Interesting Night & Alarm System Question

[Excaliber]

I've been thinking about it almost all day and I'm pretty comfortable with what I did overall but I do agree that the big thing I should do differently if the same thing were to happen again is get my wife into my sons room, wake up my son, and then discuss the next steps with him before doing anything else. Of course, if the VA ever gets caught up with his GI Bill payments, he will probably move out to his own place and then it'll be back down to the wife and I here.

I'm happy to hear that some of my posts are helpful to you. It's truly gratifying to hear that.

With the additional detail you provided, I'll make another suggestion. Get together with the family and discuss exactly what actions each member will take if the alarm goes off in the middle of the night now, before that situation happens again. Imminent danger sharply reduces one's ability to think straight, so it's not a good time for formulating plans. Also, with two armed and trained people sleeping on different floors of the house, it's really important that you know exactly what each will do and where each one will be so you don't have a tragic outcome. Considering the amount of movement involved to get everyone in one place, you might also consider two defensive positions - one in the upstairs bedroom for you, and one in your son's room for him and your wife. It would be much safer for her to move a short distance to another room on the same floor than it would be for you to get there from upstairs. Stairways are not fun places to be when things go south.

If you have a good alarm sounding device installed inside as you plan, your son should awaken when you do. Having a keypad installed in the master bedroom is also an excellent idea. I strongly recommend the English language LED types. They cost a little more, but when you're awakened by your siren in the middle of the night it's a lot easier to figure out what "Back Door" means than it is to interpret "Zone 4". You could then communicate the location of the break to your other family members so they have an idea of what might be going on.

I agree with both you and Steve that getting the family together and in one protected place should be your priority, and make that room your defensive perimeter. Steve is right on about the difficulty of successfully attacking a prepared defensive position, and I'm sure your son has ample experience to confirm that.

You might also consider a set of walkie-talkie radios with earpieces and throat mikes for each member so you can communicate as you move to get together. They're not expensive, and they're worth their weight in gold when needed. Another option is to use the intercom feature on your wireless phones if extensions are located in each bedroom, which they should be for any emergency. The drawbacks to that is someone calling to you will generate ring sounds that can give your position away if you use it while moving, and with most sets only two phones can talk with each other, which leaves your third family member out of the loop. I mention it because it might be an acceptable option for someone else with only one other family member to account for.

In any case, your unscheduled exercise turns out to be a good thing. Your thinking and planning for a real situation is far ahead of what it was before that alarm went off, and you'll be far better prepared with a new plan you can have confidence in for next time.

[edmart001]

OK - I guess I'm not agreeing loudly enough. I agree I should have gotten my son into play if not first, then at least second as I ushered his mom into his room which most likely would have resulted in his M4 coming out very quickly. However, I still think I did better than charging down the stairs into the dark unknown, disarming the alarm and then running outside to do Rambo by myself in the front yard.

I do not actually know if the alarm company ever called 911. By my understanding of the procedure, they should have. It's probably worth me confirming for better understanding. It might not be the first time that things didn't exactly follow procedure and it would give me a snapshot on the quality of the monitoring.

We do have a key hidden on a back yard fence post in a realtor lock box that is combination operated. It never even occurred to me to bring it into play with the deputy - I'll try to remember that if there is a next time. It is input like this that raises the level across the entire forum and in my opinion, is the real value of this sort of thing.

And BTW, Steve, your posts are another big reason I read this forum. I do not find it too sharp and I assure you that criticism, especially from the likes of you and Excaliber, is not taken lightly. Heck, if you heard some of the criticism I get around the rest of my life you'd think this was almost complementary - at least your not questioning heritage and stuff.

And BTW, BTW, my son pretty much agrees with you guys. His first question was, Dad, why didn't you wake me up first????

[jlangton]

I do not actually know if the alarm company ever called 911. By my understanding of the procedure, they should have. It's probably worth me confirming for better understanding. It might not be the first time that things didn't exactly follow procedure and it would give me a snapshot on the quality of the monitoring.

You do need to call and verify that they actually received the signal from your alarm panel. Typical Central Station procedure is to call the location first to verify, and if no answer or incorrect code/word is given, then dispatch. If they did not receive a signal, then your alarm panel should have a communications error listed. If it does not, then you need to have that checked as well-the communicator in the panel could be damaged,or the installing/monitoring company may have that disabled in the programming (not good). Damage is typically caused by lightning or other voltage transients on the telephone line. The other thing to consider-have you changed your telephone service recently, or had the telephone provider out for any type of service call? I get calls all the time from our customers that have changed to "Digital phone" service, or have had the provider out to fix a line problem, and they don't understand why their alarm keeps showing a "line cut" error. It's usually the tech for the provider disconnecting the alarm panel's telephone connection because he has no idea what it is, or in the case of "Digital phone" service,the modem's telephone interface is not wired into the main outside wiring at the service entrance.
JL

[Kevinf2349]

FWIW I would definately be giving the alarm company a call and ask what they did and ask to see the log for the incident. You are paying them for a service, you need to be sure you are getting an acceptable standard of response.

I always laugh at the TV commercial when the phone rings just after the glass smashes. I want to see one where the lady pops a couple into the BG and calmly answers the phone saying "It is OK I took care of it"

[KD5NRH]

You want to fix that by relocating, increasing power, or adding sounding devices.

Also, you want them to sound like shotgun slides: as the jedi-burglar is wasting ammo shooting at the sound, you can sneak up and bonk him on the head with a skillet.

[Excaliber]

I do not actually know if the alarm company ever called 911. By my understanding of the procedure, they should have. It's probably worth me confirming for better understanding. It might not be the first time that things didn't exactly follow procedure and it would give me a snapshot on the quality of the monitoring.

