The way I understand it, pagers are a one way device. When a message is sent to a pager it is broadcasted by the network for the pager to recieve, but there isn’t any sort of confirmation sent back to the tower, so they can’t really be tracked. That’s why they were in use prior to cellphones. These pagers ran on a AAA battery from what I understand, which wouldn’t last very long if it was having to constantly broadcast like a cellphone.
Oh shit, never been able to find subbed versions of the Area 88 OVAs!