Yale Premium Alarm Hsa6400 Wirefree Alarm Kit

[mdf290]

What a happy little world he lives in.

The happy world where radio receivers are never interfered with and can always hear the messages sent to them no matter what else is happening in the area.

I am waiting for a Neighhood Watch co-ordinator to tell me the details of six months of erratic behaviour by alarms in his area. I will post them when I get them and give the experts some time to explain it before posting the actual cause of the erratic behaviour.

Well there has been no erratic behaviour where all the Yale alarms are on top of each other the walls are thin (think holiday home/static caravan) and the owners all have cars... If ever there was a scenario for problems to match Bernards prophecys this would be it...

 

[bernardgreen]

signals created by a burglar forcing a door are totally different to the signal from a car key fob

that's a very silly idea, Bernard, why do you make up these silly ideas?

I wrote

No doubt the " explanation " will be that signals created by a burglar forcing a door are totally different to the signal from a car key fob so the blocking of key fobs has no relevance to the blocking of alarm signals.

which you abbreviated when quoting it making it appear that I said they are different. They are not different.


So in your mind (and experience ?) are the signals different ? Are they so different that signals from car key fobs a few feet from the receiver in the car can be blocked but signals from an alarm sensor several feet from the receiver cannot be blocked by the same interference.

Yes I did say that as more and more alarms are installed the risk of an activation signal being "lost" will increase. With systems where the sensors send one or two activation signals and then go to sleep the risk of one similar alarm blocking the other is small, in your opinion insignificantly small. But not all alarm systems do that, some of the more resilient alarm systems have sensors that repeat the activiation signal until the control panel replies to the sensor with confirmation that the activation signal has been received. These may legally occupy the radio channel for several seconds during which time other types of alarm would not be able to pass activation signals and the sensor would be asleep without the alarm being activated.

 

[mdf290]

What a happy little world he lives in.

The happy world where radio receivers are never interfered with and can always hear the messages sent to them no matter what else is happening in the area.

I am waiting for a Neighhood Watch co-ordinator to tell me the details of six months of erratic behaviour by alarms in his area. I will post them when I get them and give the experts some time to explain it before posting the actual cause of the erratic behaviour.

Which will prove what?

Erratic behaviour can be for other reasons you cannot assume inteference is the causal factor

Biggest reason for erratic behaviour I have found is simply not replacing the pir batteries . Just like any alarm owners failure to maintain is the biggest cause of faults

How will your neighbourhood watch coordinator identify erratic alarms presumably ones going off for no reason or will it be a list of burgled homes where the alarns failed to work as you suggest and how would you identify the owner simply forgot to set it and was telling lies

 

[bernardgreen]

There are five houses and a farm office, store and workshops.
One house is occupied by a couple Mr and Mrs Day who live in town during the week.
In January 2011 that house was broken into and items stolen.
The owners installed a burglar alarm and the farm manager became a key holder.
In February their next door neighbour, Mr Paint an eccentric reclusive artist asked if they could fit an alarm on his property as he often had
visits from vandals.visits from vandals. They fitted the same type or alarm for him.
The third house is home to an elderly couple. Both have alarm pendants that are linked to a 24-7 health care provider.
The fourth house is owned by an absentee landlord and is managed by a letting agency letting to professionals on long term rental contracts.
In April / May 2011 this house was completely refurbished and new tenants moved in early in June. They reported problems with the new hot water system.

The fifth house is a large excutive home with a monitored alarm system

On the afternoon of June 16th 2011 the alarm at Mr Day's went off and the key holder attended to find nothing amiss other than the
alarm could not be reset and it continued to sound intermittantly. A few minutes later the alarm at Mr Paint's sounded.
Mr Paint was at home, had not set the alarm and could not cancel it.

Between then and August 10th there were 8 similar false alarms at Mr Day's and 3 at Mr Paint's
All occurred between 2 pm and 5 pm.

Both alarm boxes were replaced but false alarms continued to occur. The retailer then suggested a change to the settings in the alarm boxes,
This was done on Mr Day's alarm and false alarms ceased. Mr Paint's alarm was not modified and continued to false alarm.

