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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Which Pager Or Mobile Phone Deal? (1 Viewer)

James

I'm losing it!
I currently have text messages sent to my mobile phone. This is convenient and cheap and I am keen to stick with a phone if possible and not have to buy and carry a pager.

Problem is my messages seem to be drying up, especially at weekends where there are good birds about. Are these people out birding I wonder?

What system do you use? Is it good or bad? Is there a clear leader? What does it end up costing?

Any help, as always, greatly appreciated.

James
 
I have a Rare Bird Alert Pager and have done for a long time. Costs about £235 p.a. plus a bit more to buy the pager. It's superb with 3 local channels, a mega channel, and early bird channel and a national channel. Can also receive personal pages. What I like is that I can switch it on to just south east pages while at home rather than get buzzed for every bit of news everywhere.
 
Thanks Ivewalmer

Is it true that if you are out of coverage you miss the page forever? Are many areas poor for coverage?

James
 
I use the birdguides SMS service. It costs £30 for which you get 100 free SMS and then £10 for another 100 SMS. Can't remember prices exactly but something like that. It is very configurable. I get first reports of all rarities in the south-east on weekends only. Next month while I'm on Scilly I'll change it to all reports of everyting on Scilly. If you want all news of everything anywhere all the time it could work out expensive.
 
James,

Yes that is true but coverage seems excellent to me. Where I spend what little time I get birding (St Margarets near Dover) my mobile is on a french network (!) but still get clear pages.

Not sure about areas ooop north though?!
 
I have a Rare Bird Alert pager and have no problems with the reception. They also offer a free mega alert SMS service, just in case your pager misses the big ones.

Mark
 
Rare bird alert has each message numbered. If you go into an area where you suddenly lose the signal then drive back into a covered area you will see a gap in the numbers. You can then ring up RBA and they will tell you the messages covering those missed numbers. I think they can also re-send those messages but i'm not too sure about that. An excellent service manned by very helpful staff.
 
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