You do need to call and verify that they actually received the signal from your alarm panel. Typical Central Station procedure is to call the location first to verify, and if no answer or incorrect code/word is given, then dispatch. If they did not receive a signal, then your alarm panel should have a communications error listed. If it does not, then you need to have that checked as well-the communicator in the panel could be damaged,or the installing/monitoring company may have that disabled in the programming (not good). Damage is typically caused by lightning or other voltage transients on the telephone line. The other thing to consider-have you changed your telephone service recently, or had the telephone provider out for any type of service call? I get calls all the time from our customers that have changed to "Digital phone" service, or have had the provider out to fix a line problem, and they don't understand why their alarm keeps showing a "line cut" error. It's usually the tech for the provider disconnecting the alarm panel's telephone connection because he has no idea what it is, or in the case of "Digital phone" service,the modem's telephone interface is not wired into the main outside wiring at the service entrance.
JL

In his original post, edmart001 stated that the alarm company called his residence but he didn't answer the phone. This would indicate that the signal was successfully transmitted to the central station during his incident. However, the potential issues you detailed in the above post are important ones that are not always well understood, and every alarm owner should be aware of them. It's a best practice is to call the monitoring company and send test signals periodically to make sure everything is still working and can get issues fixed before they happen at a critical time.

Another thing you don't want is a system that's wired to trigger the audible alarm when the phone line goes out of service. When my system was first installed, the technician did this without my knowledge and when the phone line had a glitch at 03:20 one morning, I had the pleasure of bolting out of bed to the sound of the alarm, puzzling over the fact that no zone had locked onto a fault, and no signal had been transmitted to the monitoring company. When I discussed the situation with the senior service tech at the installing company the next day and found out the cause, I was not a happy camper. Phone lines go out of service for brief periods all the time, and those events certainly don't merit a full scale alarm annunciation. Needless to say, that situation has been fixed, but if you're not sure how your system is programmed, it's a good thing to ask about before you duplicate my experience.

[Excaliber]

OK - I guess I'm not agreeing loudly enough. I agree I should have gotten my son into play if not first, then at least second as I ushered his mom into his room which most likely would have resulted in his M4 coming out very quickly. However, I still think I did better than charging down the stairs into the dark unknown, disarming the alarm and then running outside to do Rambo by myself in the front yard.

I do not actually know if the alarm company ever called 911. By my understanding of the procedure, they should have. It's probably worth me confirming for better understanding. It might not be the first time that things didn't exactly follow procedure and it would give me a snapshot on the quality of the monitoring.

We do have a key hidden on a back yard fence post in a realtor lock box that is combination operated. It never even occurred to me to bring it into play with the deputy - I'll try to remember that if there is a next time. It is input like this that raises the level across the entire forum and in my opinion, is the real value of this sort of thing.

And BTW, Steve, your posts are another big reason I read this forum. I do not find it too sharp and I assure you that criticism, especially from the likes of you and Excaliber, is not taken lightly. Heck, if you heard some of the criticism I get around the rest of my life you'd think this was almost complementary - at least your not questioning heritage and stuff.

And BTW, BTW, my son pretty much agrees with you guys. His first question was, Dad, why didn't you wake me up first????

Edmart001,

Please don't take any of my remarks on your situation as criticism. They're not intended that way. You did fine during your incident - no one got hurt, you didn't lose anything, and you got a golden opportunity to consider how your response plan could be refined, with lots of help from a whole bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks like me.

How much better could it get?

[edmart001]

Please don't take any of my remarks on your situation as criticism.

Excaliber - maybe I'm not using English right ... after all, I am originally from East Texas and frequently and proudly claim to be just a dumb old boy from, but I don't consider criticism a bad thing as long as it's meaningful, is offered in a positive way and is constructive. The way I see it, to feel otherwise prohibits one from one of the best ways to learn.

Other detail I didn't include in the original is that I know the alarm monitoring company called the house land line, my cell phone, my wife's cell phone and my 75 year old father's land line (who lives 120 miles away). I didn't even know they had my dad's number and don't really see much good in them calling him - I plan to have him removed from the list. I will also inquire about whether or not they actually called the sheriff upon no answer from any of the other phones on the call out list.

[Excaliber]

Please don't take any of my remarks on your situation as criticism.

Excaliber - maybe I'm not using English right ... after all, I am originally from East Texas and frequently and proudly claim to be just a dumb old boy from, but I don't consider criticism a bad thing as long as it's meaningful, is offered in a positive way and is constructive. The way I see it, to feel otherwise prohibits one from one of the best ways to learn.

Other detail I didn't include in the original is that I know the alarm monitoring company called the house land line, my cell phone, my wife's cell phone and my 75 year old father's land line (who lives 120 miles away). I didn't even know they had my dad's number and don't really see much good in them calling him - I plan to have him removed from the list. I will also inquire about whether or not they actually called the sheriff upon no answer from any of the other phones on the call out list.

I'm with you on learning from feedback, even when it's a bit uncomfortable sometimes.

The alarm company should have called the sheriff immediately when they didn't get an answer at your house, regardless of whether or not they reached anyone else on the call list. Those folks wouldn't have been in a position to tell them what was going on at a place they weren't at. The calls to those folks should have been for notification only.

[edmart001]

Well the alarm guy came by and sure enough, broken wire in the wall beneath one of the switches. There was enough slack to pull the switch out, cut the bad wire out and reinstall the switch. He's going to call back on Monday with prices for the other upgrades we've been discussing but at least we are back to as good as we were before.