Emergency Button
The emergency button option designates a button on hand-held or vehicle radios which sends the MDC-1200 unit ID with an emergency flag appended. The decoder notes the unit ID but interprets this data packet as an emergency message rather than a unit ID.
Options allow emergency messages to always be sent over a specific channel rather than the channel set by the operator using the channel selector. For example, a system with two channels could be programmed to send all emergency messages on channel 2. This reduces interruption of the primary dispatch channel if an emergency button is pressed.
The default setup for emergency buttons is for the sending radio to be completely silent when the emergency button is pressed. The radio will silently send the emergency message, with the four-digit unit ID embedded, three times. In hand-held radios, this increases the probability of at least one packet getting through.
In a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) environment, the button press may pop a dialog box or activate some other attention-getting device. For example, on a screen showing status summary of all units, the unit with an activated emergency button may change colors or flash.
Read more about this topic: MDC-1200
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