Non-English language support when using landline modem

[watercott]

Is it possible to send non-English SMS messages through a landline modem using NotePager Pro? Does it depend on whether the dialed paging service uses TAP vs. UCP or 7e1 vs. 8n1?

[Tech Support]

Sure, you should be able to send non-English messages through NotePager Pro using a modem. All you would need to do is set the appropriate settings when you create the Carrier to dial. When you create teh carrier, you can chose between several different protocols, you can also modify the parity, baud rate, data bits, and stop bits to mirror what the carrier requires.

[watercott]

Doesn't the TAP protocol restrict message characters to ASCII? Can non-English messages (with non-ASCII characters) really be sent to paging services that use TAP?

[Tech Support]

It depends on which non-English languages you're referring to. If it's one of the other 1 bit styles such as Russian, German, French, Spanish, etc, then there shouldn't be any issue at all. However, if you're referring to the 2-bit or 3-bit graphic styles such as Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, then I'm afraid NotePager Pro doesn't support thost languages in its interface.

[watercott]

I'm confused. How can I send French characters like é, á, ó, and ú via the ASCII-based TAP protocol when these characters aren't in the ASCII character set?

[Tech Support]

There is more to the ascii character set than just the base characters. There is an Extended Ascii character set that supports most of the common umlautted characters and several mathematical symbols as well. Most devices and computers made in the last 15 years can support the extended ascii character chart.

If you'd like to see a list of the Base and Extended Ascii code charts, you can find them here: http://www.lookuptables.com

So, for example, if I needed to include a word that had the character é in it, in strict ascii, the é character is \0130

[watercott]

How can character values beyond 127 be transmitted to paging services that use 7 data bits? Furthermore, how would I enter such a character in NotePager Pro's Message Text box? To get "é" in the box, I enter alt+0233 and when the message is sent, the Connection Monitor indicates that "~" was sent instead of "é". This happens even if the Carrier I'm using uses 8 data bits.

Am I missing something or is it impossible to send non-ASCII characters via the TAP protocol regardless of whether the carrier uses 7 or 8 data bits?

Would I have better luck in sending non-ASCII characters if I tried to use a carrier that uses the UCP protocol? I understand that UCP uses a special character set that resembles ASCII but has replaced the ASCII control characters with various non-English characters. If I use a UCP carrier and enter "é" in the Message Text box via alt+0233, does NotePager Pro convert the "é" to the proper UCP character code before sending the message?

[watercott]

Is this the end of this thread? I'm still unclear as to what my options are for sending non-English messages containing non-ASCII characters when using a landline modem with no internet connection. Please advise.

[Tech Support]

Sorry for the dleay in replying, I was trying to test to see if there was any way I could get pages with extended ascii characters to properly show. Unfortunately, it seems that the extended ascii characters don't go through the program and show up on the other side, it just leaves them blank (if you have the option "Drop non-printable characters" set) or replaces them with a ~ if you don't have that option set.

[watercott]

So it looks like there is no way to send non-ASCII characters using the TAP protocol. What happens when the UCP protocol is used? I believe UCP uses what's called the GSM 7-bit character set. This character set looks a lot like ASCII but also contains a handful of non-ASCII characters. When using UCP, does NotePager Pro do the necessary conversions so if a non-ASCII character such as "é" is entered in the Message Text box, the GSM 7-bit character code for "é" will be sent?

[Tech Support]

Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure. We don't have any carriers here in the US that use UCP. However, it SHOULD work.

[watercott]

I tried to send a message via the UCP carrier Mobistar in Belgium. The message contained "ë", "é", and "á" but NotePager Pro sent "7E" (ASCII ~) for each of them. It looks like sending non-ASCII characters is not an option with NotePager Pro when the method of delivery is a modem with no internet connection.