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- - Help a firefighter - trigger alarm.mp3 by monitoring incoming e-mails (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=101005)

Re: Help a firefighter - trigger alarm.mp3 by monitoring incoming e-mails

Quote:

Originally Posted by spag (Post 1567042)

I guess today one could maybe do this with a cheap SDR USB stick and a Raspberry Pi.

The RTL-SDR is an incredibly useful hack but started life as an HDTV receiver, there was little consideration to power savings beyond not maxing out a USB 2.0 port; I would guess they burn worse than 1A/H, they sure get hot aand that is before you add a band tuned LNA inline to receive weaker mobile signals(dispatch is probably pretty strong).
You can find the actual fire pagers cheaper and even the old ones with tiny crappy Ni-Cd batteries lasted several days in the 70s-80s, I guess the Minotaur pagers only got very small at gen6 before that they were cigarette pack sized up to a small brick for the 80s origonal. When I was just a volunteer though after getting permission and my callsign I clipped the wide TX enable wire(the old outside of amateur band mod) on my amateur handheld radio so I could call in accidents to dispatch or talk on tactical channel without taking a radio off of the engine/rescue/ambulance; now those little VHF/UHF Baofengs and the like are so cheap and easy to USB program with CHIRP I would do that even even just to listen to dispatch freq in an untrunked unencrypted system. That said I was already carrying the radio to use the amateur repeater for ham chatting as well as callbacks to non-ham friends on the telephone patch in the days(1990s) when I could only afford paging service not a phone. I recommend any volunteer fire/EMS people reading this especially new excited ones get clear permission and probably a real department radio callsign before they transmit or they can expect to get stomped on by the Chief maybe asked to turn in their gear and shown the door, or at least a stern meeting with the comm officer and their Lt/Capt.

Re: Help a firefighter - trigger alarm.mp3 by monitoring incoming e-mails

Quote:

Originally Posted by biketool (Post 1567033)

To dodge into a different direction may I ask what bulky analog device you have for callouts? Are people still using Motorola Minotaur and Minotaur IIs?(edit, damn they are up to the Minotaur 6, now as big as a little '90s belt pager now but still voice paging.)
I was a paid guy and finished as an officer and EMT-P but ended up taking the tech telated topics during my 8-5 work hours, though we were still doing in the VHF in rural western US when I medical'ed out.
I am also an amateur radio guy so hacking a VHF receiver with tone controls back then was cake though we also had commercial UHF POCSAG pagers with priority so they all beeped about 1-2 sec after the tones came over the VHF dispatch channel.
Not sure what your dispatch's setup looks like.

Big life altering advice for all first responders.
Lift properly, ask for help(hard for young guys, especially young volunteers), protect your spine, stairways with a patient on the cot and you are the backwards guy will get you; the damage you do might put you away fast or might just get worse over time; it is what ended my career.
Also remember that car drivers are what kill by far the most first responders and that people get lax at training events in a way they never would on a real call(hours of repeated extinguish/relight burn to learns especially).
Pass this on to the young guys at your department and wherever you end up doing teaching.

We use these: https://www.funkhandel.com/Swissphone-Quattro-XLi. To be phased our for ages- we're supposed to get shiny new digital devices. I was told so already when i joined the force though. And it still is just planned. I guess i'm not supposed to play around with my receiver. And being a lawyer (and therefore not that technically gifted) i probably shouldn't. And i wouldn't get the permission anyway. I'm unfortunately the one that told them not to give such a permission ever since it's forbidden here in Germany.

As for your advice: Being already older, i did tell the young ones how to lift properly and why it's important. They don't care much. We do have a routine how to work safely with car traffic around. And it's rigorously enforced. There's one team on each engine which is responsible for the safety of those on that engine.

Re: Help a firefighter - trigger alarm.mp3 by monitoring incoming e-mails

Quote:

Originally Posted by biketool (Post 1567050)

I would guess they burn worse than 1A/H, they sure get hot

I've used them in a few projects over the years, largely als a receiver/transmitter for various devices operating on 433 MHz.
E.g. as an Internet-enabled thermostat for the furnace etc.

Could maybe work as a stationary alarm receiver internet relay sort of thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by biketool (Post 1567050)

That said I was already carrying the radio to use the amateur repeater for ham chatting as well as callbacks to non-ham friends on the telephone patch in the days(1990s) when I could only afford paging service not a phone.

It seems to have gone full circle and people are using phones now for what has been previously the domain of radio amateurs.