steveevans
Well-known member
I'm thinking of buying a pager but I really don't know which one to go for, can anybody who's got one please give me some advice or recommend a good provider. Many thanks
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I'm thinking of buying a pager (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter steveevans
- Start date
Nick Smith
Member of the Staffordshire Bird Club
Pagers
Two pagers - RBA and Birdnet. RBA has channels. You chose which areas you receive. You would choose Midlands and say North West. You only receive national news from other areas. You won't get every B N Grebe. Birdnet - Only one channel - you receive all the messages. One other thing to consider. If a rarity turns up, both pagers will get it sooner or later. Local rarities are different. In N Staffs, most birders are on Birdnet and so most local news appears on Birdnet. In S Staffs, most are on RBA and so quite a bit of the Staffs stuff doesn't come on our pager. Depends what you want and where you bird. Neither pager misses much that is important.
steveevans said:
Two pagers - RBA and Birdnet. RBA has channels. You chose which areas you receive. You would choose Midlands and say North West. You only receive national news from other areas. You won't get every B N Grebe. Birdnet - Only one channel - you receive all the messages. One other thing to consider. If a rarity turns up, both pagers will get it sooner or later. Local rarities are different. In N Staffs, most birders are on Birdnet and so most local news appears on Birdnet. In S Staffs, most are on RBA and so quite a bit of the Staffs stuff doesn't come on our pager. Depends what you want and where you bird. Neither pager misses much that is important.
Reader
Well-known member
I have been with RBA for years and I have the package that allows me 3 local channels. Obviously you have the National Channel which gives out the nationally important sightings throughout the country but my local channels are the Midlands one which covers Herefordshire, Worcestershire, West Midlands, Wawickshire, Staffs and Shropshire. I also have Norfolk and Suffolk as a channel and my final channel gives me Northants, Cambs & Beds so you can see there is a lot of ground covered there. Apart from those channels you get the Mega Channel and if you so wish the Mega News can be text, free, to your mobile also. There is the Early Channel (this is usually used well for the Scilly Isles news in Autumn).
I have always been impressed by this provider and have always found them to be helpful.
It's not cheap as that total package costs around £240 a year but I don't know how much Birdnet is. You can get pagers with less channels which won't cost you as much so you need to know what sort of coverage you want.
The other thing you need to take into consideration is how much will you use it. Once you have one it can begin to consume your life as you start chasing rarities, etc. Your family life could suffer from that.
You need to put a lot of thought into it before you take one on but once you do your life could change a bit. Your weekends can become a blur and in the spring/summer months where the nights are light could end up with you chasing birds when you get home from work (if you haven't already pulled a sicky whilst chasing a mega. lol
I forgot to add. You also get free access to their website which gives you all the news of every bird reported throughout the country. Useful if you are going out of your areas for a weekend or a day.
I have always been impressed by this provider and have always found them to be helpful.
It's not cheap as that total package costs around £240 a year but I don't know how much Birdnet is. You can get pagers with less channels which won't cost you as much so you need to know what sort of coverage you want.
The other thing you need to take into consideration is how much will you use it. Once you have one it can begin to consume your life as you start chasing rarities, etc. Your family life could suffer from that.
You need to put a lot of thought into it before you take one on but once you do your life could change a bit. Your weekends can become a blur and in the spring/summer months where the nights are light could end up with you chasing birds when you get home from work (if you haven't already pulled a sicky whilst chasing a mega. lol
I forgot to add. You also get free access to their website which gives you all the news of every bird reported throughout the country. Useful if you are going out of your areas for a weekend or a day.
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Try Birdcallonline on 01925730359, Dr Paul Brewster. They use a e-mail or text based system and I've got a Blackberry communicator (£118 from Carphone Warehouse + £15.98 /month data package) and all sightings are sent to me by e-mail. It also means I can e-mail my sighting sdirectly from field and keep in contact with mates. There is no charge for e-mails by o2 so all I'm paying is the flat £15.98/month.
Unlike pagers the messages are notr lost if there is no wirelss reception. The messages are simply stored up and downloaded automatically once back in transmission range.
