Pagers or scanners

[Guest]

Hello, 


Im brand new to this forum and site. I have a question, I am currently on a volunteer fire department inactive squad. Right now I do not have a pager and really enjoy taking pictures of firefighters and them working. So, I am wondering how everyone gets paged out, do you have contacts, a pager, a scanner? Is there a way to set up getting pages? 


Thanks

Tiffany

[edburke]

Hi Tiffany,

 

First, welcome to the site!  I'm not sure that there is a "correct" answer to your question.  What are you looking to cover?  If it's a large area, you're probably better off with a scanner (probably the best overall option).  If it's a smaller area that is covered by a single frequency, the pager might be the better option, but you'll have to get the paging tone frequencies from the department.  Look at your local departments and news media social network presence as well.  Sometimes Twitter is the fastest way to find out about something. 

[Richard_L_Dean_07405]

First off since I am active in both our fire department and first aid squad I have pagers for both which are on the fire radio so I only carry one around on constant monitor.   I also have been monitoring public safety and railroad radio for many years going back to 1969, first with tunable radios from Radio Shack then starting in 1974 with a variety of scanners.  Presently I have 3 hand held scanners with one in the master bedroom and one in my car, both the same model from Uniden Bearcat that take AA batteries either rechargeable or non rechargeable with them getting excercised regularly so that I usually get 10 to 12 hours use when not plugged plus I keep a supply AA alkalines on hand.   The third is an older Bearcat with a battery pack that does not hold a charge after mor ethan a couple of hours unplugged but its power source is the UPS for my home PC.  

[gmuhr]

Hey Tiffany,

 Welcome to the group!

If you are already a department volunteer it might be worth letting them know you are interested in taking photos and asking for a pager.

I am a volunteer photographer for two departments in my area and they have given me and a couple other photographers both a pager, and radio.

I also keep a scanner by my bed that scans the channels that major incidents would be on, as well as a mobile scanner in my car.

In some areas you can get texts sent to your phone by dispatch instead of carrying a pager.