Repeater Courtesy Beeps and other Tone Information

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Back to Home A List of Some Sample Courtesy Beeps For Your Repeater System
Compiled and HTML'd by Mike Morris WA6ILQ

Comments and additional material are welcome
(even "Hey - you've got a typo at..." messages...

Note:This page has samples of default beeps from several controllers. If I've missed one, let me know. If you've developed some really neat courtesy beep, let us know.

BTW, one trick that has been used over the years is to program a beep from some other brand of controller and let the local idiots try and crack your controller codes using the book they downloaded from the wrong web site or for the wrong brand ....

Another comment: The courtesy beep and even the IDer can be used as a form of telemetry. A power fail could cause a courtesy beep to change from a single beep to a morse code "B" indicating "Battery". When the battery gets low it could change to a morse code "L". When powered by the on-site generator it could be changed to a morse code "G" - every generator control panel that I have seen has an extra set of relay contacts that close when the mains power has failed and another set that close when the generator is running, and yet another set that close when the generator fails to start... you don't want to hear the morse code "F".

Courtesy Beeps:

A A 660kB ZIP file containing about 25 courtesy tones Includes WAV file examples of each. Compiled by Scott Zimmerman N3XCC

Bumble Bee This is the same as ACC default courtesy tone #1
Program a 640ms delay from squelch closure to 1st tone
Freq 330 Hz Duration 100 mSec
Freq 495 Hz Duration 100 mSec (one book had this at 500 Hz)
Freq 660 Hz Duration 100 mSec

ACC default courtesy tone #2 is the same as above except the tone Duration is 75ms

Piano Chord This is the same as ACC default courtesy tone #3
640ms delay from squelch closure to 1st tone
Freq 660 Hz and 880 Hz Duration 100 mSec

ACCs other default courtesy beeps were:
#4 was the "Explosion" sound effect that was built into the TI speech synthesizer chip
#5 was the "Tick-tock" sound effect (also in the synthesizer)
#6 was a Morse letter "K"
#7 was a Morse "N"
#8 was a Morse "B"

ACC default courtesy tone #8
640ms delay from squelch closure to 1st tone
Freq 660 Hz Duration 580 mSec

ACC default courtesy tone #9
640ms delay from squelch closure to 1st tone
Freq 660 Hz Duration 120 mSec

ACC default courtesy tone #10
640ms delay from squelch closure to 1st tone
Freq 660 Hz and 250 Hz Duration 100 mSec

Yellow Jacket (a half-as-long Bumble Bee)
Freq 330 Hz Duration 50 mSec
Freq 495 Hz Duration 50 mSec (one book had this at 500 Hz)
Freq 660 Hz Duration 50 mSec

Shooting Star
Freq 800 Hz Duration 100 mSec
Freq 800 Hz Duration 100 mSec
Freq 540 Hz Duration 100 mSec

Comet
Freq 500 Hz Duration 100 mSec
Freq 500 Hz Duration 100 mSec
Freq 750 Hz Duration 100 mSec

Stardust
Freq 750 Hz Duration 125 mSec
Freq 880 Hz Duration 80 mSec
880 Hz and 1200 Hz simultaneous Duration 80 mSec

Hornet (just a Yellow Jacket with the tone sequence reversed)
Freq 660 Hz Duration 50 mSec
Freq 500 Hz Duration 50 mSec
Freq 385 Hz Duration 50 mSec

Wasp (just a Bumble Bee with the tone sequence reversed)
Same as Hornet but double the duration of each tone

Tumbleweed
Freq 1000 Hz Duration 20 mSec
Freq 800 Hz Duration 20 mSec
Freq 600 Hz Duration 20 mSec

Fire Fly
Freq 1000 Hz and 1200 Hz simultaneous 120 mSec
Freq 1200 Hz and 1400 Hz simultaneous 80 mSec
Freq 600 Hz and 800 Hz simultaneous 100 mSec

Chirp-Chomp
Freq 1500 Hz 20 mSec
Freq 1250 Hz 20 mSec
Freq 1000 Hz 20 mSec
Freq 750 Hz 20 mSec
Freq 500 Hz 20 mSec
Freq 2550 Hz 20 mSec

Moonbounce
Freq 1000 Hz and 800 Hz simultaneous 50 mSec
Freq 800 Hz 50 mSec
Freq 600 Hz 50 mSec
Freq 1500 Hz 50 mSec

Dunce Cap
Freq 440 Hz and 500 Hz simultaneous Duration 200 mSec
Freq 440 Hz and 350 Hz simultaneous Duration 200 mSec

