A Plectron is a specialized VHF/UHF single-channel, emergency alerting radio receiver, used to activate emergency response personnel, and disaster warning systems. Manufactured from the late 1950s, through the late 1990s, by the now defunct Plectron Corporation in Overton, Nebraska

Overton, Nebraska

Overton is a village in Dawson County, Nebraska, United States. It is part of the Lexington, Nebraska Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 646 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Overton is located at ....

, hundreds of thousands of these radios were placed in homes of first responders across all of North America. This included ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

 crews, full-time and volunteer firefighters, off-duty specialized police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

 response teams, Civil Defense

Civil defense

Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...

 members, and search and rescue

Search and rescue

Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...

 teams.

A Plectron's main feature (distinguishing it from a regular squelched

Squelch

In telecommunications, squelch is a circuit function that acts to suppress the audio output of a receiver in the absence of a sufficiently strong desired input signal.-Carrier squelch:...

 radio) was its selective de-squelching. It would only sound when a correct pair of tones were broadcast - allowing many agencies (with different tones) to share the same frequency. The Motorola MINITOR pager also uses this function and has largely replaced the Plectron.

See also

• Motorola
  Motorola
  Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
  
  
• Motorola MINITOR pager
• Pager
  Pager
  A pager is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then requested to call...
  
  
• Radio
  Radio
  Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
  
  
• Communication
  Communication
  Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
  
  
• Firefighting
• Dispatching

External links

• "Add a Plectron or Motorola Alert Desktop Monitor Receiver to Your Scanner Collection" by Bob Parnass, AJ9S.
• Plectron discussion group