Relive the 90s with a Ham Radio Pager! POCSAG!

Pagers are alive and well in ham radio! Using your digital Hotspot you can relive the 90's with a pager that receives on ham radio frequencies. You can also set your pager up to receive ham radio news like band conditions, SOTA spots and DXCluster information. It is also a great environment to homebrew your own applications to send information to your pager!
Big thank you to Andrew Sims KB00ty for sendingme the pager, programing cable and software.
The following is all the gear and accounts you need to setup a pager (no affiliation to my channel):
www.alphapoc-europe.de/ (pager resellers)
Hampager.de (Pager account)
www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?p... (ZUMSpot for transmitting pages)
Monthly newsletter, stickers, private content:
/ hoshnasi
Links to products in the video: www.amazon.com/shop/hamradioc...
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Current Shack Config:
ICOM 7300: amzn.to/2sVdpOq
ICOM 2730a: amzn.to/2JqrASg
MFJ-4230DMP: www.mfjenterprises.com/Product...
G5RV: amzn.to/2KfETGv
Souncloud................► / hoshnasi
Discord.....................► / discord
Facebook.................►goo.gl/cv5rEQ
Twitter......................► / hoshnasi
Instagram.................► / hoshnasi
SnapChat..................► @Hoshnasi
Companies can send demo products to: Josh Nass P.O Box 5101 Cerritos, Ca. 90703-5101

[@rohnkd4hct260]

Have always said there are LOTS of old pagers out there and WE hams should be able to do something with them.

[@seanwieland9763]

Rohn Daughtry good thinking!

[@garyblack8717]

Yes, but most of them are 900MHz, I suppose you could use an ISM transmitter, but your range would be pretty crappy.

[@kd2kvz]

I remember when pagers got so small they are the size of a TicTac Box. I owned one of those micro pagers. Ahhhhhh, the 90's were the days. lol

[@Jeeptalkshow]

So many joke opportunities. You're hanging out with you HAM buddies, you get a page, you read the pager and urgently ask, "Has anyone seen a payphone?!?!"

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

HAHAH, that would hilarious.

[@dvcrash]

On a geek scale of 1 to 10 this is 11 +. I love it Josh. You did a really great job of explaining this and how it all works. Bravo! I remember wearing pages like that in the '90s for work.... Oh the good old days 😄

[@submarineradioman5535]

Fascinating... I’m doin’ it - excellent video as always Josh. Keep ‘em coming!

[@dvoz9023]

Hahaha 🤣 today I was listening on the repeater in my city, (Kampen, the Netherlands) and 2 guys were talking about this. I didn't know what they were talking about and now your video pops up in my feed!! Nice work.

[@W6EL]

Standard asterisk used with AllStar also supports this via the “rpt page” command. It’s very easy to string together commands to emit telemetry and calls. Thanks for making the video, great stuff as usual.

[@ink3n]

Awesome :) yust Yesterday I received my 602r and get it up an running ... I used rest API direct but good to know that there's a dedicated tool on Pistar to send messages. Thank you, 73!

[@Stioall]

Back to the pager!! You just gave me my next project!

[@SteveNilsen]

Nice project. Will set it on my to-do check list. Nice to see that pocsag is not dead yet

[@saifal-badri]

This is awesome man, thanks for sharing!

[@hemantparakh8995]

I had two Pagers and both helped me to fulfil my Dreams

[@ChadLawson3]

“Why?… Because I can.” The reasoning behind most of my projects.

[@kennycarberry]

Time to replace HRCC KZbin notifications with a pager for new video alerts!

[@Marfprojects]

Here in the Netherlands they use pagers for emergency services. It's called p2000 and based on the FLEX protocol. It covers the whole country. Even with a simple sdr and multimon-ng you can decode those messages

[@andyschneider3431]

I used to carry my dads Sky Pager, 800 number for it. I love the idea of being able to get things like the solar index without using my phone. Even if it is short range. I might be typing this on a iPhone XS Max but I do often miss the days of my youth of pagers and pay phones, a simpler time.

[@its.eldric]

If you knew that we use these POCSAG pagers in the German fire department all the time for receiving our calls haha, welcome to the 90s

[@MarkPentler]

Still in huge use across the U.K. in the NHS and for security companies etc for callouts. All in the clear. Quite bad.

