[TheList] Pager System switched off

Sun Aug 9 21:12:44 AEST 2015

I would like to see the Fire Service take over the service.. 
It could be a nice little money earner for them, considering I assume they will need / want to continue running it for their own purposes. 

Remove the 026 dial feature, after all who wants to pay a NAD fee right.. and just keep the airpage service - plus their own network services.
It also gives them priority on the network for delivery and would reduce their telecommunication billing considerably - and customers who choose to keep the pagers, would probably pay for the upkeep of the service. 

I do however suspect that Spark is doing something along the lines of, its costing us too much to maintain, but as soon as they have a buyer, they will want to milk it for all its worth.. and are waiting on govt. services (DHB, Fire, Ambo, Police (assume AOS is still dispatched with it) to come along and offer them cash for it - and then Spark will get the maintenance contract.. 

> On 9/08/2015, at 22:51, Denis Dawson <ddawson at xnet.co.nz> wrote:
> 
> There are very few FS areas now still using infill paging.  The Sky paging /
> local paging TX system is only used where there is no Spark paging.
> If Spark is going to turn off their Flex network in 2017 it will be very
> interesting indeed, there are still quite a few organisations using it.
> Mind you my pager died a couple of years ago and I haven't missed it.
> Denis ZL2TDA
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TheList [mailto:thelist-bounces at radiowiki.org.nz] On Behalf Of Neill
> Ellis
> Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2015 07:53
> To: thelist at radiowiki.org.nz
> Subject: Re: [TheList] Pager System switched off
> 
> I was one of many Radio Technicians from all over the Country who went down
> to Salcom in Christchurch in July 2000 for training on the Salcom Infill
> Paging system. We completed the installations in September 2000. 
> I recall the Concorde crashing whilst I was down there on the course. 
> Back then they received the Telecom Flex paging network and retransmitted it
> as POCSAG on a different frequency. The Flex receiver had a 5 Element Yagi
> installed pointed at the strongest paging transmitter received at the site.
> POCSAG transmitter had a mobile Colinear on a ground plane kit.
> 
> The POCSAG transmitters had 8 digital inputs, 4 programmed by default, as
> well as the serial data from the FLEX receiver. As a standard instal the
> POCSAG transmitter (in a 1U rack case) had a digital imput that triggered an
> immediate call to pagers that a callout was in process, it was triggered by
> the siren on Selcall command via the LMR Network, it also had an Officer
> Call button on the front, where they could call the crew to the station
> manually and it had two other inputs, one NC input, one NO Input, that could
> be connected to the stations burglar alarm to alert crew the station had
> been compromised (Up to individual stations to get connected, not done by us
> and as I found out later, very few where connected). There was often a delay
> in the paging network in those days, which at busy times could be up to a
> minute long, when the page was received on the flex receiver it was
> forwarded as a serial data string to the POCSAG Transmitter which in turn
> transmitted it locally to the crews pagers.
> 
> The benefits of this system was not only better coverage to the pagers. 
> They went off quicker as the LMR Selcall's had no delays, also under mains
> failure the sirens didn't come up, but the 12V powered POCSAG Infill Pagers
> still worked. The disadvantage some said that crew often looked at the calls
> details on their pagers when they arrived as they responded (Drove to the
> station).
> 
> Later the system was converted to serial data from the SKY TV Satellite
> distribution network, this guaranteed full NZ coverage and less delays. 
> Many stations fitted Parallel Dot Matrix printers to their Flex receivers,
> which printed the call details onto a form that was pre loaded into the
> printer, it made their lives easier when logging the call and gave them a
> printed copy whilst at the job.
> 
> Hope that little bit of history helps fill in a few gaps.
> 
> Personally, the installation at Benneydale in the Waikato proved challenging
> for me as a Thunderstorm rolled through as we were completing the
> installation. Quite a frustrating day for me, as a Storm Chaser you know
> what I wanted to go and do, but I had a job to complete and I was in a work
> vehicle. Worst of all, I overlooked fitting the N connector to the RG213U
> feed to the POCSAG transmitter, the Mobile Colinear Aerial did not have a
> bypass to earth and rain static had a spark jumping the end of the
> dielectric between centre conductor and braid, it at times as a couple of
> sparks a second. I had fun with the spark, holding it up the the phone and
> ringing the crew at Salcom to hear, I had to ring them to check their was a
> DC Path inside the transmitter to discharge the charge being deposited on
> the aerial by the charged rain droplets. Eventually it was apparent the rain
> wasn't going to stop and I became the discharge path whilst fitting the
> plug. My colleague and the NZFS representative (VSO?) where impressed. I
> must confess that it had quite a bite if you touched it when a bit of charge
> had built up, but once the discharge had occurred, it wasn't so bad, very
> low current, so long as you stayed across it.
> 
> Have a nice weekend guys,
> 
> Neill ZL1TAJ :-)
> 
> 
> 
> On 8/08/2015 9:30 p.m., Brendan Sheehy wrote:
>> 
>> Keep an eye on if for sure, but they were only licensed in April this 
>> year due to a modification of the previous licence. Most of the 
>> stations on that licence have been licensed for paging since pre 2005.
>> 
>> *From:*TheList [mailto:thelist-bounces at radiowiki.org.nz] *On Behalf Of 
>> *DogSecurity - Richard
>> *Sent:* Saturday, August 8, 2015 5:32 PM
>> *To:* thelist at radiowiki.org.nz
>> *Subject:* Re: [TheList] Pager System switched off
>> 
>> Well I'm not overly convinced, they were done in april this year and 
>> Hamilton I know for a fact has very good coverage as you'd expect so, 
>> guess it's worth watching out for :)
>> 
>> On 8/08/2015 5:29 p.m., shiters_r_us at hotmail.com 
>> <mailto:shiters_r_us at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>    Only time you would get anything on that freq is when the station
>>    in question gets turned out.
>> 
>>    Regards
>> 
>>    Brendan
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 8:00 PM -0700, "DogSecurity - Richard"
>>    <richard at dogsecurity.co.nz <mailto:richard at dogsecurity.co.nz>> wrote:
>> 
>>    It hasn't been turned off, Spark have just announced they're
>>    killing it in 2017.
>> 
>>    I would say they may have been known for a bit, looking on RSM
>>    you'll see some pager frequencies have been registered to NZFS
>>    since April, with transmitters on each station, so I suspect
>>    they've at least thought this would happen and have something up
>>    their sleeves.  Monitoring the frequency I haven't had any output
>>    for it, so I guess they've just got the frequency allocated for
>>    future use
>> 
>>    On 8/08/2015 2:49 p.m., John Barnhill wrote:
>> 
>>        NZ Fire Service not happy that 'SPARK' did not advise them
>>        that the 'paging system' has been turned off! Is this nationwide?
>> 
>>        John B
>> 
>> 
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