Eli5 how did pagers work?
In: 13
one thing is how long the battery lasts
turning the radio on to listen costs energy. (battery life)
there is something called the paging cycle, basically when the barrety is removed and reinserted (reset) the pager enters hunting/synchronization-mode.
to simplify think about 10 second cycle. at second 0 the tower broadcasts a “drum beat” precisely timed. the pager uses this to start a timer, each page has a time slot number (ie: 1 to 10) the pager now goes to sleep until right before its time slot then turns the radio reciever on, waits for its cycle to complete and then goes back to sleep.
when sleeping it draws as much as a wrist watch (almost nothing), it daws alot (relatively) when the radio is on.
if the tower tansmits that pagers id number during that time slot the pager buzzes or displays the message sent.
this link (highly technical) talks about the paging cycle in lte phones, youll notice they use the acronym UE this stands for user equipment
your cell phone uses this to wake up and ring..
if you ever notice your phone sesrching for a service it is listening for a tower.
this is why when you fly or go places with no signal your phone battery dies fast it keeps hunting and that requires the radio to be on 100% of the time
that timing accuracy is one of the reasons your phone has GPS it gives your phone a super accurate time base to synchronize with the tower time better
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