Hello Lee,
Thanks for the reply.
I have had to bring back to life probably hundreds of systems over the years which were more or less in the same predicament as yours. The fact that a system is old has no bearing on the subject whatsoever, my home alarm was installed about twenty or more years ago and is still going strong, not a day's trouble. You don't need a multimeter to solve a control panel fault nor to bring it back to life, if you did, then 99% of all the people who have posted genuine questions on here would be in a tricky situation. Unfortunately, there are some negative thinkers on the forum who instantly pour cold water on your efforts. That is not the purpose of this forum, we are here to help you and you alone, and not to boost our own self inflated ego's. The simplest thing in the world would be for me to say to you "buy a new system" and end my contribution at that. This does not help you one little bit. First and foremost we need to establish whether you "definitely" need a new panel or whether there are a few more years remaining in the existing system.
Never, ever, check fuses in situ, only amateurs do this. Always remove a fuse and replace with a known good one of the same value. This is very, very important. Never attempt to check a fuse with a multimeter on DC volts, you should have it set to RESISTANCE, But hang on a minute, you don't know what you are looking for yet, you don't know what speaker you are supposed to be disconnecting. I have amatuers who follow me around the forum and pretend that they can solve your problem with one totally ignorant post which is devoid of facts. This causes many people to simply give up before they have started and is not good for the DIYnot forum. Most of the good engineers on this forum shall offer you excellent advice so don't be surprised if the good ones also add to your topic, as well as the idiots who find great difficulty in answering a post in more than three sentences, At the outset be aware that these so called 'three sentence miracle workers' could attempt to highjack you question with sarcastic comments. If I answered a query with a few grossly stupid sentences then I would consider myself not worthy to answer at all. As an example, one of the idiot 'followers' constantly uses my wording in a three or four paragraph reply and condenses it to perhaps two sentences pretending that he has thought of it.
You have posted a genuine query and as far as I am concerned it is yourself that figures uppermost and deserves my full attention, not in sentences, but in paragraphs which shall help you not only now, but in the future also. Not by picking the best bits out of other people's posts and pretending to give the impression that they know anything. And don't be fooled by the number of 'thankyou's' they have received since most of these are from their own little fraternity or gang. Nor should you be concerned about the fact that they may have posted 24,000 times since this means absolutely nothing if their posts are limited to sometimes one or two sentences which contain no intrinsic value for the original query.
I and other good engineers shall do our utmost to help you to resolve your current, and future, queries. But beware of unhelpful posts which tend to throw you off track since that is not the purpose of DIYnot.
Your system is very straightforward. If you could first and foremost tell us how many detection devices are on the property and whether or not a light comes on when you are in their vicinity, that will be a good start. Take it one step at a time.
Best Wishes,
Chain Daisy.
