I'm thinking about getting a Motorola Minitor IV or V but don't know much about how they work. I assume you purchase for the frequency band on which the tones are dispatched, which in my case will be VHF high.

1. Cobbler At Times

In my area some fire tones are two tone and other are the DTMF type tones Does the Minitor IV and V alert on both types of tones? Also, on Ebay I see many being sold without a charger. Will these take regular batteries or do I need to make sure and find one with a charger. Finally, any idea which I should look for, the IV or V and what is a good price? TheManBornWithin 12:21 PM.

We've been advised that we should go ahead and program our pagers for the upcoming narrow. Your Minitor V's. TheFCC put out their bulletin to narrow band.

1. Pager Programming Services. Wide Band: Minitor V pagers can work in narrow band and wide band. We will program the pagers as shown below unless your dept.
2. Motorola Minitor II. Which happened to have the EXACT frequency I needed already in it.I then purchased tone filters. Minitor V pager.

Yup you can enter in up to 8 tone pairs for your use The minitor V would be ideal with its probability scan and silent scan Your going to want: A03KMS7239BC - Those are the numbers you want to see usually you'll see 'BC', the letters could range from A-D, its a revision type for the pager. Its not important if your only going to use for hobby. The model number above would be a Minitor V VHF 2 Channel NSV(Non stored voice) A03 = VHF KMS = Minitor V 7 = Tone, voice, vibrate. or replace the 7 with a 9 to add stored voice 2 = two tone 39 = Two frequencies.38 would equal 1 frequency mcooke 7:00 PM. I'm thinking about getting a Motorola Minitor IV or V but don't know much about how they work. I assume you purchase for the frequency band on which the tones are dispatched, which in my case will be VHF high. In my area some fire tones are two tone and other are the DTMF type tones Does the Minitor IV and V alert on both types of tones?

Also, on Ebay I see many being sold without a charger. Will these take regular batteries or do I need to make sure and find one with a charger. Finally, any idea which I should look for, the IV or V and what is a good price? The minitor IV takes regular AAA batteries if it doesn't come with a charger. The minitor V does not use regular batteries because the back is one big battery and it has to have a charger. Email me and i can tell you where to get some minitor III's and IV's for $69 in good condition. Looking forward to the email.

JASII 5:35 PM. One other comment - consider whether the area you are monitoring is narrow-band or not or plans on converting soon. Our county fire system is converting to Narrowband in October and all departments had to upgrade their Minitor's over the past couple years to prepare for the conversion. We were told only the Min V's were 'certifiied' to receive nb signal.

My understanding is the III's and IV's would capture the signal albeit with lower volume but wouldn't be certified. All times are GMT -5.

The time now is 3:13 PM.

Minitor I/II/III/IV Minitor I/II/III/IV Minitor I These units are not synthesized. They use crystals for the RF frequency and use Vibrasponder reeds for tone selection.

Cobbler At Times

There is nothing programmable about it. Inside the case they all have in common two boards, the RF board, and the audio board.

Obviously the RF boards are band specific, and come in low band, highband, and UHF models. Generally speaking you can move these radios throughout their entire band although you may need to remove the ferrites and replace them with brass set screws if you are moving them upward in frequency past their design limits. The audio boards come in four flavors; carier squelch only, PL only (RARE),four tone and carrier (EXTREMELY RARE), and two tone and carrier. The latter is by far the most common.

The Vibrasonder reeds can have their decode frequency changed by adding a bit of solder to lower the frequency and shave off a bit to raise the frequency. With a 'scope on one of the three pins of the reed (not sure which one it is) inject the tone you wish to decode into the receiver and tune the reed for max output.

In 2 tone mode, they can decode 2 sequences with one common tone. Jumpers can be strapped to select which fequency is used in alert mode (there is a 3 pos switch, mon 1, mon 2, alert). The Minitor I pager also comes in a 2-tone model that does not have the selector switch for monitor/alert. Just a 'bare bones' two-tone alert.

The rubber gasket that covers the top of the pager under the metal frame has a hole for the switch, but underneath it is just a transistor and a few jumpers in the area of where the switch is supposed to be. This is actually a Motorola Director pager, its model number is CA03EAB2468AA. It was designed as an EMS/wide area tone and voice pager and was used in many markets. There is also a Director II model A03XKC2468AA or A03ZVC2468AA for stored voice model. These pagers are fairly common with the fire dept's in Ontario since many FD's use shared channels. There was a separate board that went into the section that usually held the reeds that gave the Minitor I carrier squelch capability. You could not have selective call and carrier squelch in the same radio.

In a Minitor I, the reeds are right next to the battery compartment. The reed closest to the batteries is A tone and the reed next closest to the speaker is the B tone. Minitor II These units are not synthesized.

They use crystals for the RF frequency and a Perma-Code active filter for the decode frequency. To identify which reed is which in the Minitor II, take the case off, and hold it with the reeds (or spaces for) facing you with the control knobs facing away. The tones go from left to right; slot 1-A tone, slot 2-B tone, slot 3-C tone. They have the option for a second channel, and the signalling is programmable (at least in later models). There is no option to do a PL squelch.