The other pager topic reminded me of something I wanted to discuss: alphanumeric pagers.

Being pretty much an all-volunteer county, we are facing a switch over to an alpha paging system at some point and some concerns are:

Trying to read a pager message for updates while driving down the road at night, etc.

Are the beeps loud enough to wake one out of a sound sleep?

I am sure there are many out there that have faced this. What experiences, both good and bad, are out there?

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Actually, its only abouy $750 a year. We can call in from up to 6 phones... cell, home, work, etc.

I should state that I helped design this program, but our department is using it and it does work.

As for the alpha pagers, in addition to being a 20 year firefighter/emt, I'm also a lawyer. I cannot imagine the liability for crashing when driving reading those pagers!
Joe,
Our volunteer station uses pagers and for the most part they work just fine. I set my to vibrate (no jokes please ;) simply because the beeping is annoying and there are several alerts to choose from --I simply put it to vibrate just out of courtesy in this cell phone ring age..trying to read them going down the road can be a pain and unsafe but only if you are the one driving---if that is the situation I mearely hand mine to my officer if they don't have theirs or got the page. occasionally that can be problematic sometimes people for some unkknown reason even if they are staning right next to you don't get it or it is delayed,but Iwould say 95% of the time works without problems. Occasionally I dont get a page or it is all garbled depending on where I am at the time. At work (i work in an emergency department) there is so much interferance from the building and electronic equipment htat pages are garbled if I get them at all sometimes not. But I like them. I even use mine as my alarm clock at the firehouse simply because I am the type that unless it is a klaxton going off not much wakes me and i have to set several alarms at home--and my pager is loud enough to wake me.
In the fire depart. that i serve in we use alphanumeric pagers to get messages out to others on the department We do not use them for fire/ems calls. We use repeaters. No the beeps are not loud enough to wake you from a sound sleep. the good thing about the pagers it lets everyone know what is needed at the firehouse, special details, someone needs an answer to a question, etc. I like the pager system.
oh i forgot we have minitors as well so between the minitor the pager AND the cell phone you start to look a little like Batman..LOL;)
ya you do. Also do not forget the radio too. There have been many times when your pants won't stay up with all the stuff hang on them.
Yes. I should confess that at home I also have one phone, one alpha pager and one Minitor 5. I wear five devices on my belt at work (office job not fire related). Two cell phones, three pagers. I should add another for balance but my pants would fall down for sure.
all of our members are issued a alph pager,a radio, and a fire dept voice pager, alph is to page out special info on weather,meetings
I agree that the Minitor is still needed because sometimes you can not hear the beeps especially when it is noisey. Driving and reading is as bad as talking on the cell phone.

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