As a late 2000s kid I always see pagers in TV, how do you setup and use one and how do they work?
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As an early 90’s kid, this is how they worked.
Your friend’s pager would vibrate and beep, and it would have a number on the display. They would go over to a pay phone in the mall and call their mom to explain that “Yes, they were still doing their homework at their friends house.” and then we would go back into the arcade.
I wasn’t part of the cool pager crowd.
As an early 90’s kid, this is how they worked.
Your friend’s pager would vibrate and beep, and it would have a number on the display. They would go over to a pay phone in the mall and call their mom to explain that “Yes, they were still doing their homework at their friends house.” and then we would go back into the arcade.
I wasn’t part of the cool pager crowd.
As an early 90’s kid, this is how they worked.
Your friend’s pager would vibrate and beep, and it would have a number on the display. They would go over to a pay phone in the mall and call their mom to explain that “Yes, they were still doing their homework at their friends house.” and then we would go back into the arcade.
I wasn’t part of the cool pager crowd.
Before cellphones took off, pagers were very popular for years. There’s a huge variety in what they can do and exactly how it’s done. But here’s an overview.
You as a consumer don’t need to do much of anything to set one up. When you buy one, a phone number is assigned to it. When someone calls that number, the call goes to a paging operator. Most commonly (but not always) the caller then enters a phone number that they want the pager wearer to call back to, using a telephone. More about that later.
That operator has equipment that sends out a strong radio signal (usually a lot stronger than cellphone signals). This signal includes information that indicates that the message being sent is for one particular pager.
Every pager in the broadcast area that uses that frequency band/protocol receives the signal, but only the one that is targeted responds to that message.
There are lots of different paging protocols and types of pagers, and so the information that the pager receives/uses varies too. For example, a restaurant pager might just be told “turn on” or “turn off”. Many pagers will simply display a phone number for the recipient to call. Some pagers can receive full text messages.
One thing that no true pager does is send any signal back. But there are some cell phones that can also act like pagers which are capable of doing so.
Before cellphones took off, pagers were very popular for years. There’s a huge variety in what they can do and exactly how it’s done. But here’s an overview.
You as a consumer don’t need to do much of anything to set one up. When you buy one, a phone number is assigned to it. When someone calls that number, the call goes to a paging operator. Most commonly (but not always) the caller then enters a phone number that they want the pager wearer to call back to, using a telephone. More about that later.
That operator has equipment that sends out a strong radio signal (usually a lot stronger than cellphone signals). This signal includes information that indicates that the message being sent is for one particular pager.
Every pager in the broadcast area that uses that frequency band/protocol receives the signal, but only the one that is targeted responds to that message.
There are lots of different paging protocols and types of pagers, and so the information that the pager receives/uses varies too. For example, a restaurant pager might just be told “turn on” or “turn off”. Many pagers will simply display a phone number for the recipient to call. Some pagers can receive full text messages.
One thing that no true pager does is send any signal back. But there are some cell phones that can also act like pagers which are capable of doing so.
Before cellphones took off, pagers were very popular for years. There’s a huge variety in what they can do and exactly how it’s done. But here’s an overview.
You as a consumer don’t need to do much of anything to set one up. When you buy one, a phone number is assigned to it. When someone calls that number, the call goes to a paging operator. Most commonly (but not always) the caller then enters a phone number that they want the pager wearer to call back to, using a telephone. More about that later.
That operator has equipment that sends out a strong radio signal (usually a lot stronger than cellphone signals). This signal includes information that indicates that the message being sent is for one particular pager.
Every pager in the broadcast area that uses that frequency band/protocol receives the signal, but only the one that is targeted responds to that message.
There are lots of different paging protocols and types of pagers, and so the information that the pager receives/uses varies too. For example, a restaurant pager might just be told “turn on” or “turn off”. Many pagers will simply display a phone number for the recipient to call. Some pagers can receive full text messages.
One thing that no true pager does is send any signal back. But there are some cell phones that can also act like pagers which are capable of doing so.
There were two main types of pagers: numeric and alphanumeric.
The numeric ones worked a bit like voicemail. Someone would call it, hear my recorded greeting, and then they could either leave a voicemail or dial their phone number. If they left a voicemail, I would receive a page with my own pager number. I then call the number and listen to the voicemail. If they dialed their number, I would receive a page with their number. I wouldn’t know what they wanted, (no accompanying message) but I could call them back without checking my voicemail first.
