GB2062415A - Paging receivers - Google Patents

Abstract

A paging receiver comprises an information setter (15) which stores information that designates individually assigned call numbers and is constituted by a memory device. In addition to the call numbers, the memory device also stores receiver performance information including information relating to selection of informing devices (25, 28, 30, 33) which report to a user. A decoder (14), preferably in the form of a microprocessor, stores the information from the information setter (15) in a memory device (14d) contained in the decoder and then effects control of a receiving operation as well as selective reception of a call number alerting the user through devices (25, 28, 30, 33) or storing a received message for future recall. It is thus possible to decrease the number of terminals of a decoder fabricated with integrated circuits, thus reducing the size and increasing the reliability of the receiver. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Paging receivers This invention relates to paging receivers individually and selectively responsive to radio signals.

In radio paging receivers of this type, each user carries a receiver and when that receiver receives a radio signal including a specific code, that is an individual call number assigned to that receiver by a central office, the receiver informs the user by means of a tone, a light or vibration.

Under special conditions, for example, when the user is attending a conference or meeting, he operates a switch to cause the receiver to store in a memory device the fact that it has received a radio signal and thereafter the user reads out the content of the memory device to ascertain whether there was an emergency call or not.

Since the receiver is carried by the user, for example, in a pocket or a suit, it is desirable to manufacture it as compactly as possible and to have as many performance modes as possible. For this reason, a prior art receiver is constituted by a radio section which demodulates a radio signal received through an antenna, a call number setting unit that designates a call number, a decoder unit which controls the receiving operation and the call selective receiving operation, and reporting devices which inform the user of an emergency call. Usually, these component elements are fabricated with integrated circuits. With this construction, the sizes of the units other than the decoder unit are inherently determined regardless of any increase or decrease in the capabilities of the receiver.In view of the requirements of information processing, the number of input terminals of the decoder unit increases with each increase in the number of performance capabilities. Especially when this unit is fabricated with an integrated circuit, it is necessary to change the design each time the number of capabilities is increased or changed. This is because in the prior art decoder unit, one performance capability was assigned to each one of the input/output terminals for individually designating its performance signal by changing each terminal to an H (high) level or an L (low) level. Any increase in the number of terminals means a corresponding increase in the number of portions to be soldered, thus decreasing the reliability of the receiver and making it difficult to maintain.Moreover, as above described, any increase in the number of input/output terminals of the decoder unit means an increase in the size of the decoder unit, which is far from the basic conception of decreasing, as far as possible, the size of the receiver.

According to the present invention there is provided a paging receiver comprising: an antenna; a radio unit for demodulating a radio signal received by said antenna; an information setter which stores information that designates individually assigned call numbers; a decoder connected to an output of said radio unit; and a plurality of informing devices adapted to report to a user of said receiver in accordance with output signals from said decoder: said information setter comprising a first memory device which stores said information designating individually assigned call numbers and also stores receiver performance selection information, including information relating to selection of said informing devices; and said decoder including a second memory device for storing information stored in said information setter thereby to process an output signal from said radio unit in accordance with the information stored in said second memory device.

Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of paging receiver constructed according to the teaching of this invention; Figs. 2A and 2B are charts showing one example of a radio signal received by the receiver shown in Fig. 1 and of the control signal sent out from the decoder unit; Fig. 3 shows one example of a memory map of the information setting unit shown in Fig. 1; Figs. 4 through 6 show flow charts useful to explain the operation of the receiver shown in Fig.

1; Fig. 7 is a block diagram showing essential elements of a modified embodiment of the individually and selectively called receiver according to this invention, and Fig. 8 is a timing chart useful to explain the operation of the modified embodiment shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 1 shows the basic construction of the paging receiver 10 constructed according to this invention which comprises an antenna 12, a radio unit 1 3 connected to the antenna, a decoder unit 14, an information setting unit 15, designation switches 1 7, 1 8 and 1 9 which select or designate capabilities or functions, a power or battery saving gate circuit 20, a DC source 21, for example a battery, a source switch 23, a display device 25, a display driver 26, a loudspeaker 28, a tone generating device 29, an electric motor 30, a motor driver 31, a light emitter 33, and a light emitter driver 34, which are connected as shown.