[@Subgunman]

Spent quite a few years in the commercial and paging industry in the late 80's and early 90's. there were some clubs that ordered pagers from Motorola within the ham bands and were using them to alert weather spotters. With the alpha pagers we could link in sports data services as well as using them for group paging as well as an individual private ID code. Some clubs used voice pagers as well to alert members as to various events. There were even DOS based and windows based software that would dial in via modem to a number (either local or toll free) and allow one with the program to send Alpha pages out to the network or local. You can find pagers out there that are already on set paging frequencies but don't get your hopes up at dropping a new crystal in and retuning down into the ham bands. IF however that frequency is not used in your area and the Zumspot will tune up to the commercial section, a very low power device like this will probably not be an issue in your own home, unless of corse you are a purist for frequencies and their use. O at your own discretion and risk. Many paging frequencies have gone dormant with the advent of cellular texting. Be wary of the RCC (radio common carrier frequencies, these are highly regulated by Public Utilities commissions in most states) frequencies since in many regions they are still in use. To transmit Pocsag or any other digital paging format you WILL NEED a true FM transmitter to get it right. ENJOY AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

[@YosenBMamma]

I've never been particularly interested in ham-radio-pager, but I do recall, back in the 80s or 90s, there was a repeater-controller that was capable of sending pager-tones over the air. There were a number of members, of one of my local clubs, who purchased pagers that they converted for use on 2meters or .07meters. I don't rightly recall what they were using them for, other than sending each other messages; and I know the interest didn't last very long... Mainly, because the rest of the users revolted - having gotten weary of the seemingly incessant pager-tones coming over the repeater, and voted the pager-system out of existence.

[@doomgod314]

Can we get more scripting tutorials? This stuff is awesome! It’s one of the reasons I’m still into ham, beyond my emergency/SHTF or search and rescue needs.

[@seanwieland9763]

Dial-up modem speed digital modes on HF, beepers for POCSAG... Ham Radio lets me relive my nerdy childhood in the 1980s, like Matthew Broderick in WarGames (but without the global thermonuclear war... hopefully).

[@seanwieland9763]

eric thefathead same without my Apple IIe. I was kinda jealous my neighbors had Prodigy though, which seemed to have better forums.

[@sidjbel]

Very informative, didn't know this existed. Most paging services are asking a minimum $13 per month. In the 90's I paid something like $3 per month and that was a plan that covered a certain number pages and if you wanted more pages per month on your plan, you paid more of course but not much.

[@TimonSuricata]

Very cool, i got a bunch of vhf motorola advisor II pagers, which over 2m band, also have the programming dock and station for them to! i am sure i could use these for this type of system :)

[@loughkb]

It's kind of a ham radio based Rube Goldberg machine. :-) Nice vid. You had a LOT to pack in to this one. Long ago, when I started playing digital modes, I'd been decoding some commercial POCSAG transmissions and wondered if anyone's done pocsag on ham frequencies. Question answered.

[@zerocool4750]

Great video ☺️

[@compassman54]

Over my head but .... always interesting ... and invigorating ..

[@Mynameistux]

Hey. I'm leaving a comment because I like your videos and want the scary youtube algorithm to recommend to people

[@5roundsrapid263]

I remember constantly picking up pager data on my parents’ scanner back in the ‘90s. I got an airline phone once, and lots of cordless phones...😁

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Man, those were fun times!

[@fortroadmassive4095]

Now I want a pager!

[@paulbaran1404]

Josh with all the different ways you communicate ham, cell,, pager and so on , if people can't get ahold of you they ether aren't trying or your 6 feet under. LOL

[@normjacques6853]

For me, it's kind of amusing to see these things pop up again. Don't get me wrong, I truly hope that younger hams will have all sorts of fun with these things! On the other hand, before cell phones became practical/affordable (and I helped to set up the original Cellular One network!), we field service types had to carry these things.....and every time they 'went off,' it meant more work! After awhile, we regarded them as a technological curse!! LOL 73! KC1MGW

[@afdashtech5322]

nice video 👍

[@elesjuan]

This has interested me over the years as something to just play with as a ham, but I've finally come up with an actual use case. Over the last year I've built out a fairly robust smarthome system and as a network engineer by trade, I play with a lot of servers and network equipment. Thing is.. sometimes my internet stinks and goes out randomly, and there's still some things I'd like to receive alerts for. Eventually, if I can collect enough equipment, I've got a collection of Motorola 900mhz radios in the 35 watt range that I'd like to use as a pocsag transmitter. Current plan is to spin up a raspberry pi to do the heavy lifting, then can send out home automation or security alerts to the pager and it should, in theory, work anywhere in the city.