Honk
Freq 500 Hz and 700 Hz simultaneous Duration 100 mSec

Beep
Freq 880 Hz Duration 100 mSec

Boop
Freq 440 Hz Duration 100 mSec

Bloop
Freq 840 Hz and 500 Hz simultaneous Duration 100 mSec

Doorbell (tone sequence from an old Popular Electronics construction article for an electronic doorbell, but with shorter durations
Freq 800 Hz Duration 75 mSec
Freq 400 Hz Duration 50 mSec

Doorbell Chord
Freq 1450 Hz and 725 Hz simultaneous Duration 75 mSec
Freq 725 Hz and 360 Hz simultaneous Duration 50 mSec

Descending
Freq 1000 Hz 50 mSec
Freq 750 Hz 50 mSec
Freq 500 Hz 50 mSec

Ascending
Freq 500 Hz 50 mSec
Freq 750 Hz 50 mSec
Freq 1000 Hz 50 mSec

Rolm
Freq 525 Hz and 660 Hz simultaneous Duration 100-200 mSec

Other Beeps:

Nextel beep
Freq 1760 Hz Duration 30 mSec
30ms gap
Freq 1760 Hz Duration 30 mSec
30ms gap
Freq 1760 Hz Duration 30 mSec

Function Complete
Freq 480 Hz and 1200 Hz simultaneous for 40ms
40ms gap
Freq 480 Hz and 1200 Hz simultaneous for 40ms

Another function complete
Freq 900 Hz for 60ms
60ms gap
Freq 900 Hz for 60ms

NASA "Over" beep
Freq 2450 Hz for 200ms
Note that the beep used in the movie "Apollo 13" was 2500 Hz just to be different, and for 100ms just to speed the movie up.

If you want the autopatch functions to sound like a phone system, here's the official specifications:

USA TELEPHONE NETWORK CALL PROGRESS TONE SIGNALLING

Tone
Function Frequency in
Hz ± 0.5%
(see note 1) Cadence (Seconds) Audio
Power
(see note 2) Notes

On Off

Dial Tone 350 + 440 Steady Steady -24 See note 3
Station Busy 480 + 620 0.5 0.5 -24 See note 4

Toll Congestion 480 + 620 0.2 0.3 -24 See note 5

Reorder (local) 480 + 620 0.3 0.2 -24 See note 6

Ring Back (telco) 440 + 480 2.0 4.0 -16 This is what you hear when the far-end central office is ringing the station - i.e. sending 90-100v at 20 Hz to the ringer.

Ring Back (PBX) 440 + 480 1 3 -16 This is what you hear when a PBX at the far-end is ringing the station.

Howler 1400 + 2060 +
2450 + 2600 0.1 0.1 0 This is what you hear when you leave the receiver off hook after the central office times out. It's designed to be very obnoxious, and it's set at an annoyingly loud level.

Call Waiting 440 One 500ms burst -13

High Tone 480 See notes -16 Usage depends on the manufacturer of the phone system. And despite the fact the 620 Hz is higher in frequency, this is called the "high tone".

Pre-Emption Tone 440 + 620 See notes -18 This is a tone burst with unequal lengths of tones: the 440 Hz tone is 200ms, the 620 Hz tone is 500ms. Usage depends on the manufacturer of the phone system.

Confirmation 350 + 440 Three 100ms bursts ? Usage depends on the manufacturer of the phone system.

Override 440 One 3-second burst -13 Usage depends on the manufacturer of the phone system.

Recall 350 + 440 Three 100ms bursts
then dial tone -24 Usage depends on the manufacturer of the phone system.

Notes:
1) A "+" indicates simultaneous tones of equal levels.
2) This is the audio power per frequency measured (in dB mo) at the Exchange Frame (the last connection point where the cabling leave the building).
3) Some PBX systems use 480+620 as the PBX dial tone so that when the users select an outside line (by dialing "9") they get a different, familiar, "outside" dial tone.
4) A "subscriber set" or a "station" in telephone parlance is a telephone instrument - be it a telephone, a fax machine, the autopatch board in your repeater controller, whatever.
5) This signal is the so-called "fast busy". Several central offices in a geographical area talk to a single toll office. Toll offices talk to each other. This method saves diging trenches between every combination of central offices. When you hear this it indicates that all the circuits between the two toll offices involved in your phone call are in use.
6) Most folks can't tell the difference between a Toll Congestion and a Reorder signal - they are both a fast cadence busy signal, but the on/off times are reversed. A reorder is an indication that there is a error in setting up the connection, rather than an indication of too much traffic.

Contact Information:

The author, Mike Morris WA6ILQ, can be contacted here.

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This page originally posted on 13-April-2005

This web page, this web site, the information presented in and on its pages and in these modifications and conversions is © Copyrighted 1995 and (date of last update) by Kevin Custer W3KKC and multiple originating authors. All Rights Reserved, including that of paper and web publication elsewhere.