A typical radio signal received by the antenna 1 2 comprises a preamble signal PS, a succeeding synchronizing signal SYS, a selection code signal, that is an individual call signal SCS, a message signal MS, which occur in succession as shown in Fig. 2A. In this case, the selection code signal SCS is divided into a plurality of groups thus increasing the selected capacity and improving the power saving characteristic.

The radio unit 1 3 functions to demodulate the radio signal received by the antenna 12 and each time a control signal CS1 is applied to the power saving gate circuit 20 from the decoder unit 14 at a timing shown in Fig. 2B, the source voltage V2 is applied to the radio unit 13 as will be described later in more detail, so that the radio unit becomes operative to effect demodulation.

When supplied with the control signal CS 1 the power saving gate circuit 20 applied the source voltage V2 to the tone producing device 29 and to resDective drivers 26, 31 and 34.

As shown, the decoder unit 14 is constituted by a microprocessor or a microcomputor and includes a controller 14b, a program memory device 14c, a data memory device 1 4d, I/O ports 1 4e and 1 4f and timing signal generator 1 4g and 1 4h which are interconnected through a bus line 14a. Upon closure of the source switch 23, the source voltage V1 is constantly applied to the decoder unit 14 from the source 21 to maintain the decoder unit in the operative condition. As is well known in the art, the controller 1 4b forms the essential portion of the microprocessor so as to execute various operations under the control of the controller 14b.The program memory device 1 4c is storing a program to be processed by the decoder unit 14, the detail of the content of the program being shown in the flow charts shown in Figs. 4, 5 and 6 as will be described later.

The timing signal generator 149 generates various timing signals necessary to operate various elements of the decoder unit 14. These timing signals are sent to the controller 1 4b and other elements through the bus line 14a. The path between the bus line 1 4a and the timing signal generator 149 may be omitted if desired.

The other timing signal generator 14h generates a timing pulse applied as the output of the radio unit and synchronous with a synchronizing signal SYS contained in the radio signal so as to cause the controller 1 4b to oprate synchronously with the synchronizing signal SYS.

The data memory device 1 4d functions as a temporal memory device or a register and is utilized to store or count such external signals, as for example, individual call number signals supplied from the radio unit 13, individual call number signals supplied from the information setter 1 5 and capability selection informations of the receiver including signals for designating the mode of signal reception and for selecting informing means for the user.

The I/O ports 14e and 14f are used as interfaces for outside elements. Although in this example, two l/O ports are shown, a single port may be used. To input terminals of the I/O port 1 4e are applied the output signal from the radio unit 13, and output signals of a performance selecting switch, i.e., a ringing reset switch 17, a memory read out switch 1 8 and of a switch 1 9 for selecting an alert processing or a vibrating processing and the alert memory processing.

When the switch 1 9 is thrown to a contact N it shows that the alert processing is selected whereas when thrown to a contact M it means that a vibration processing or an alert memory processing is selected. This I/O port 1 4e is provided with an output terminal for sending out a control signal CS 1 to the power saving gate circuit 20.

The I/O port 1 4f is provided with an output terminal for supplying signals to the information setter 15 and the drivers 26,31 and 34 and to the tone producing device 29 and an input terminal for receiving the output signal of the information setter 1 5.

The decoder unit 14 performs the following four fundamental operations.

(a) Initializing operation This operation is performed according to the program of the program memory device 1 4c concurrently with the closure of the source switch 23. At first, a preamble receiving flag or an individual call number receiving flag necessary to the input-output operations of the decoder unit 14 is initially reset. At the same time an area for storing the received data that is an information from the radio unit 13 or other input, and an area for storing signals to be sent to such information devices as the display device 25, the loudspeaker 28, the motor 30, and the light emitter 33 are initially set.

(b) Reading out informations from the information setter 1 5 As will be described in detail later, the information setter 1 5 is accessed to read out the individual call numbers, the performance designation informations, etc., so as to store these read out informations in the data memory device 14d.

(c) Power saving operation As will be described later in detail, normally the source voltage is supplied only to a minimum number of component elements, and the source voltage is supplied to the information devices and other elements only when the individual call signal of the receiver is received or when desired thus providing the power saving operation. In this example, the decoder unit 14 is supplied with the source voltage V1 at the same time as the closure of the source switch. Further, at least the radio unit 1 3 is periodically supplied with the source voltage for checking the presence or absence of the radio signal.

