Thanks for replies, I'll have to check them out.
To be fair I don't think a pager will be able to help too much with the intrusiveness side. Besides, for me its not the intrusiveness because I understand that I'm being paid to be on call. It's more about being caught off guard. Last time I really dropped the ball and thinking aloud mentioned something I shouldn't. You see the call can come at any point and typically the boss will ask me a question and because I haven't worked in months its only after I put the phone down I realise there was something I've missed.
But personally I'd be looking to set it up forwarded from my mobile phone. This way it would kick in when I go out of phone signal. Since being on call I'm amazed how many places don't have signal. I've swapped to another provider and so now I get slightly better 2g coverage but only 3g in cities. Whenever I go out of signal though I'm constantly worrying about it. It would be nice to reduce that worry and be able to do water sports etc, I've broken enough phones trying to be available.
I had a discussion with someone today who suggested never answer the phone, just ignore it and call them back when you've had a moment to get your head in gear.
But the reason why I post here is because the technology is interesting. Its receive only. A mobile phone is actually polling the base station all the time and there's something I find messy about this. A radio ham might understand. A receive only device feels much more passive. They make sense in hospitals. Since a pager is receive only then surely it should be phone safe?
I also find the idea of receive only transmissions rather interesting in themselves. A pager can't be tracked, its lower in power... I just like efficiency...
There are times when its really nice to go offline. Now I know a pager isn't offline psychologically but it is a compromise due being receive only. After a big job work generally don't call for the first 2weeks. Once I took this time to visit the amazon. We stayed on the edge of the forest and I took a slight risk in the sense that there was no signal. I have to say this feeling of no power grid or signal was one of the most memorable moments of my life. I cant describe the feeling, it could have brought me to tears. There a lot to be said to having a small element to this in life... if possible
Also, I think there is actually a lot of coded transmission out there. For example many people these days have no clue about shortwave radio, even long wave or the extra info you can get from gps and other broadcasts. I'd love to learn more. If I said that a radio can work without a battery people would think voodoo but a crystal radio set isn't a new age therapy.