I'll probably ditch my 02 mobile when the contracts up and use the Blackberry as a phone as well!
Unlike pagers the messages are notr lost if there is no wirelss reception. The messages are simply stored up and downloaded automatically once back in transmission range.
I'll probably ditch my 02 mobile when the contracts up and use the Blackberry as a phone as well!
devon.birder
Well-known member
One of the best things with an RBA Pager is that you can very quickly set the various channels to different "alerts". You can have the National Channel set to memory so the Pager does not sound off to tell you about birds that you have no intention of going to see but the messages are stored to enable you to read them later. Your local channels can be set to "normal" so you will be alerted. It just depends on what you want to be advised quickly about.
The free access to the RBA web site is a bonus as you are able to get local news on other parts of the UK, important perhaps if you are going on holiday etc. Roger
The free access to the RBA web site is a bonus as you are able to get local news on other parts of the UK, important perhaps if you are going on holiday etc. Roger
Andrew
wibble wibble
Consider Birdguides as they have several options and are very flexible. You can tailor your news on the website or via your mobile before you go out to get news wherever you are in the UK. There is also a new WAP system to access detailed news, location info and so on. They have a good range of price plans and options to choose from. Check out their website first before lookign into pagers, much cheaper.
dbradnum
Well-known member
I've just started using Birdguides latest WAP-based service, and am very impressed. Together with Text Alert (which sends SMS messages in the same way as a pager would), it's a very cost effective means of getting all the news in the field. You can customise TextAlert to only send news of species above a particular rarity level, or from a particular county, or on particular days of the week. You only pay for what you receive, so don't waste money getting news of things you're not interested in.Andrew said:
Also, for every message you send in to them, you get a couple of credits. The net result is that if you give them enough worthwhile news, then you can receive other news from them for free!
Pager probably best if you're out birding most days; this is better if you want to be more selective, IMO.
David
devon.birder
Well-known member
If you do buy a Pager it is well worth insuring it, mine is covered under the All Risks section in my house insurance. Over the last 10 years I have had a Pager ruined by rain and I lost a Pager at Portland a couple of years ago, both fully re-imbursed by my Insurance Company. Now when I am out I always carry my Pager in the black pouch bought from RBA. The pouch is attached to my belt and I haven't got to worry about it being lost etc. Roger
steveevans said:
Now I'm not anti-pager (I'd have one if I could afford it) but would recommend giving it a lot of thought before going for one.
If you are going to be able to drop everything to go after birds a pager is a great thing, if not they can be v. annoying as you just get teased with the birds you're missing. That said my lack of a pager has cost me some decent birds in the last couple of years, alpine acc and western bonellis spring to mind...
I get my bird info from birdguides website (about £20 a year), which usually does the job for me. There are also a couple of text message services available (from birdguides and birdnet as far as I know), from what I've heard both are good. The new wap service does sound interesting, but not as efficient as a pager, who's going to keep checking it when out birding, I'm sure it would still be easy to miss stuff.
Of the two pager companies, I know people who use both and are happy with them. So I'd look at cost and decide based on that, though the comments about local info are aslo worth considering. Birdnet do a reduced service pager for just £100, has all rarity info, but all other reports (http://www.birdnet.co.uk/rare_bird_pager.html) could be worth a look.
Check this link for info on the Blackberry service provided by Birdcallonline:
www.birdcallonline.com/shop/Default.aspx?CategoryID=106&ItemID=a6555
www.birdcallonline.com/shop/Default.aspx?CategoryID=106&ItemID=a6555
POP
Registered User
I go along with Andrew and dbradnum the Birdguide system now they have a WAP facilty is superb.When I think of all the years ago,we only had smoke signals and that was if Nancy had got the coal in. What next instant "tv coverage" on the mobile with built in identifcation guide!.dbradnum said:
POP
steveevans
Well-known member
Wow, Thanks alot, that's alot of very useful information to take in. I'll check out all of them, although The comments by "Reader" have certainly got me thinking, I really can see this hobby becoming an obsesion. alot to think about......, thanks again