(d) Receiving the information operations As will be described later, the output of the radio unit 1 3 is checked and upon received of the radio signal the synchronizing signal SYS is extracted and in synchronism therewith a check is made as to whether the received individual call number signal is assigned to the receiver or not.

When the received signal is assigned to the receiver an information is made according to a predetermined performance or the signal is stored in the memory device for future information.

The information setter 1 5 is constituted by a read only memory device (ROM) or a programmable memory device such as PROM, and the read out informations are sent again to the decoder unit 1 4 and are sequentially stored in predetermined areas of the data memory device 14d. The information setter 1 5 stores informations according to the memory map shown in Fig. 3, for example. More particularly, the information setter 15 comprises an ROM having a matrix construction of 8 x 9 bits.The ROM has a memory area 1 5a for the performance selection information for selection various informations of the receiver, an areas 1 5b and 1 sic for storing the call number information assigned to the receiver, input terminals 15C1 through 15c9 for receiving address signals from the decoder unit 14, and information output terminals. In this example, in the performance selection storing area 15a are provided an automatic reset performance designation bit 15a1, a memory performance designation bit 1 5,,, a vibrator performance designation bit 15a32 a display performance designation bit 15a4 and a signal receiving mode designation bit 15a5.

When the automatic reset performance bit 15 is set to "0" for example, no automatic reset processing is performed. Accordingly, at this time the information processing would be released by the manual operation of the switch 1 7. When this bit is "1", the information operation is performed for a definite time and then automatically released.

When the memory performance designation bit 15a2 is set to "1", an alert memory storing operation is performed, whereas when this bit is set to "0" this memory action disappears.

When the vibrator performance designation bit 1 5a3 is set to "1" a vibration processing is performed whereas when "0" is set this vibration performance disappears. In this example, only one of the memory performance and the vibration performance is provided.

When the display performance designation bit 1 S a4 is set to "1" a display processing is effected, whereas when it is set to "O" no display performance is effected. In this example, this processing is effected concurrently with the tone producing processing or the read out processing of the alert memory device.

When the signal receiving mode designation bit 15a5 is set to "1", a battery or power saving processing is performed whereas when it is set to "0" the source voltage is normally applied to various elements. In this embodiment the description is made on the assumption that the receiver has the battery saving performance.

The call number information is made up of a selection code group selection information 15b and an individual call information 15c.

The reading out of these performance selection information and call number information is performed following the initializing operation of the decoder unit 1 4. As has been pointed out before the decoder unit 14 performs the performances selection operation (to be described later) in accordance with the performance selection information stored in the data memory device 14d. Setting of the informations into the information setter 15 is made at the time of shipping of the receiver or at any desired time by well known means.

The display device 1 5 may be of the liquid crystal type, for example, and operates to display telephone numbers, digits, street names, cryptograph codes, etc., according to messages MS sent subsequent to the selection code SCS of the radio signal shown in Fig. 2. These informations are sent to the driver 26 from the decoder unit 14 as a control signal CS4 and displayed.

The loudspeaker 28 functions to inform to the user that an individual call has been made when the switch 1 9 is thrown to contact N and when the control signal CS2 is sent to the tone producing device 29 from the decoder unit 14, an oscillator contained in the tone producing device oscillates to apply its output to the loudspeaker 28.

When the switch 1 9 is thrown to contact M and when the performance information sent from the information setter 15 contain a vibration signal, the motor 30 rotates when a control signal CS2 is sent to the driver 31 from the decoder unit 14 to vibrate the receiver to inform the user the fact that the user is called.

The light emitter 33 is made up of a luminous diode, for example, and lighted when the driver 34 receives a control signal from the decoder unit 14.

Since the light emitter 33 operates simultaneously with the ringing of the loudspeaker 28 and the rotation of the motor 30 in accordance with a control signal sent from the decoder unit 14, descriptions regarding the flow charts shown in Figs. 4 through 6 will not be made.

