CM200 Call Alert

[acs680]

Our EMS agency uses QC-II tones from a Centracom Gold Elite to alert EMS crews. This worked fine in years past, but as the call volume increased and trucks were added, there are two issues. Number 1, we are out of tones on the current county paging plan, number 2 being the almost none stop A/B paging, on 2 repeaters, is driving everyone crazy.

A few years back, we tested MDC signalling, but quickly scrapped it as the base stations were Maxtracs, and the portables were MT2000s, neither of which played well. If I recall correctly, the Maxtracs had no option for call alert with voice, so most of the dispatch was missed due to the alert tone repeating every few seconds. I don't recall the exact issue with the 2000s, but I believe it was the same issue.

Anyway... Since then, they have upgraded to HT-1250s on all the trucks, and CM200s for base stations. Before I even try this again, I know the 1250s have a call alert with voice option, but the CM200 does not. Does anyone know how it will handle MDC call alert? Will it repeat the beep over dispatch like the Maxtrac, or beep one time when receiving the MDC? Also, the CM200 does not support group call, so for our morning pager test, I assume I will have to create a page group with 15 individual MDC ids for the base stations to alert?

There is also the option for the console to look for an acknowledge from the radio. Will the CM200 and HT1250 do ok with this?