[@johng7rwf419]

Very interesting..

[@thgrnhrnt]

Thanks for doing this Josh. Maybe we will get more users here in the US!

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

I hope so!!

[@jongeddes09]

This is rad

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Thank you for watching!

[@MickeyD2012]

Could these be used to broadcast messages? It would be really cool to use as a sort of radio message board to announce meet ups and events.

[@saitoHiriga23]

Running in the 90s

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Is a new way I like to be.

[@rkaag99]

ahh the memories. pagers were the gateway drug which ruined many IT technicians lives. 'oh, by the way, you need to carry this pager for the on-call rotation'. good video!

[@timbellenfant5611]

That would be way over my head, I'm still trying to figure out the SDR dongle

[@coolvideos8864]

You have to plug the dongle in to your PC or Mac =)

[@kd8bxp]

I noticed a few days ago that the time on my pager was incorrect, replaced the battery (mainly because it was dead). And I haven't been able to get a page since. I updated PI-Star to the latest, with the modem, and if I tune a radio to the pager freq I can hear the pocsag, still no pages, and the time hasn't auto-set. I'm at a bit of a loss now, any ideas about what might be going on.

[@PatrickDickey52761]

We're talking about issuing pagers to the ARES Team members that are Skywarn Spotters also. Assuming the python scripts work on pi-star, and that it won't interfere with our DMR repeater, we might put it on there.

[@pe2kmv]

Thank you for the nice promotional video! 73 de Ronald pe2kmv

[@austinhallett9497]

Would it be possible to setup a network like this on a local repeater to create a pager network for emergency comms?

[@aperson1181]

Can you please do a review on normal pagers? What are the differences between Alphanumeric and Two-way Pagers ?

[@doomgod314]

Are all pagers young Pocsag over UHF? Could I pick one up randomly from a yard sale and program it?

[@dgnikon]

surprised you didn't mention the Brandmeister DMR to DAPNET bridge, you can send a message with the callsign and text to a particular dmr contact and it will forward it to their pager, really cool!

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

I didn’t know about it tbh. I’ve only had the page a week 👍

[@dgnikon]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse just send a dmr text message (TMS) to _private_ contact 262994, starting with the callsign of the recipient and followed by the message, brandmeister should send you a text back reporting success. If typing on a dmr HRT isn't your thing you can also try the telegram bot, which may be more convenient for you. Let us know if it works, I'm excited that DAPNET seems to be gaining traction in the US as well

[@dennisschultz1175]

Any updates on the rubrics that you discussed for US use?

[@davidsradioroom9678]

Well, I learned about an aspect of amateur radio I didn't know about. Thanks for that. I still shudder when I see that pager from when I had one in the Y2Ks. Just out of curiosity, what sort of range do you get on that pager?

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Not far. That is likely due to the Zumspot not the pager though.

[@davidsradioroom9678]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse That's kind of what I thought. It is still nice, though.

[@RakuenKnight]

And this is without a subscription since you are running the pager software? or how does this work? do you still have to pay the activation and subscription fees to use the pager?

[@Jays620]

Where can you get a pager? Ill be waiting for you to come up with more stuff for the US

[@wqnd300]

would be cool to set it up to receive noaa weather warnings

[@olafelsberry9271]

Even more reason for me to get a ham license

[@RithimusVortex]

can you replícate the circuit of beeper??

[@andrewfisher1051]

LoL, that takes me back.

[@Mercedesz2468]

Do i need my own transmitter? does it give me a phone number for people to dial my pager?

[@wisteela]

I'm wondering if there's any way to do something like this here in the UK. 73 M7TUD

[@nativetexan9776]

Remember the days when we picked up a transceiver mic, pressed the PTT and gave a voice call and talked to the person who answered? Those were the days!