When the source switch 23 is closed, the decoder unit 1 4 is supplied with the source voltage V1 to become operative for transferring call number information and the performance designation informations stored in the information setter 15 to the register, i.e., the data memory device 1 4d and for effecting various initializing operations. Thus, the decoder unit 14 sequentially operates in accordance with the instructions stored in the program memory device 14c, that is according to the flow charts shown in Figs. 4 and 5.

Now the operation of the individually and selectively called receiver will be described with reference to the flow charts shown in Figs. 4, 5 and 6.

Upon closure of the source switch 23, the decoder unit 1 4 is supplied with source voltage Vi. Then the program is advanced to step 41 shown in Fig. 4 to set initializing conditions of various elements described above, and then advanced to step 42 where the decoder unit 14 accesses the information setter 1 5 according to a program stored in the program memory device 1 4c to read out a call number information assigned to a given receiver and a performance selection information of the receiver including the designation of the signal receiving mode and the selection of the informing means for the user for storing the read out informations in the data memory device 14d.

Then the program is advanced to step 43 to designate transfer to the power saving operation.

At step 51 (see Fig. 5) the decoder unit 14 sends to the power saving gate unit 20 a control signal CS1 for an interval1 shown in Fig. 2B, for turning on the power source of the radio unit 13 for the interval1 so that radio unit 13 is in an operative state during this interval. Then at step 52, the decoder unit 14 checks whether the output of the radio unit 13 received via I/O port 14e contains the preamble signal or not. When the preamble signal is not contained, the program is advanced to step 53 where the fact that the interval1 has not yet elapsed and then the program is returned to step 52 to again check whether the output of the radio unit 13 contains the preamble signal or not.Where there is no preamble signal during the interval T1 the program is returned to step 54, whereas when the preamble signal is contained in the output of the radio unit 13, the program is advanced to step 55 to set a flag showing that the preamble signal was received and to send out the control signal CS 1 for an interval T2 longer than interval T1, at step 56 to prepare for the reception of a synchronizing signal SYS following the preamble signal.

Then the program is advanced to step 57 to check whether the synchronizing signal SYS has been received or not as the output of the radio unit 13. If the synchronizing signal SYS were not received, at step 58, a check is made as to whether the interval T2 has been elapsed or not, and when the result of check is NO the program is returned back to step 57 to check again whether the synchronizing signal SYS has been received or not. If the synchronizing signal SYS were not received during the interval T2, the program is advanced to step 54.

Where the synchronizing signal SYS was received during the interval T2, the program is stopped until an information regarding a group containing an individual call number assigned to the given receiver is received at step 59. During the waiting time, sending out of the control signal CSi to the power saving gate circuit 20 is interrupted as can be noted from the waveform shown in Fig. 28.

When an information regarding a group (in this example, group 3, containing the individual call number) assigned to the given receiver is sent, the program is advanced to step 60 to send the control signal CSi to the power saving gate circuit 20 for an interval T3 for turning on the power source of the radio unit 13. The output of the radio unit 1 3 is inputted to the data memory device 1 4d to compare it with a self contained individual call number transferred from the information setter 1 5. When a coincidence is obtained, a flag showing the reception of the individual call signal is set and the program is then advanced to step 60.When the coincidence is not obtained, the program is immediately advanced to step 61 where a confirmation is made as to whether the interval T3 has been elapsed or not, and if the result is NO the program is returned to step 60 to repeat again the operations described above.

As the interval T3 has elapsed, the program is transferred to step 54 where a check is made as to whether the individual call number information receiving flag has been set or not.

When the flag is set the program is advanced to step 62 to process an information and then the program is advanced to step 63. The information processing will be described later with reference to Fig. 6 when the flag is not set, the program is immediately advanced to step 63 at which the decoder unit 14 stops the sending out of the control signal CS1 for interval T4. Then at step 64 a judgement is made as to whether the preamble signal receiving flag has been set or not. If the result of judgement is NO, at step 65, informations are read out from the information setter 1 5 arid thereafter the program is transferred to step 51.

This reading out operation is identical to the operation wherein the performance designation informations and the individual call number informations are read out from the information setter at the time of initializing the decoder unit 14 and then the read out informations are stored in the date memory device 1 4d. If flag were not set the program is returned to step 51 to repeat above described operations.

