Thanks for the info Herb.. We have two keypads and they have both Test, Panic, Stay, and Away buttons, I have to enter the code when I come home but not when I leave. We have two door on delay with away. On stay everything is instant and both keypads make a loud sound if something is opened. I wish there was a way to use the stay mode with all the doors on delay. When I get around to getting new phones I will get the app for the wireless, thanks for the tip.

I will get them out here to reconnect the siren and talk about what to do about the motion sensor.

BTW, we live right next to a fire station. I really like having fire and EMS people across about 100' of woods.
Thankfully at night they don't turn on their sirens until they get to hwy 41 maybe 1/3 mile away. We use a white noise machine at night to mask barking dogs, sirens, motorcycles, etc... but can still easily hear the keypad if someone opens a door. Nothing will mask the sound of a subwoofer though.
While we're at it... why is it that smoke detector batteries always go out in the middle of the night? Always...
That reminds me, I once had a call for pest control... for crickets... yep... smoke detector battery, lol. I had to get up an replace the one upstairs a couple of weeks ago at about 3:00 AM.

Thanks again!

J

When they come to fix the siren just ask them to review the keypad operation for the 4 different arming modes. 

Away (2), Stay (3), Instant/Night (7), and Max (4). 

2&3 allow entry door delay

4&7 all doors are instant

2&4 have motion turned on

3&7 have motion bypassed automatically

Notes: 
ALL 4 modes allow an exit delay. 
If arming with 2 or 4 and the system does NOT see an entry/exit door open and close during the "exit period", the system knows you did not leave the protected area and will automatically bypass the motions.


If you replace the house smoke detector batteries when you change your clocks, they will not be waking you up with low batteries in the night. 

Thanks, I will call them and we will go over all that stuff.
 
 

If you replace the house smoke detector batteries when you change your clocks, they will not be waking you up with low batteries in the night.

 
Yeah,  know that but I have not even changed the other batteries. I promise, I will do it this week! You don't usually have t do it but once a year, right?
 
Thank Herb!
 
J

once a year is good.

if the Vista is wireless on the protection points.... the batts should last 3 to 5 years in the transmitters and about 3 or so in the panel.... 

It's very important to have a good system battery in the panel. the transmitters should give a low batt signal on the kpd with about 30 days of life left. Change them all (transmitters batts) at the same time. 

Be sure to mark the date on the batts with a sharpie so you can see at a glance how old they are. 

Wow Herb that is some story brother. Glad you're gaining ground on it and I hope it all works out for you when all is said and done. I think this sort of "skimping" as I like to call it, takes place in just about every busines these days. The big picture from my perspective is, the ecomony is horrible....the government keeps on taking our pay while the cost of living goes up, and it forces people to take a chance on making decisions they wouldn't even think about if they weren't pinching pennies.

Sort of reminds me of when I was in the swimming pool chemical business. People would tell me "your chlorine is way more expensive than HTH!" But what they failed to realize until they tried it, my chlorine would last an entire season, burned off slower and you NEVER smelled chlorine when hanging at your pool and NEVER got red eyes from it. They'd burn off more HTH in a day than they would in 3 days of mine.

My recording business isn't anything like your life safety systems biz of course, but I'm in situations where some clown will mail me and say "your prices for instrumentation are too high...I can have so and so from some forum do that for free" to where I respond "why did you even contact me then?"

It's like anything in life really. You want a pro to do something, sometimes you gotta pay pro prices. Even there, I always do my best not to bleed anyone dry and cut everyone a break that has ever approached me from a forum I frequent wherever I can. But I can't do the work I do unless I put in the time and care....and unfortunately, that costs money. When people don't have the money they used to have, it makes them look elsewhere....and unfortunately, settle for less. Settling for less in your line of work is a life or death situation and not a chance anyone should take.

-Danny

if the Vista is wireless on the protection points.... the batts should last 3 to 5 years in the transmitters and about 3 or so in the panel....

  Explain please. By protection points do you mean the detectors? They have wires going into the wall. In the panel or box, the last time I looked there was a battery similar to a motorcycle battery... now, of course, I cannot find the key to the box. I know I placed it on a shelf near the box but it it gone. Not worried, will get a new one.
 
 

It's very important to have a good system battery in the panel. the transmitters should give a low batt signal on the kpd with about 30 days of life left. Change them all (transmitters batts) at the same time.

 
D you mean I need to replace that big battery in the control box now and again? No one ever told me that. There is also a smaller box up abover the cupboards, not east to reach, it has an antenna. I am pretty sure it is the cell phone backup in case the landline is cut or not working and the alarm is tripped.
 
