to become Blackberries that later added voice communications and now are sold as smartphones but the GRN paging and radio paging that existed before that is only one way - transmitter tower to receiving pager.

Thanks...I have learnt something new

[SA Firey]

Now you know why Regions did a pager audit, so they know exactly how many spares there really are in the pool.

Maybe now that the new Apollo Gold are here there wont be a 2 month turnaround on repairs.

[Mike]

I hear rumor that the pager specification has been looked at again.

New pagers will be black, and a request has been made to up the volume.
It was also suggested that some other specs had been changed, that mean the apollo pagers will no longer be acceptable.

These changes are due to complaints from volunteers


Once again, **this info is not confirmed**

[Pipster]

CFS has been in discussion with the manufacturer, to change some of the specs of the Apollo - no retro fitting, but new batches will hopefully be improved. They will be black, not yellow, requests to change the default alert tone to a different tone, allow more memory to store messages than currently, and I think  a few more changes....

Pip

[Robert-Robert34]

I have looked at the Apollo gold black pagers on wipath website and they are pretty good to all standards and having black makes it look more professional compared to the proposed yellow ones we are meant to be issued with

[Alex]

compared to the proposed yellow ones we are meant to be issued with

not proposed mate, they are out there. Ive got one of the filtered things on my belt at the moment.

i too have heard from the BCO that they [CFS State] have heeded the grumblings and are investigating; colour of pager, alarm tone and volume, memory & the URGMSG programming issues... unfortunately as stated i hear they wont take back the yellows and reprogram though.

[Darren]

Thank goodness, see feed back does work, but you really do wonder, how out of touch are the people that ordered them in the first place....yes I know that they will read this and be upset, but come on, surely some of them are still active CFS vols, they must know the simple things we need to have in a pager....loud, simple tone for a firecall and something that we can wear that isn't to intrusive, and for some who might be on call but work in a suit and tie workplace something more in keeping with the attire. Not every CFS vol is a farmer!! Could it be that hard to order 2 styles, like mobile phones ?

What I did like is the vibrate which was fairly violent, so you can have it go off and still know about it without the sound...in fact I think on vibrate it was louder than on the tone !

Thanks CFS for listening to the people on the ground, lets hope the upgraded version is better. Meanwhile I will keep my current pager limping along, just have to keep turning it on as it has a habit of turning itself off.

[Robert-Robert34]

Meanwhile I will keep my current pager limping along, just have to keep turning it on as it has a habit of turning itself off.

Mine does that as well Darren and its way past the life expectancy that a samsung pager lives for

[SA Firey]

What I did like is the vibrate which was fairly violent, so you can have it go off and still know about it without the sound...in fact I think on vibrate it was louder than on the tone !

Thanks CFS for listening to the people on the ground, lets hope the upgraded version is better. Meanwhile I will keep my current pager limping along, just have to keep turning it on as it has a habit of turning itself off.

Would you like me to give you a replacement

[rescue5271]

Pip, you are correct the next batch will be better but what do we do with the ones that are failing will CFS swap these for the new batch?? We only have 2 in my group and they both have failed within 2 months of coming into sevice I did talk to our RC about it and he said send then back.Problem is is we send them back we dont have any group spares.....

[Mike]

If they have failed Bill, then they are not much good as spares anyway.

As for the yellow pagers, send them back as faulty (in our eyes). Perhaps they would be more suited to being carried by the paid staff.

[mengcfs]

Check out the April/May Infralog on some info re Apollo pagers.  CFS is listening to concerns......

[COBB]

Check out the April/May Infralog on some info re Apollo pagers.  CFS is listening to concerns......

mengcfs,
Where can see the Infralog? Is there somewhere to obtain past issues?

[bajdas]

Check out the April/May Infralog on some info re Apollo pagers.  CFS is listening to concerns......

mengcfs,
Where can see the Infralog? Is there somewhere to obtain past issues?

Found them at http://sacfs.org/sacfs.org/Vehicles_Equipment.html

[Darren]

Thats good information, can you subscribe to that report ?

Be interested to see if the tone makes a difference, as we have one of the first version of the Apollo pagers at work and its VERY loud, but its also a different tone, rather than a siren its constant beeping.
Also good to see the length of time the tone goes for has been increased, as some people take longer than other to wake up. The size doesn't bother me.

[Alex]

Reading the infralog it seems there should be more than the one tone available as message tone?

My pager doesnt give you the option to chaneg the tone... onyl lets you choose between beep or vibrate options?

Is anyone elses differant?

[Zippy]

what are the advantages of Flex over Pocsag??? lol