They could also receive email in a sense – but just displayed a blank page when an email was sent to them. There was no way to read the mail. At my first sysadmin job I used this as a notification for me to go check the server logs for whatever problem was happening. The email address was obscure so no one else had it, so any blank page meant it was a server that needed assistance.
Alphanumeric pagers were more expensive, but displayed actual text messages. They were invented before Speech-To-Text, so an actual human operator listened to voicemail, typed it, and sent it to the pager. My boss had one of these and frequently had fits about people who left him messages like “Hi Colin. Call me back as soon as you can. Bye.”
Because the message was typed and sent to his pager, he had no way of recognizing the voice and had no idea whom to call back.
I heard about people who had both a pager and a cell phone. Apparently something to do with pagers using a different frequency so were significantly more reliable in elevators, basements, and other places a cell signal couldn’t reach. Never personally tested this though.
There were two main types of pagers: numeric and alphanumeric.
The numeric ones worked a bit like voicemail. Someone would call it, hear my recorded greeting, and then they could either leave a voicemail or dial their phone number. If they left a voicemail, I would receive a page with my own pager number. I then call the number and listen to the voicemail. If they dialed their number, I would receive a page with their number. I wouldn’t know what they wanted, (no accompanying message) but I could call them back without checking my voicemail first.
They could also receive email in a sense – but just displayed a blank page when an email was sent to them. There was no way to read the mail. At my first sysadmin job I used this as a notification for me to go check the server logs for whatever problem was happening. The email address was obscure so no one else had it, so any blank page meant it was a server that needed assistance.
Alphanumeric pagers were more expensive, but displayed actual text messages. They were invented before Speech-To-Text, so an actual human operator listened to voicemail, typed it, and sent it to the pager. My boss had one of these and frequently had fits about people who left him messages like “Hi Colin. Call me back as soon as you can. Bye.”
Because the message was typed and sent to his pager, he had no way of recognizing the voice and had no idea whom to call back.
I heard about people who had both a pager and a cell phone. Apparently something to do with pagers using a different frequency so were significantly more reliable in elevators, basements, and other places a cell signal couldn’t reach. Never personally tested this though.
There were two main types of pagers: numeric and alphanumeric.
The numeric ones worked a bit like voicemail. Someone would call it, hear my recorded greeting, and then they could either leave a voicemail or dial their phone number. If they left a voicemail, I would receive a page with my own pager number. I then call the number and listen to the voicemail. If they dialed their number, I would receive a page with their number. I wouldn’t know what they wanted, (no accompanying message) but I could call them back without checking my voicemail first.
They could also receive email in a sense – but just displayed a blank page when an email was sent to them. There was no way to read the mail. At my first sysadmin job I used this as a notification for me to go check the server logs for whatever problem was happening. The email address was obscure so no one else had it, so any blank page meant it was a server that needed assistance.
Alphanumeric pagers were more expensive, but displayed actual text messages. They were invented before Speech-To-Text, so an actual human operator listened to voicemail, typed it, and sent it to the pager. My boss had one of these and frequently had fits about people who left him messages like “Hi Colin. Call me back as soon as you can. Bye.”
Because the message was typed and sent to his pager, he had no way of recognizing the voice and had no idea whom to call back.
I heard about people who had both a pager and a cell phone. Apparently something to do with pagers using a different frequency so were significantly more reliable in elevators, basements, and other places a cell signal couldn’t reach. Never personally tested this though.
The simplest way to think of a pager is as a one way, text only mobile phone – a small device that can receive and display a short message.
To send that message needed a third party – the sender would call up a number assigned to that pager and either enter a message on their phone keypad or speak it to an operator, which would then enter it into the system and send it out to that particular pager.
Similarly to mobile phones there were multiple generations of the technology with different features. Some would only display a short numerical message such as a phone number for the owner to call from a payphone or other land line, others could display short messages in full text.
Generally they have been completely replaced by mobile phones on common use – a text message can pretty much do everything a page can and more. They are however still used in some situations where the simplicity of them is appreciated, or where the signal had been found to be more reliable than a mobile phones – in hospitals for example where the structures often cause issues with phone reception, and doctors want a simple, reliable way to be sent a message such as ‘go to room x’ without getting lost in the clutter of phone calls, messages and WhatsApp.
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