On Friday August 26th the Day's arrived home at 4 PM to find they had been burgled.
The alarm did not respond to the front door being opened.
The alarm went off later ( after 5 PM ) when the back door was opened.
A car had been seen on their driveway on the Thursday afternoon.
The registration was a false plate and it was assumed this was when
the break in occurred. Had the alarm sounded then it would have been heard by farm office staff.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 21st September Mr Old collapsed, his pendant failed to operate.
Mrs Old's pendent also failed. She telephoned for help.
Their son arrived that evening and found the pendants worked when he tested them.
The next day they failed to work when tested in the afternoon after new batteries had been fitted.

Their son then became aware of the false alarms the other houses and arranged to have a colleague investigate. The cause was found.

 

[mdf290]

And the cause you have conveniently left off was?

You have also conveniently failed to mention that the local problems were flagged up by the alarms indicating jamming and if the cause had been looked for then none of the alarns would have failed to operate or the pendanrs failed to work.

Since this is a yale thread and you have brought up the issue I also assume the alarms weren't yale also unlike your earlier suggestion it was not caused by having two identical alarms adjacent either

 

[bernardgreen]

And the cause you have conveniently left off was?

for you to make suggestions about.

The alarms were Yale but most other alarms that rely on one way communication on licence exempt frequencies would have been affected in the same way.

alarms indicating jamming

How do the alarms do that ? There is no mention of it in the coordinaters log until the son of the elderly couple became involved so maybe the indication was not effective. Consider one alarm box was altered ( no details in the log ) and that then behaved differently to the un-altered box. Most importantly that alarm failed to react to intruders or the owner opening the entry door but did later. a few hours later, react to the kitchen door being opened.

I am sure you know exactly why that happened.

 

[mdf290]

And the cause you have conveniently left off was?

for you to make suggestions about.

The alarms were Yale but most other alarms that rely on one way communication on licence exempt frequencies would have been affected in the same way.

alarms indicating jamming

How do the alarms do that ? There is no mention of it in the coordinaters log until the son of the elderly couple became involved so maybe the indication was not effective. Consider one alarm box was altered ( no details in the log ) and that then behaved differently to the un-altered box. Most importantly that alarm failed to react to intruders or the owner opening the entry door but did later. a few hours later, react to the kitchen door being opened.

I am sure you know exactly why that happened.

What are you on about the sequence of events clearly states the alarms were activating apparently falsely. This is the first indication of a possible jamming problem.
When the jamming was indicated along with the problems to the wireless central heating control etc this all indicates some local inteference..
This inteference would NOT be caused by the alarms as they do not constantly transmit as you know.
Something in the vicinity caused all these problems , you KNOW what is was because it says on your quote 'the cause was found'.

Why are you not revealing what the cause was?

does it not fit neatly into your argument?

How should I know what happened? There was local inteference affecting all systems not just the alarms , the alarms had indicated the inteference as designed by alarming. The alarm owners in their ignorance of not being informed by the installer or reading the alarm manual did not realise the significanceand did not investigate the cause. Ofcom would have quite happily have done a survey as they did in the cases you mention.

Come on Bernard answer the whole point of the quoted post you put up.

The cause was found and it proved to be what?

As for the front door not activating the system there are a million reasons particularly if the installer did not know what he was doing. The contact could have been placed too near metalwork for all I know I have not seen the system in situ.

 

[JohnD]

keep calm, he wants you to guess so that he can have the pleasure of pulling something out of the hat later.

I wonder if there is any way of verifying the details of this tale?

Bernard is very resistant to estimating the probability of an interfering signal blocking a sensor at the very moment that a burgar forces an entry but (subject to evidence showing that his tale is true) he claims that he might have found one.

 

[mdf290]

more holes than a collander in Bernards story - shamefull

..and just to clarify both these alarms were DIY fitted by the homeowners not anyone with any experience.

It would also seem most likely that the inteference was coming from the workshops or farm office as it occured within a certain timeframe.

So this is a case of local inteference that could easily be identified if only people had bothered to ask the questions.

How does this apply to the rest of the country in normal domestic homes not sat next to workshops?

One also needs to know whether these were 6200 or 6400 systems..

