Pager notification in helmet?

[mstevens]

Before anyone states the obvious, I know I'm talking about ancient technology. I do need to use a pager, though. Cellphone coverage is highly unreliable here (for example, they don't work at my house, and there are too many dead spots to count) so using bluetooth with a cellphone just isn't reliable enough. Due to the nature of my work, there's actually a federal regulation concerning my response time in an emergency, but even without that it's a matter of personal responsibility.

I'm on-call for a week at a stretch, every 4th week. That means no riding for one week out of four, except directly to or from work. My "commute" is 6 miles, so as long as I check my pager as soon as I get to work or home it's OK. It's glorious, perfect riding weather out there now and I just hate not being able to ride.

The visual alert on the damned thing is barely visible (an unlighted icon flashes on the LCD display) so taping it to the bars won't help. I fear the vibrate function is going to be unnoticeable while riding. I've certainly misssed it while driving, with the pager in my pocket. There's no audio jack, of course.

I have a sinking feeling that the solution for this is not to ride when I'm on-call. Can anyone think of a good way to get some sort of notification in the helmet?

[NAKID]

Is it YOUR pager, or a roaming pager? If it's yours, you could open it up and jack into the audio with a secondary speaker jacked into your helmet...

[weemonster]

do pagers work same as cell fones? if the pager is next to you pc and it goes off does it interfere with the monitor?

Because you get things that flash when your fone is ringing  you could mount one of them somewhereif it worked with your pager.

[stopintime]

Is it YOUR pager, or a roaming pager? If it's yours, you could open it up and jack into the audio with a secondary speaker jacked into your helmet...

.... same thought basically - if you're able to make a connection into the pager - you can have it connected to a warninglight?

[mstevens]

Is it YOUR pager, or a roaming pager? If it's yours, you could open it up and jack into the audio with a secondary speaker jacked into your helmet...

It's owned (or perhaps leased) by the hospital. I don't care about messing with it. What are they going to do? I can always just say it fell off my belt and a truck ran over it.

There are two problems with this approach. The first is that I still need to be able to use the pager normally when I'm not riding. There might be enough room in the case for an audio jack, though.

The second (and it's a biggie) is my deadly touch with electronics of all sorts. Maybe I can find a donor pager to mess about with to see if I can get something working.

[NAKID]

Sounds like modding the pager with an audio jack is the easiest (and cheapest) way to go.

Look at this:

$3.50 Shipped

Can't afford not to do it yourself...

[weemonster]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Monkey-FLASHER-Mobile-Phone-Charm-Bag-Charm-Monkey_W0QQitemZ170214090609QQihZ007QQcategoryZ10364QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247
there you go

[mstevens]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Monkey-FLASHER-Mobile-Phone-Charm-Bag-Charm-Monkey_W0QQitemZ170214090609QQihZ007QQcategoryZ10364QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247
there you go

As lovely as it would be to have that inside my helmet, pagers are receive-only FM radios while cellphones work in microwave frequencies and send as well as receive. Those little flashy jobbies work by detecting a nearby phone's communicating back to the network as it's receiving a call. If these worked for pagers, they'd be going off constantly whether there was a pager nearby or not.

[gatorgrizz27]

Why not just put velcro tape on it and some inside the chin bar on your helmet (assuming you wear a full-face)?

[NAKID]

Why not just put velcro tape on it and some inside the chin bar on your helmet (assuming you wear a full-face)?

I can't speak for him, but I would not have anywhere near enough room in my helmet for that...

[stopintime]

If you can find a way to attach it in direct contact with the outer shell (by velcro on the back side?) the vibration will resonate loud through to your ears - yes?

[mstevens]

Wow - I knew pagers were really old tech, but I'd failed to realize how few people still use them.

The only way I could fit a pager inside the chinbar would be to have my chin surgically removed. I've had cellphones smaller than most pagers. My pager is the same thickness and width as my HTC Titan (Sprint Mogul, Verizon 6800) and 3/4 of the length.

I can barely hear the damned thing when it's on my belt sometimes. It's highly dependent on battery strength. I could probably tell if it vibrated. Despite my desire to ride when on-call, though, I'm not sticking a pager to my helmet.

It looks as if the only option is surgery to implant an audio jack. I've been Googling to see if anyone else has done it, but my impression is that the usual solution is to dump the pager entirely and go with cellphone. Ah, well.

[NAKID]

It looks as if the only option is surgery to implant an audio jack. I've been Googling to see if anyone else has done it, but my impression is that the usual solution is to dump the pager entirely and go with cellphone. Ah, well.

Go for it, be a rebel...

[dbran1949]

I know you said you didn't like to mess with electronics. But the easiest way to do this would be to open it up then solder a little pigtail to the wires on the back of the speaker. Leave the pigtail about 2 to 3 inches long and solder a mono mini jack



Then get a crystal radio earpiece


Then when you are not riding just unplug the earpiece the only mod to the pager is the little pigtail hanging out. A small file on the case where it splits will let the wire pass through. Then a dab of RTV silicone will make it water proof

[NAKID]

Only one problem with that. I don't know that there is a volume control on those pagers. That earpiece going off could be quite loud!