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Did someone take your mic away?

[@kd8bxp]

I still have a couple of the pagers in the UHF ham band, So this might be fun to try again.

[@kd8bxp]

Update: my old pagers worked! DAPNET was really fast getting me setup. NOTE It is really important to upgrade the modem firmware in you mmdvm hotspot, missed that step 1st time around, and it just didn't work. Made my 1st pager contact with DH6BS will still trying to get the system to work. This is going to be good fun I think :-)

[@bluesdude758]

Another big benefit of a pager is that now, if your wife can't reach you on your phone, mobile or handheld, she can page you! Oh wow, how lucky we are... 😁

[@devianrobotics3877]

If I order a pager should I have it programmed to the repeater freq. I want to use to send and receive pages for our CERT team?

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

It would need to be on the frequency the transmitter is transmitting on.

[@N4EJM]

So you can’t receive pages over the Android or iOS app?

[@ryanv7075]

Funny, some of the digital modes remind me of chat rooms...now pagers!

[@anthonystortz1787]

Probably why so many people say the hobby has stagnated. I'm glad we are re-purposing technology though.

[@mrwizworks]

Has anyone had luck using DAPNET with Apollo a25 or Apollo AL924? These are available at Amazon and listed as programmable. I really don't want to buy a pager from an overseas company. Any US hams have any luck with these on 439.9875 or on 440 band?

[@paulpannell8724]

Hi Josh. Do you still use your pager?

[@Heniek]

Does each pager have an original ID number?

[@ChadLawson3]

You mentioned needing to be in range. If you were out of range when a message came in, would you receive it when you came back?

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

nope, its lost to the ether.

[@ChadLawson3]

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

[@jamescaperelliiii4620]

So... The pager receive frequency can be set through the front panel or via software? Or... I need to be lucky and find / order a pager on my hotspot frequency? Or... I need to change my hotspot frequency? Please give us this tidbit of info. Thanks 😊

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

You could do both, but the pager was programmed to that frequency using the SW.

[@jamescaperelliiii4620]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse thank you! Good to know that the pagers are frequency flexible when it comes to programming.

[@thecommguy]

I would like one of those pagers. I have the means to send the data it neads.

[@grantdustin1]

Thx! 0:08

[@ruddyff]

Try magnum electronics they sell various pocsag pagers

[@jamieb9556]

Transmit through a repeater you will have it made lol

[@texasprepper869]

I actually want to find a trustee that will allow that

[@PatrickDickey52761]

That might be our plan on our DMR repeater. Assuming it won't interfere with that, and will work with Pi-star.

[@rossw9764]

I’ve got a new radio. It use a little metal chip with two prongs for any frequency I want. Just put a different “chip” in to change frequency’s. I’m sure you’ll love it!

[@flywithnelson]

How were you able to set up alerts to be automatically relayed such as band conditions and such. This is awesome!

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

A small Perl script.

[@flywithnelson]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse care to share? I would love to set up alerts to my pocsag pager like this!

[@catalinalb1722]

Hi I also have a skyper pager 📟. Can I setup an acount if I am not a licensed HAM (not yet)?

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

I don’t believe so. You need a callsign.

[@coolelectronics1759]

ahh beepers Sir mix a lot aproves So does big bob from hey arnald

[@batica81]

Really great video! I would have never figured out that setting on the expert page. Managed to make it work, and I can receive messages on an sdr with audio rerouted to poc32, an ancient pocsag decoder (I still have some messages from 2002. decoded there) :) Also got the hackrf to decode it on the portapack, although it is not perfect. Now to hunt for an old uhf pager or figure out how to modify the vhf one. 73 yu4hak

[@revbikerbigd8664]

Still have 2 old pagers, can they be hacked to be used????

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Maybe. You’d like need to recrystal them.

[@doomgod314]

3:59 And the winner for the best callsign ever goes to KB0Oty

[@N4EJM]

You haven’t heard of KD1LDO in Florida?!

[@kc5sdy]

That is rather interesting. With cellphones they way they are now, why carry a pager too? Even if you can customize what you receive. I don't know.

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

You don’t need to carry it. It can just chill in your shack.

[@kc5sdy]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse This is true. We all know we need more shiny stuff in our shacks too.

