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5-tone signaling:B-K Electric is a Icom trained specialist in 5-tone signaling. All Icom radios come equipped with international EIA open-standard signaling built in. Vertex and the other guys only include it in high end (high dollar) radios, or as an expensive and troublesome add-on board. Never heard of 5-tone? That's probably because the Major U.S. manufacturer supports it, but would rather sell their own proprietary system so you have to use their equipment. EIA 5-tone is the international standard signaling protocol for European and Asian users. Why do I care?What's 5-tone? Simply, it is a fast data burst added to selected radio transmissions, or used as signaling from radios (base, portable or mobile). If you watch "C.O.P.S.", you'll frequently hear a bleep at the end of many radio transmissions. That data burst uniquely identifies the transmitter and sends other information. The dispatcher and other users know who just said something, even if the voice is un-intelligible. Many vendors have proprietary signaling protocols. They work just fine, but do you really need to be married to a specific radio manufacturer because nothing else is compatible? Icom uses ONLY open protocols as specified by international EIA standards. No funny quirks. If your existing radios adhere to the international EIA standard, they will work on any 5-tone system. Think that you need an expensive trunked repeater system to have fancy features? Wrong. The smallest 5-tone system consists of two portables. That's it. And 5-tone can flow flawlessly through any existing repeater system, with no changes to the "big radio". 5-tone is perfect for paging. The familiar 2-tone "beep" is 4 seconds long, and MUST be heard in its entirely and with accurate timing to set off a pager. North America is the last place still routinely using the lengthy 2-tone format. The rest of the world has graduated to 5-tone because of its durability and efficiency. A complete EIA 5-tone burst lasts about a second, and can be repeated many times in the same period as a single 2-tone page. Because of the precise timing required for a 2-tone page, no 2-tone pager manufacturer will guarantee page reception while scanning. Missing pages? Need to scan more than one channel to get them? Think about it 5-tone can also be used for other functions, such as emergency or man-down signals, selective pages (BILL CALL HOME), Mutual Aid and wide-area pages, and radio function checks (Your radio is on but you're ignoring us again!) Loose a radio, or have someone playing games? Nuke it by remote control. EIA 5-tone and its companion BIIS data format allows for vehicle position information to be send through any existing conventional or repeater system- no special data channel required. For the dispatch center, 5-tone "bleeps" at the end of a transmission positively identify the source. This means that positive ID can be recalled from recordings, as well as cause a screen pop to provide any desired information about the source for reference or logging, such as user name, department, function, or apparatus capabilities. Vehicle position from onboard GPS units can be queried on demand. 5-tone can also be used in situations where vehicles (such as school busses, township dump trucks, etc.) may need to call the Public Safety Dispatch Center to inform them of an incident, but should be excluded from hearing routine traffic, or denied the ability to transmit on the dispatch channel without case-by-case permission. Want to see what 5-tone can do for your company or agency? Contact us for more information, or to set up a demonstration. |
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