Fire Tone Out

Fire-Tone Out Operation allows the scanner to operate in a standby mode and respond to fire tone-outs, a system comprised of standardized two-tone sequential paging, short one-tone paging, and long group tone paging. You can save up to 10 settings. When you select a setting in standby mode, the scanner also monitors for any other setting that uses the same transmit frequency, modulation, and attenuation settings.

See The Unofficial Fire Tone Out Tutorial & Guide.

Also see Guide to Using Audacity to Find Fire Tones.

Software known to decode Fire Tone outs

• Counter.exe (found in the files section of several Yahoo groups, such as the BCD396 group)
• ComTekk Two Tone Decoder
• Two Tone Detect
• WinTone

Common Questions and Answers

Can I use the scanner and FTO at the same time?

• No, only one function can be active at a time. Use as a scanner, or monitoring for a FTO, but not both.

Why is my FTO scanning the FTO memories?

• The scanner is showing you all systems it is actively looking for. A tone alert on ANY will alert you whether that is the one currently displayed or not. The unit will alert on any tone on the same frequency (and mode).

I don't know the tone timing for my local paging system for FTO use

• This is no longer an issue. Later firmware releases deleted the need to know this information.

• Where can I find the tone outs for my area?
  • The RadioReference database has this information stored at the county level. Look at your county, then examine the tabs at the top for 'Files' or 'Codes'. On occasion, these values are kept in spreadsheets available in the 'Downloads' tab

• The Fire Tone Outs arent in the database. How can I find them?
  • Fire personnel are often reluctant to give out this information. Try asking in your state forum, or in one of the many Yahoo groups set up by states and regions. Alternately you can use software to discover the correct tones; see our Fire Tone Out article for more information

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