Monitored Burglar System

[Mike]

Good advice .

Thanks.

Mike

[Jim]

I'm curious about this one...

We have a monitored system (GE Concord Express) and it has the ability to commandeer the phone line in order to dial out. If I hit the panic buttons, I assume it will call immediately. Will it bust in on my 911 call in order to do this? (Although, police are supposed to respond to a 911 hangup.).

Jim

Mike wrote:

[George Wenzel]

Zones, in the context of an alarm system, are individual sensors. A 'zone' could be a glass-break sensor on a particular window, a motion sensor in a room, a door-open sensor, a smoke alarm, or whatever. If the alarm gets triggered, the system will record which zones were tripped, allowing you to know exactly where the burglar went within your home. Most systems allow you to program groups of zones, so that you can, for example, arm only the perimeter sensors without arming interior motion sensors (useful at night when you're home). Zones also help your alarm monitoring company know whether they should call the police or fire department upon an alarm.

Regards,

George Wenzel

[Putyourspamhere]

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If you want an effective monitored system make sure that is uses a dedicated phone line which is always online to the monitoring station or a cellular link etc. The autodialer systems that are frequently installed are disabled as easily as cutting the phone lines. Of course that won't effect the audible alarm.

[George Wenzel]

Unless you've got a REALLY high-end home full of valuables, the chances of the phone line being cut prior to a break-in are negligible. In any event, if somebody wants to break in, they're going to be able to do it, regardless of whether an alarm is present or not.

Regards,

George Wenzel

[mwlogs]

Yes it will. I had the fool from ADT call my 70 yr old father one time when I was out of town to have him check why the alarm hadn't 'called home' to do the self-test. Without warning him what it would do, or how to stop it, they had him hit the panic button to trip the alarm. Of course with the siren blaring he couldn't understand the idiots instructions, and before he could get them clear the alarm cut them off and dialed in.

He finally decided to punch in the entry code, which cleared the alarm and shut off the siren.

I gave them an ear full when I got home. I've also removed my father from the backup call list. If they can't reach me they can't reach anyone in these situations.

[tgilb]

So in other words, why even bother to lock the doors?

[Nick Hull]

The trick is to have a FAKE phone line and a burglar alarm that will alarm when the fake phone line is cut.

[Nick Hull]

Even better, my system has a 'zone' for each sensor, it reports exactly which sensor has been tripped and the order they are tripped in.

[George Wenzel]

If your house is the one with unlocked doors, then you easily make your house the one that's most appealing on your street (assuming that they test the doors and find out they're unlocked).

The idea is not to make your house impenetrable, it's to make your house less attractive than other houses by making it less appealing to a would- be thief. Locks, alarms, dogs, and whatnot make your house less attractive than the next guy's house. It's called 'target hardening' - if a burglar is going to break into a home on your street, he's probably going to pick the one with the most reward and the least risk. As to the original comment (about having cellular backup), most burglars will not bother cutting phone lines before getting in - there's no need; if an alarm is present, it'll be a deterrent, and the thief has no way of knowing whether a cellular backup is present anyway.

Regards,

George Wenzel

[George Wenzel]

Isn't that _exactly_ what I just said?

Regards,

George Wenzel

[George Wenzel]

I sincerely hope you're not that paranoid. If you are, I suggest building a fake house next to yours with lots of fake valuables to be a decoy, so that the burglar breaks into that one instead of yours.

Regards,

George Wenzel

[Nick Hull]

Not a matter of being paranoid, just having twists that a burglar would be hard to anticipate.

[tgilb]

| > I sincerely hope you're not that paranoid. If you are, I suggest | > building a fake house next to yours with lots of fake valuables to be a | > decoy, so that the burglar breaks into that one instead of yours.

Sounds like Nick is suggesting what you encouraged, yet you're critical of that. I sense a contradiction.

[Rudy]

When we built our last home, I ran the phoneline, where it came out of the ground, thru a 1" black "gas" pipe, up from the concrete slab and into the wall of the garage. I had the installer put the Interface box inside the garage instead of on an outside wall. There was no sign of any phone components outside.

[George Wenzel]

I don't see any contradiction. Nick suggested having a fake phone line that would trigger an alarm if cut. I can't see how that makes a home any less attractive to a potential thief - after all, there isn't really any way for a burglar to know whether the phone line is fake, and incidences of phone lines being cut during break-ins are exceedingly rare.

If you want to secure your home against a break-in, using good locks, lighting, possibly an alarm system, and a dog are the best deterrents. You're better off focusing your energies on what's known to work rather than installing "fake phone lines" that aren't likely to do a thing to prevent a break-in.

Regards,

George Wenzel

[Claudia]

A break in the phone line is an automatic alarm - no questions asked.

As a jewelry store owner, know more about alarms than one should ever need to know. ADT is a known evil, but reliable. They look to make a dime anytime they can! __________________________ Totus Tuus Claudia Satori

[George Wenzel]

It's one thing to secure a jewelry store, and quite another to secure a house. I dare say that most jewelry stores have far more easily-portable and easily-fenced valuables than most homes.

Regards,

George Wenzel

[Charles Spitzer]

groups of alarms. bedrooms might be one zone, garage another, den/kitchen/dining room another, etc.