Update Bernard has been on site these last few days including today and is obviously now avoiding akward answers

His tale neither backs up his claim of adjacent systems preventing detection and alarm or how alarms can be defeated by jamming . There is also misleading infiormation about what would have happened under certain circumstances .
Dissapointing reporting from someone who should know better scratching around for anything to back up his scaremongering.

 

[bernardgreen]

..and just to clarify both these alarms were DIY fitted by the homeowners not anyone with any experience.

Correct. without the experience to evaluate the local areas existing use of the radio channel. An evaluation which can only be accurate if the channel occupancy is known or can be measured.

.It would also seem most likely that the inteference was coming from the workshops or farm office as it occured within a certain timeframe.

An admission that interference was the cause of the problem.

.So this is a case of local inteference that could easily be identified if only people had bothered to ask the questions.

If only people would ask those questions before buying and isntalling a wireless linked system in an area where channel occupation ( use of the radio channel ) is already high. Though at the time these were installed channel occupancy wa ( probably ) very low.

.How does this apply to the rest of the country in normal domestic homes not sat next to workshops?

Assumption that it was the workshop is false.

.One also needs to know whether these were 6200 or 6400 systems..

Sirens only, no panel.

Three wireless linked sensors monitoring an area of semi derelict land behind and around the village hall were the trigger for the blocking of the channel. These were one way units that could not be turned off other than by removing the power sources. The problems began when the area was cleared and made into a play area for the play group which met in the afternoons. The sensors were then transmitting activation signals as often as permitted ( each one up to 10% of the time ) which caused another nearby system ( two way wireless linked ) to lose packets ( messages ) which had to be repeated. This two way system was resilient enough to operate correctly under these circumstances in doing so it's channel occupancy rose to over 80% as it repeated lost packages. As it waited for clear channel before transmitting its packets occurred in gaps between the village hall transmissions. Total occupancy from these two systems could have been 85% or more.

There were other signals present that were above the alarm system's threshold and would have further increased the channel occupancy

.Update Bernard has been on site these last few days including today and is obviously now avoiding akward answers

Not avoiding but getting more information.

band monitored 425 MHz to 445 MHz. monitoring from an onmi directional aerial 2 metres above ground close to the alarm box on [Mr Paint's House ] This is not typical of the polar diagram of the aerial in the alarm box. Base line threshold [ that which the alarm receiver must recognise as a signal ] estimated by measuring signal from a sensor 30 metres away [ claimed operating range ]

.His tale neither backs up his claim of adjacent systems preventing detection and alarm or how alarms can be defeated by jamming .

Anyone reading your postings with an open mind can see that the problem of blocking. jamming or interference ( what ever you want to call radio signals from other sources ) is known as a problem. Why is jamming detection fitted and why does it create an alarm when jamming is detected. Why does the manufacturer recommend turning that feature OFF if there are repeated alarms caused by jamming

.There is also misleading infiormation about what would have happened under certain circumstances .

From whom. you or me.

.Dissapointing reporting from someone who should know better scratching around for anything to back up his scaremongering.

Are you not scratching around to find ways to avoid admitting that under come circumstances one way wireless linked alarm systems using a licence exempt radio channel will not be as reliable as one would expect them to be.

The sensors monitoring the land behind the village hall were installed as wireless due to the problems of running cables to the adjacent buildings on which they were mounted. As result of the interaction with the other system they have been replaced with wired units. It was recognised that if the other system was active then intruders approaching the village hall may not be reported to the halls alarm system ( ARC monitored )

 

[JohnD]

Bernard, are you ready yet to estimate the probability that an interfering signal might occur at the very moment that a burglar forces entry into the house?

 

[mdf290]

So what you are actually saying is there were illegal devices operating in the area. I presume because of the disruption caused Ofcom demanded that the system operating 85% of the time to recoup lost packets was condemned?

What you also learn here is that the Yale alarms despite being installed by DIYers actually behaved as designed.

Again had the owner installer been more savvy they would have recognised the need to look for a source of inteference.

The perimeter fence you mention indeed would cause an issue as they have a 700m transmission range and are usually for remote farm monitoring. Somethin you would never find in your local domestic environment and if you did somethin Ofcom would condemn.