Fig. 6 is a flow chart showing one example, of the data processing. When the individual call number signal receiving flag has been set, the program is advanced to step 71 where a judgement is made whether switch 1 9 has been thrown to contact N or not. When the result of judgement is YES, at step 72 an alert processing is executed, in other words a control signal CS2 is sent to the tone producing device 29 to cause the loudspeaker 28 to produce a tone. At the same time driver 26 is energized to display the message on the display device 25. Upon completion of the processing described above the program is advanced to the next step 73.

When the switch 1 9 has been thrown to contact M instead of contact N, the program is advanced to step 74 where a judgement is made whether the performance designation of the performance information read out from the information setter 15 is a vibration or not. If the result is YES, the program is advanced to step 75 to execute the vibration processing. At this time, the decoder 14 sends a control signal CS3 to the driver 31 to drive the motor 30. Then at step 73, the automatic reset processing is executed according to the performance information when a predetermined time, for example 8 seconds has elapsed after completion of the processings at steps 72 and 75, the sending out of the control signals CS2 and CS3 is stopped. Then the program is advanced to the next step 63.

At step 74, when the performance designation is not the vibrating, at step 76 a report according to the output of the radio unit 13 is not sent, but is continuously stored.

Although not shown in the drawing, when the user closes the switch 18, the decoder unit 1 4 reads out the report information stored in the data memory device 1 4d to drive the tone producing device 29 and/or the driver 26 to produce a tone from the loudspeaker or to display the information on the display device 25.

When the user closes switch 1 7 during the alert processing at step 72 or the vibration processing at step 75, the decoder unit 14 stops the sending out of the control signals and the program is advanced to step 63.

As above described, the designation of the signal receiving mode, and selection of the reporting means as well as the performance of the receiver are written into a memory element as the performance selection informations and these informations are set in the decoder unit so as to select the performance of the receiver, so that it is not necessary to provide discrete terminals for respective performances of the receiver for selecting the performances as in the prior art 'receiver. Thus, it is possible to decrease the size of the receiver irrespective of the increase in the performances of the receiver. Especially, the number of the terminals of the decoder unit may be small as that of a commercial microprocessor.

Moreover, the performances of the receiver may be changed by merely exchanging an element storing a performance selection information, thus makes easy the maintenance.

Fig. 7 illustrates a modified embodiment of the paging receiver according to this invention in which elements corresponding to those shown in Fig. 1 are designated by the same reference numbers, In this modification, either one of the input/output terminals of the I/O port 1 4f of the decoder unit 14 to the input/output terminals of the information setter 1 5 and the input/output terminals of the information setter 1 5 to the input/output port 1 4f are also used as the output terminals for sending control signals from the decoder unit 14 to other elements.Thus, in this embodiment, the output terminals 1 5d2 of the information setter 1 5 or the input terminal j of the I/O port 1 4f is used as the output terminal for sending a control signal CS1 to the power saving gate circuit 20, whereas the output terminal 1 5d3 (input terminal k) is used as the output terminal for sending out a control signal CS2 to the tone generating device 29 which actuates the loudspeaker 28.The output terminal 1 5d1 of the information setter 1 5 (input terminal i of the I/O port 1 4f is used as the output terminal for sending out a control signal CS 1 0 to the radio unit 13 which in response to this control signal CS10 increases the time constant on the output side of a demodulator, not shown, for the purpose of shaping the waveform of the demodulated radio signal.

In Fig. 8, curves a through p show waveforms at corresponding input/output terminals shown in Fig. 7. A region A shown in Fig. 8 shows the signal waveform read out from the information setter, whereas a region B shows the signal waveform at the time of reception.

With the circuit shown in Fig. 7 closure of a source switch 23 applies a source voltage to the decoder unit 1 4 from a power source 21. Then the decoder unit 1 4 produces an interval reset as has been described in detail with reference to the previous embodiment to read out the content of the information setter 15 before commencing the receiving operation. The information setter 1 5 is constructed as a matrix having 8 rows and 9 columns and read out pulses are applied to the rows for reading out the contents of the columns.