[@coolvideos8864]

Is it worth £150 ish though?

[@sondrayork6317]

It’s basically not any of your business what is being transmitted over pagers unless you’re a subscriber and the information is for you. That is basically what the law says. If it’s not for you, it’s none of your business. I used to intercept those signals back in the day until I was told it was illegal and had to stop. Another thing is cordless phones back then weren’t encrypted and used analog fm or am, so it was easy to eavesdrop on them if you listened to the base frequency and not the handset. 📞 that too was also illegal but people were doing it it was crazy weird people talked about back then too lol. Sometimes it got quite interesting.

[@kd2rdhlarry571]

Josh, these days with all of the push towards internet stuff and the need for cyber security, good passwords, and all around keeping personal information private, How do you feel about people so easily getting our names and addresses right off the internet by hearing and looking up our call sign?

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Attach your callsign to a P.O. Box of you are concerned.

[@henlego]

Are you planning to share the python script? Maybe on a github gist?

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

It’s like ten lines but sure :)

[@Elfnetdesigns]

Rasberry Pi: I can has POCSAG yeet! Zetron has just entered the conversation... "Boi you're a TOY. go home before you get hurt and let the pros handle this.."

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

That is not very amateur radio friendly of Zetron.

[@Elfnetdesigns]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse lol i was being silly of course but yeah I have a couple of their terminals to do encoding of different formats. They are nice

[@chriscoel]

Share the script OM

[@davidj.wilcox6053]

NERD cred? Yes, you surely have it. Should label this video “Rainy Day Watch” and very interesting. Thank you. Dave K8WPE

[@jptucsonaz8503]

Hey old timer! Well, back in the day... (Kidding, I am older than you by a lot) One more... "Next week on HRCC, Josh sets up the Pony Express, where you can get any message from St. Louis to San Francisco in only 7 short days!*) (*subject to not having indian attacks, excess rain, snow, earthquakes, drought that kills the pony's & riders, dust storms, tornadoes, or disturbances in 'the force'...)

[@markbolin6651]

I can’t see an advantage using a pager vs using a text message on a smartphone. Other than pure nostalgia...

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Redundancy is another.

[@ornotermes]

There are several reasons to use pagers over phones (in certain cases). One advantage is that they run for a long time on a single battery, most people can probably get by by changing battery once a week or thereabouts. Another is reliability, they use simplex so the pager only need to hear the transmitter. The catch is that there is no verification that the page is received, but you can beef up the transmitter power to give good reception in an area (also most pagers have alarms that can be triggered if they are out of the service area). No accidental turning off sound/notifications. Because the pager don't transmit they can be used in environments where transmitting devices isn't a good idea, most commonly hospitals. They can be independent from public infrastructure like phone networks and internet.

[@miaudottk9080]

Wouldn't it be easier and more secure to have a script sending these messages as e-mail you can read in your phone?!

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

“Easier” is never the point.

[@miaudottk9080]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse Lol!

[@miaudottk9080]

@@HamRadioCrashCourse Can't you modify that pager to accept some sort of computationally light encryption, like i.e. one time pad?

[@ke6igz]

For about the same money you can get a DMR radio that can receive text messages. Interesting video though.

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Sure. But a pagers battery lasts weeks. 🤔

[@texasprepper869]

I have a 50 Watt pocsag system on 2 meters

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Nice!!!!

[@texasprepper869]

I'm using a TMD710G Kenwood mobile Diamond X50A and a Kantronics KPC9612. Yes I know the radio it self already has a TNC but the Kantronics TNC supports Pocsag. I'm not set up for Dapnet, it's a stand alone system, it's only online for experimental purposes till I get the bugs worked out since I'm surrounded by 100 plus feet pine trees in all directions and my 🐜-nna 🤣 is only 40ft

[@seanwieland9763]

Ze Germans! 🇩🇪

[@deltahotelxray]

Thank you for not calling it a beeper.

[@jeffgrey1566]

Why?

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Why not?

[@Ratchet2]

Pretty slick. De Kb8ygc

[@stevenharris9941]

PEOPLE WHO BEG FOR A THUMBS UP OR A SUBSCRIBE DO NOT GET IT

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

More of a reminder how the system works, not a beg.