Had the systems been 6400 alarms rather than 6200 then notification at the panel of faults would have further alerted the owners to inteference even if the sirens jaming detection had been switched off.

Its took you quite a while to find an example to show us Bernard which neither proved that casual jamming to gain entry would succeed or that signals from adjacent alarms would allow break ins.

Back to the drawing board I'm afraid.

Granted you have proven that local inteference can cause problems but that would be evident when the alarms were installed and a rethink could have been made at the time.

Your isolated example does not automatically apply to every system and while shows what can occur in certain circumstances does not properly show what you actually experience in the real world with hundreds and hundreds of installations under your belt.

 

[bernardgreen]

So what you are actually saying is there were illegal devices operating in the area. I presume because of the disruption caused Ofcom demanded that the system operating 85% of the time to recoup lost packets was condemned?

WRONG. the systems all complied with the regulations.

What you also learn here is that the Yale alarms despite being installed by DIYers actually behaved as designed.

CORRECT. they behaved as designed, the design being compromised by the use of one way wireless and the need to reduce use of batteries to the minimum.

Again had the owner installer been more savvy they would have recognised the need to look for a source of inteference.

No one said they did not look for it. At the time other similar alarms in the area were working apparently without problems.

The future use of the radio channel in the area cannot be predicted when the system is installed and for this reason no garantee of continued reliability can be given on ANY system using a licence exempt frequency for one way wireless communication. That should be pointed out to the purchaser before the item is purchased.

The perimeter fence you mention indeed would cause an issue as they have a 700m transmission range and are usually for remote farm monitoring. Somethin you would never find in your local domestic environment and if you did somethin Ofcom would condemn.

Refresh my memory about where I mentioned a fence.
OfCom do allow remote fence and gate alarms provided they comply with the regulations. But as you imply there are illegal ones that are on sale and will be used. It is only when the problems they cause are recognised ( jamming detection alarms ) that action will be taken to silence them. Between the jamming detection alarm being disabled and the offending source being shut down the alarm system is compromised.

Had the systems been 6400 alarms rather than 6200 then notification at the panel of faults would have further alerted the owners to inteference even if the sirens jaming detection had been switched off.

And what would the owner then do ? They wanted a low cost system... will they be prepared to pay the costs of investigating the source of the interference and having it closed down if it is a non compliant system ?

Granted you have proven that local inteference can cause problems but that would be evident when the alarms were installed and a rethink could have been made at the time.

You seemed to have totally missed the point that at the time of installation the alarms were working as claimed on the box. They were rendered un-reliable when a patch of land was cleared and used for a playground. ( resulting in a lot more activity on the radio channel from a legally installed and operated alarm system )

Your isolated example does not automatically apply to every system and while shows what can occur in certain circumstances does not properly show what you actually experience in the real world with hundreds and hundreds of installations under your belt.

This was an unusual situation involving compliant systems inter acting with each other and forcing the use of wired systems to resolve the problem.

 

[JohnD]

Bernard, are you ready yet to estimate the probability that an interfering signal might occur at the very moment that a burglar forces entry into the house?

.

 

[mdf290]

The only issue I have there with what you were saying was the compliance issue.
The system that was losing packets was transmitting 80% of the time due to looking for lost packets.

Why is this not considered illegal when other systems can only transmit for an small allocated percentage duration.

In the scenario you have described if everyone had systems that relooked for lost packets then this scene could be repeated anywhere as each system tried to get it's voice heard above the others.

The only logical error I can see in your tale of events is that Mr Day had turned off his jamming detection but his neighbour had not.

You then said that if the alarm had sounded it would have prevented the burglary as people would have heard it.
Surely in that case the alarm next door would have been sounding and attracting attention as it's jamming detection was not turned off.
If it wasn't false alarming then in actual fact both systems should have been operating normally and Mr Days alarm should have activated when someone entered.

One actually has then to ask the question whether the front door sensor did not operate simply because it was not fitted correctly or whether the alarm actually did not respond because the owner simply had not set it.

Without a log to confirm it's hardly an admission he would have made voluntarily and in the absence of the neighbours alarm detecting jamming at the time and activating one does have to wonder.