Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

Is there a delay between when you push talk on the dispatch console, and when you can begin speaking?

I know that is the case on some mobiles and portables with repeaters, that you have to wait for the repeater to 'open', but
I didn't think that is the same with consoles. However it seems like dispatchers keep cutting themselves off. Some times the reason is obvious (attempting to talk over the polling(hot) tones) others times it is not.

Many systems have an inaudible tone generated to "open" the frequency. Many agencies share the same frequency and this privacy system keeps you from having to listen to traffic, possibly from other states.

When this is part of your system there is up to a one second delay before you can actually transmit voice over the frequency. This applies to both car radios and consoles.

Hope this helps you understand why you need to pause after you key the mic before starting to speak. :)

Agree with Bhanson.

They are called PL tones. You may share the same radio channel with another agency and the only way that YOUR ageny can make it work is to send a certain tone that tells the repeater/transmitter to " let this signal through".

The tone is not audible to you and lasts only a split second.

Supposedly this works well but on variosu days we hear Orange County Virginia ( about 50 + miles ) SW of Washington DC. come across our radio. They have the same frequency and PL as us but aren't supposed to be heard because they are so far away. ( 125 miles).

Oh well.

You should always try to include a brief pause from the time you key up to when you start speaking. Short keying is annoying to say the least from either side of the radio.