Since the smoke detectors are hard wired... you know I need to check that... OK, yeah they are hardwired and the stupid painters painted it to the wall. There is also what I assume is a "heat detector". It has a small push clip on one side, I pushed it, removed it, and the system started to beep... YIKES... I got to a pad really quick and entered my code, it stopped beeping but continued to display 01 fire. So i took a guess and entered #01 and my entry code and everything went back to normal... now I just hope the firetruck does not show up...I changed the battery in the smoke detector. I assume there is not one one it the other thing that set the alarm off. I have a detector in the garage and there may be one in the attic. The one that went bad a couple of weeks ago was a "general purpose" battery, I think I remember the fire dept giving them out for free. There are alakalines in two now. Will get a bigger ladder later for the garage and will check the attic.... will leave the "heat detector" alone.... The smoke detector I just changed the battery in just chirped twice, two quick chirps... I hope that is normal...
 
BTW, I did put a date on the battery I changed. I will just change tham on my birthday, it was a week ago.
 
Don't mess with stuff when you don't know what it is (heat sensor) .... roight! They have not come and no one has called so I think all is well, as long as the SD does not chirp again. Will check keypad... it looks right, the firetruck just backed into the building and the sensor went off about 15 minutes ago. Whew...
 
J

My recording business isn't anything like your life safety systems biz of course, but I'm in situations where some clown will mail me and say "your prices for instrumentation are too high...I can have so and so from some forum do that for free" to where I respond "why did you even contact me then?" It's like anything in life really. You want a pro to do something, sometimes you gotta pay pro prices. Even there, I always do my best not to bleed anyone dry and cut everyone a break that has ever approached me from a forum I frequent wherever I can. But I can't do the work I do unless I put in the time and care....and unfortunately, that costs money. When people don't have the money they used to have, it makes them look elsewhere....and unfortunately, settle for less. Settling for less in your line of work is a life or death situation and not a chance anyone should take.

 
Danny, that is why I stopped advertizing in the yellow pages. All I ever got was, "how much do you charge"?
 
I have never tried to be the cheapest, neither am I the most expensive but I try to be the best. YP callers never call back. I think it is the same in every business, you can find the "cheapest" but indeed... you get what you pay for if you do that sometimes you get less if you use the most expensive business.
 
I get all the business I can handle by word of mouth, so I rarely advertize.
 
J

jbow

My recording business isn't anything like your life safety systems biz of course, but I'm in situations where some clown will mail me and say "your prices for instrumentation are too high...I can have so and so from some forum do that for free" to where I respond "why did you even contact me then?" It's like anything in life really. You want a pro to do something, sometimes you gotta pay pro prices. Even there, I always do my best not to bleed anyone dry and cut everyone a break that has ever approached me from a forum I frequent wherever I can. But I can't do the work I do unless I put in the time and care....and unfortunately, that costs money. When people don't have the money they used to have, it makes them look elsewhere....and unfortunately, settle for less. Settling for less in your line of work is a life or death situation and not a chance anyone should take.

 
Danny, that is why I stopped advertizing in the yellow pages. All I ever got was, "how much do you charge"?
 
I have never tried to be the cheapest, neither am I the most expensive but I try to be the best. YP callers never call back. I think it is the same in every business, you can find the "cheapest" but indeed... you get what you pay for if you do that sometimes you get less if you use the most expensive business.
 
I get all the business I can handle by word of mouth, so I rarely advertize.
 
J

Haha, totally with you there J. :) But, you know...it goes with the territory and is a valid questioin. The catch is in the answer you give them. When you tell them what you do for that price and what the end results are...or even share samples of your work, 8 out of 10 times you're going to land the job if they are serious. I've had more times where *I* have delcined the work over people declining to work with me. So that's a good thing in any business. :)
 
At the end of the day, we that are honest, caring human beings that are just trying to survive without ripping another fellow human off, only have our honesty, name, good work and love for what we do to offer. With that comes a price....sometimes they go for it, other times they don't.
 
Same here for me...I've never needed to advertise other than links in my signature and a small web presence. The majority of my work comes from studio's all over, established artists, law enforcement agencies (we do quite a bit of forensic audio work) and Indy record labels. Anything else I get on the side is an added bonus that I of course welcome with open arms. :)
 
-Danny

Cool Danny, I bet the forensic audio work is the most interesting of all. Being forensic, do you get called into court to testify about the original recordings, what you did, what makes you an expert... all the dirty tricks a good defense attorney will trow at you to try to discredit you and your work? I realize they are just doing their job but I've known people who are experts who wanted to crawl up in a fetal position under crosss. I bet, if you ever have to go... you do fine.

Interesting!!

J

BTW... I just now got a call from "Central Station" saying that they got a fire alarm at 12:23... huh? It has been over an hour since I pulled that sensor off the wall... this is all so "reassuring"... not!

I think I need to call my guy...

J