Got to give a plug for RBA as they have a fantastic team including several NW birders, not least Chris Batty who is a serving member of the British Birds Rarities Comittee, so knows his stuff. As I used to run BirdCall - the first ever text message birdnews service I used to monitor all the services & RBA easily had the lions share of the news first, the other services then re-sent it. The delays to be honest were only minutes, so unless you had to be 'off like stink' for a bird these time differences probably don't matter. I monitored every message for every county over an 8 year period, so think I probably had more experience than most as to who broke the news first. I concede to Ian about the Gtr Manchester news, but 'locally' across the country (as we are not all GM Locals ) RBA again broke more news first.

When I twitch many of the 450+ listers have RBA Pagers too, so maybe they're the choice of the 'big listers'!! Of course many on here prefer local news so that may not matter. RBA pagers work very well on Scilly too, I know some mobiles struggle and Birdnet used to have little or no reception (may have changed?), but again, if you don't need Scilly reception then that is not an issue. RBA is probably the most expensive option but I like it the best having been with them for the last 14 years & have no plans to change that

Not as far as I'm aware Joe. And there's no guarantee that a pager will work any better than your phone. I'd seriously consider something like the twitter or text services, the former of which will only cost you £40 for the whole year. Where is you're off to? If its just one county is Birdline still not available so you can just ring up when you feel like it? Have to say I only use twitter and its great.

Jason has a point that they're pretty much all the same but Birdnet has a few very important advantages.

They are virtually always first for county news atleast as I provide them personally with all first hand news immediately. Their operators are all pretty local and one of them I still regard as one of our own county birders . The majority of very active county birders in Greater Manchester use Birdnet Pagers. For the amount of information you receive they are clearly the cheapest. A further detailed review of Birdnet pagers can be found on the reviews page on the main website but even if all pagers were equal, the fact that without the sponsorship of Birdnet this forum would not continue (I couldn't jusify the expense personally anymore) then I think they deserve our appreciation and anyway I've used both main pagers and Birdnet are honestly the best.

Feel free to contact me for any further advise or assistance.


-- Edited by Ian McKerchar at 17:32, 2009-01-20

You have answered your own question Steve. I have had a Birdnet pager for years and cannot fault the service.

I recently misplaced my pagerbut I received a replacement the next day