Pick 63 - Pagers

A pager also known as a beeper is a device that is essentially a small battery operated radio receiver that when the proper signal is received will set off an alert (either audible or vibrating) and display either a numeric message such as a phone number or a word message if the pager is alphanumeric capable. 

If he had not responded to a Page from the Grim Reaper on June 9, 2009,  John Francis Mitchell would be celebrating his 86th birthday on New Year's Day 2014. Unless you have worked for Motorola or are imbued with communications technology , you may never have heard of John Francis Mitchell.  However, if you use a mobile phone or pager, you should realize that Mitchell developed this essential tool of urgent communication in 1960--long before Steve Jobs came along. During his 45-yerar career with Motorola, Mitchell shaped the creation of nearly all of the wireless communications industries in the latter half of the 20th century. 
 
In 1960, he combined elements of Motorola's Walkie Talkie with evolving features of AM transistor radios for automobiles. The result was the first transistorized pager.  Although mobile phones were also evolving, they were expensive and not well supported. However, paging technology was affordable and well supported by the various telephonic Paging services that had sprang up across America since the 1950's. Pager technology continued to expand, until the early 1990s when cellular technologies became cheaper and more widely supported. Still, the Pager has not yet been relegated to the Smithsonian. It has hidden value in the way it operates that has yet to be disrupted by the cellular industry.

Pagers reached their peak popularity in the late 1980's through late 1990's.  Around the year 2000, cell phones became smaller with a longer battery life and cell phone plans became less expensive which enabled the average consumer to switch from paging to cellular communication. At the peak of pager popularity, there were well over 60,000,000 pagers in use worldwide.

Pagers are still in use where mobile phones have no signal, and in places where the operation of the radio transmitters in mobile phones is prohibited. This includes hospitals and airport hubs, where cellular coverage is weak or nonexistent, and  radio transmitters can interfere with sensitive electronic equipment yet there is a  need for 24/7 communications with service and emergency staff.

Any facility handling classified information, precludes the use of  transmitter or data storage devices to ensure no information can leave the facility undetected.

The 2005 London bombings spurred user overload and subsequent shutdown of all SMS systems during the resulting panic.  But pagers, which do not have to "answer"  before a message can be received, continued to operate as usual. Moreover, they operate at very low signal level that causes no interference to other communication devices such as radio and TV. For this reason, Volunteer Firefighters, EMT, and Rescue squad members carry pagers to alert them of emergency call outs for their department. These pagers receive a special tone from a fire department radio frequency that is not susceptible to jamming or hacking.

Pagers have a growing customer base in the restaurant and hospitality industry. Customers who may wish to shop or visit the bar while waiting for a table get a portable beeper that alerts them when their table is ready. Some restaurant kitchens use beepers to alert wait staff when meals are ready to serve. This frees them to take new orders or provide other service instead of hanging out in the kitchen to ensure prompt service.

 

Modern paging systems typically use multiple base transmitters to modulate the same signal on the same RF channel, a design approach called simulcast. Simulcast systems can use satellite feeds to distribute identical information to multiple transmitters.  This coverage overlap, plus the broad reach of satellite communications, makes paging systems more reliable than ground based cellular networks that are easily disrupted by severe weather or terrorist activity. This hidden value has led public safety agencies to adopt pagers over cellular and other commercial services for critical messaging.

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