More particularly, the output terminals a through h of the decoder unit 1 4 produce read out pulses a through h in the region A shown in Fig. 7. These read out pulses produce a signal pulse having a width of 5 ms at the output terminals a through f. A control signal commonly used for both output terminals a and b is used while the receiver is receiving signals and its operating time is independent of the region A. The strength of this single pulse is not sufficiently large to operate a circuit element supplied with the control signal. The output from the output terminal c operates the loudspeaker 28 via the tone producing device 29. However the ringing tone produced by the loudspeaker can be neglected because of the band characteristic of the loudspeaker 28 and of the single pulse.In the region A, the output terminals a through c operate as the read out pulse outputting terminals for reading out the content of the infromation setter 15 just in the same manner as other output terminals d through h thereby writing the informations into the information setter 15 through input terminals i through p.

This writing operation completes in about 45 ms and then the receiving operation corresponding to a region B shown in Fig. 8 is commenced. To perform this receiving operation control signals are outputted from the same output terminals a through c. More particularly the code constructions of a synchronizing signal obtained by demodulating a radio signal applied to the decoder 14 from antenna 1 2 via the radio unit 1 3 differ greatly, so that after rerceiving the synchronizing signal the output terminal a produces a control signal utilized to receive a call signal, while the output terminal k supplies a signal to a power saving gate circuit 20 for saving the power.When a signal outputted from the radio unit 1 3 is decoded by the decoder unit 14 and the decoded signal coincides with a number read out from the information setter 15, the output terminal c produces a signal having a frequency of about 2.0 KHz which is used to produce a ringing tone from the loudspeaker 28 via the tone producing device 29. The output terminals a through c not only send out control signals to various elements for receiving the call signal but also sends to the information setter 15 so that the contents of the information setter 1 5 are sent to input terminals i through p. However, in the region B, the decoder unit 14 would not misoperate because no data is written into through the input terminals i through p.

As above described in this embodiment, a single control signal line is commonly used for passing control signals sent from the decoder unit to respective element for receiving call signals and for passing read out signals sent from the decoder unit to the information setter for reading out call numbers and the read out signals and the control signals are sent, on the time division basis, to the common signal line. Consequently, it is possible to commonly use a call terminal and a control terminal at the output of the decoder unit thereby decreasing the number of the output terminals of the decoder unit which improves the reliability and reduces the size of the decoder unit.

Having described a specific embodiment of our bearing, it is believed obvious that modification and variation of our invention is possible in light of the abvoe teachings.

For example, in Fig. 1 of the above embodiments though power for the information devices was supplied through the power saving gate 20, the source voltage V1 may be supplied to the information devices.

Further, though massage signals comprising the radio signal followed all selection signals, they may follows the selection signal to be combined.

Claims (8)

1. A paging receiver comprising: an antenna; a radio unit for demodulating a radio signal received by said antenna; an information setter which stores information that designates individually assigned call numbers; a decoder connected to an output of said radio unit; and a plurality of informing devices adapted to report to a user of said receiver in accordance with output signals from said decoder; said information setter comprising a first memory device which stores said information designating individually assigned call numbers and also stores receiver performance selection information including information relating to selection of said informing devices; and said decoder including a second memory device for storing information stored in said information setter thereby to process an output signal from said radio unit in accordance with the information stored in said second memory device.

2. A receiver according to claim 1 wherein said performance selection information comprises automatic reset performance information relating to release of a said report to a user after a predetermined time, memory performance information relating to temporary storage of a received radio signal, display performance information relating to display of a message contained in a said received radio signal, and information relating to selection of a said informing device from among a visual display, a vibrator and a tone production device.

3. A receiver according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein said decoder comprises a microproces'sor.

4. A receiver according to any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein a plurality of input/output terminals are connected between said decoder and said information setter for reading out information from said first to said second memory device, and wherein at least one of said input/output terminals is also used to transmit control signals for said receiver, the signals for reading out information from said information setter and said control signals to said devices being transmitted at different times.

5. A receiver according to claim 4 wherein said control signals are supplied to said informing devices.

6. A-receiver according to claim 4 or claim 5 wherein said control signals are supplied to said radio unit.

7. A receiver according to any one of claims 1 to 6 including power saving means connected to said decoder.

8. A paging receiver substantially as described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings.