Motorola Minitor III problems

[Guest rreimund]

Ok,

Not sure if this the most appropriate place, but our fire pagers ARE part of our equipment..

I got a Minitor III some time ago from another firefighter that had gotten a new Minitor IV. It wasn't new, but it was in good shape. Still is.. It's worked flawlessly as long as I've had it, except for the last couple of weeks.

Used to be that the switch on top (the ABCD switch) was set to:

A - beep when toned out

B - vibrate when toned out

C - open channell

D - ? No idea

I ended up forgetting to recharge the pager, and it died on me.

Since then it's been acting oddly.

It'll vibrate on C, and it does nothing on A, and I have trouble resetting it to be quiet after getting toned out.

Is there any mechanism to "reset" the pager, or perhaps reprogram it how it was before the outage? Or is this something I need to bring to AAA or my chief?

- rick

[ja3kfd 34]

Did you try a new battery yet ? But I would tell your Chief as well. To my knowledge there is nothing you can reset on pager for your own knowledge Minitor 3 was not around very long before they came out with Minitor 4 when i was buying them 3 s were not that great I personally like Minitor 2

[TRUCK6018 50]

By the battery dying, it shouldn't have an effect on the programing. There is no secret reset button or anything similar on the Motorola pagers.

There are computer programs to program the pagers but as far as the symtoms your describing it's best to have your chief send it out for repair.

[WAS967 97]

The minitor 3s were plagued by many problems which is why Motorola rushed the 4 to the market (which is basically a renamed and reworked minitor 3 but with a few changes in circuitry).

[Guest rreimund]

Cool... thanks for the responses.. I'll keep a closer eye on it over the weekend so I can better describe what's happening.. Then I'll bring it to the chief.

[Mofire24 27]

My department had too many problems with the minitor 3's we got rid of all of them and went to 4's i have had a minitor 2 myself i wont give it up it works better than the new one's

[mfc2257 464]

Just to weigh in on the opinion poll here, I've had a minitor III for about 5 years. Never had a problem.... My wife lived in Manhattan before we got married and I used to get pages in her appartment all the time.... I don't know of any problems with any of our minitor III's with the exception of one or two had knobs pop off the top right after we got them

Edward Smith

Captain (2254)

Millwood Fire Company

[Guest rreimund]

Turns out that my switch broke on me over the weekend anyway.. (no detents on the ABCD switch..) Chief took it to fix, but gave me a Minitor IV. With my old III, I used to get pages at the Javits Center in Manhattan. I work in valhalla, and BARELY got pages with minitor III.. luckily I sit near the window. But with my IV, I haven't had a page all week.

That said, It's definitely a nice pager.. the switches up top are very nice, easier to use with gloves, and the switch is easier to figure out if you're on ABCD. Mine also has the stored voice, which does me no good since I'm not getting the signal to even receive the page in the first place.

[Remember585 815]

On the Minitor III & IV you can adjust the reception sensitivity. We recently have journeyed down the path of pager headaches galore. Our tones were an "older" type, apparently the "A-tone" was set at too high a frequency so the newer pagers weren't working with it. Thus, the new tones. The Minitor III's earned more dislike then any other piece of equipment I've seen since I joined. The guys were constantly complaining that they never went off, the knobs fell off, and the volume didn't get high enough. Currently, our Chiefs are slowly phasing out the Minitor II and even the Minitor III - its to my understanding 90-95% of our Minitor III's have had to be repaired already during their short lifespans.

Go back to the Sonar Pagers of Shinwas!!!!!!

[Guest rreimund]

I had also read about a high failure rate on the IIIs.. something having to do with some solder cracking on certain pins on the circuit board due to flex.. later Minitor IIIs supposedly had heavier duty solder on the affected pins.. If memory serves me, the failure rate was on the order of 30-40%, though Motorola denied there was any issue (despite having a "fix" in place later on in production..)

Can you point me where I can figure out how to adjust the reception sensetivity?

[Remember585 815]

The sensitivity is computer programmable. We had to do it to our III's which helped a little.

I'm also a member of Cortlandt VAC - the first Minitor III I was given there never, EVER worked. It wasn't until I had a II that I realized I was missing so many calls.

[x648eng119 2]

Bottom line, if it's a pager, it will have problems!!!!

[Guest WolfEMT]

Minitor IIs are definitely the way to go as they are more reliable than the newer ones. Too bad there isn't a way to put in new features, such as stored voice, into the older ones.

[x635 4,066]

I hate both the III and IIII (I use them at work). Very easy to knock the knobs out of position, very unreliable audio quality, and I generally don't like the design anf layout.

I'd like to see Kenwood come out with a competitor for the Minitor, that's both rugged and easy to use, maybe also intergrates an alpha numeric system into it as well.

[Guest SQUADco119]

635 SAID IT ALL!!!! MY FEELING IS IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT THE TWOS ARE FINE MY 2 GOES OFF EVERYWHERE. BUT IT BROKE AND MY CHIEF WAS GOING TO GIVE ME A 3 NO F****** WAY LUCKILY MY CAP HAD A SPARE 2 THANK GOD. [-o<

[Remember585 815]

Fock the Minitor IV!!!!

I am on my second IV now, thought this one was fine, guess I was wrong.

Over the last two weeks, my pager has not activated for four calls (maybe more, I don't always carry it) and I have had it!!!!

I was trying to rationalize it, I moved the charger, I changed the batteries and I blamed our base radio - turns out it's just my pager.

Squad - I need that II back pal!!!

[ny10570 745]

I hear all of these problems that everyone is suffereing, and I smile...when the III's first came out, people were all most fighting for 'em. Then the IV's came out and everyone was all about them. I have kept my II and will never give it up. And now with the new V's comming out, everyone out there who still has a II, read all of these stories and trust me...hold on to that pager. Hide it, say you lost it, burry it in your back yard. What ever it takes keep you pager. Maybe by the time we reach the Minitor XVII it will work.

[Guest]

Minitor IV's work better outta Croton. Have to say since I've gotten mine and our radio problems are nullified for the time being, it works great! Let's see how the V's work, soon to be delivered..

[Plectron 1]

In the 5 years I have been in my dept, I have been through about 6 or 7 pagers, 2 minieII's, a couple of III's, and a few IV's, the II's were the best, but i still had tone issues with one of them, the III's kept loosing the programming and the clips and knobs kept breaking, and I had a programming issue with a IV and the rest of them were broken due to stupidity on my part(belt clip ripped off, dropped a few too many times, ect..)

I'm looking forward to the V comming out mainly due to the fact that it is narrowband capable, so i can use it on the uhf side of our repeater, and it can also be set up for 2 cannels in the same band and receive tone pages on both channel's

[hatr1k 6]

If you want to check your minitor III's programing please email me, i will be glad to help you.

minitor II is by far still the best...waiting for the V

[PVFD113 6]

According to Motorola the 2's had a sensitivity of around 5, the 3 &4's were around a 6 or 7, and the 5's are supposed to be in the 3-4 range--we can only wait and see. The antenna size and location in the pager has been changed also. They are recommending the stored voice option as well--not too expensive and you can always turn it off if ya don't like it. It actually annunciates the selected position of the function switch. Wait and see!!!

Aproximate ship dates when ordered with the charger amp are mid-late June.

[Guest]

I find that the Minitor II's most times work better than the III's. It could be a problem with reception however sometimes the II's cut out as well aside from the pagers configuration i think it's a matter of where your standing at the time of dispatch.

[hatr1k 6]

The new minitor V is supposed to be built like the minitor II, more specifically the location of the internal antenna. Stored voice of 8 minutes on all bands.