Hills District Alarms

Christmas break is here and a lot of our clients will be away. Have you checked your alarm system lately? Customers need to check the operation of their alarms both on site and, if monitored, back to your monitoring base.

There have been a number of occasions lately where alarms have not activated or not activated in a timely fashion because coverage by the system was no longer adequate.

Please check to see if you have coverage in rooms/ area’s where your valuables, stock is kept and that the existing sensors are working as originally set up. Quite often, shelving, cabinets, furniture, curtains etc. are put in after the system is set up and the sensors no longer cover the area.

If testing the system and it is monitored, you will need to advise your monitoring base prior to testing and again when finished. Please contact us if you need any assistance with this.

If you are going away for the Christmas, New Year break or in the case of a business, if your operating hours change, please fax these changes to your monitoring centre. Central Monitoring spend a lot of time trying to track down key holders who are away. Please let them know the alteration for the period you will be absent. The fax number for these changes is 9809 9233.

Also, a reminder to all customers. If you accidentally activate the alarm, please call the base immediately to let them know it was a false alarm and have your voice code ready to quote. Also for business premises where they monitor times, if you are opening out of hours or working late, you need to advise Central Monitoring.

Just a reminder to all our customers that invoices are payable within 7 days of invoice date. We accept Bankcard, MasterCard and Visa. You just need to call the office and Jenny can arrange this payment method for you. Our direct deposit details are also now printed on every invoice. Late payment may result in your service being suspended until the account is brought up to date. Please remember all accounts enquiries can be made Tuesday, Thursday or Friday from 9.30am to 2.45pm.

ADSL Broadband has continued to play havoc with alarm systems – both local alarms and back to base monitored alarms. The data sent into homes & businesses interferes with the data from the codepad to the alarm panel and the alarm panel to the monitored base. If you suspect you are experiencing problems with your alarm and you would like us to check it, please contact us for an appointment.

The majority of the systems we service are Ness systems. Ness has recently announced they are no longer able to repair the 5000/7000 motherboards.

As most of our customers are aware, Ness have a service exchange program in place for their major components, such as motherboards, unfortunately they can no longer obtain some of the components on the 5000/7000 models.

Also the membrane keypads are no longer available on the 5000/7000 models or the Pro 1 models. With the Pro 1 models, if your membrane fails you can get a replacement keypad.

Most systems monitored back to base are via a dialer type system. The dialer system seizes control of your fixed land line and calls your monitoring base to send whatever data/event it has to report. If the land line is tampered with the signal may not get through to your base.

This system, in most cases, is adequate but in some situations, Securitel monitoring may be more appropriate. This is a system supported by Telstra and has recently been expanded. Securitel utilizes your existing voice only land line to transmit every 30 seconds, data to your monitoring base. If the land line is tampered with or interrupted, this would alert your base who would action it as per your instructions.

If you are interested in a quotation to upgrade your existing alarm panel to Securitel, please contact our office. In some cases, it may be possible to add an interface module to your existing control unit, but generally you are better to install a control panel with Securitel built in.

The monitoring fees for Securitel are slightly higher than dialer monitoring but the level of security provided far outweighs this consideration.

If your going away on holidays or in case of business, your operating hours will change, please fax these changes to your monitoring center. Central monitoring waste allot of time over Christmas trying to track down key holders that are away. Please let them know the alteration for the period you will be absent. The fax number for these changes is - 9809 9233.

Also a reminder to all customers. If you accidentally activate your alarm please call the base immediately to let them know it was a false alarm and have your voice code ready to quote. Also for business premises where they monitor times, if you are opening out of hours or working late, you need to advise central monitoring as they spend allot of time chasing key holders.

Just a reminder to all our monitored customers that our fees need to be paid QUARTERLY / MONTHLY IN ADVANCE. As we pay the monitoring base on your behalf, we would appreciate prompt payment of all monitoring fees. We accept Bankcard, Mastercard and Visa if you prefer to pay this way. You just need to call the office and Jenny can arrange this payment method for you. Constant late payment of fees may result in your monitoring being suspended until the account is brought up to date.

Introducing the new Hills District Alarms website. The site is primarily designed to provide basic information on our services, our contact details and our newsletters. There is a section for basic technical assistance that will grow as time goes by. Most of our customers have Ness security panels, so this is where we have started and it discusses the basic faults and solutions most customers come across. Our newsletters will be posted there, as we have heard that the written ones often get tossed out with the envelope. We hope you will find it useful and if you have any suggestions please feel free to let us know. Our web address is http://www.hdasecurity.com.au

Some of our customers would know what that means - false alarms due to spiders, insects and also summer storms. You should maintain your detectors by regularly cleaning them. Insect surface spray is good; just don't spray too close to the wall as it marks your paint. The storm season has hit us already and a few customers have already had their systems damaged. Unfortunately, power surges don't only come through he mains, although most do. A fitted surge arrestor where the panel plugs in will help. We use the ones similar to those used for computers.

Another reminder from or last newsletter about ADSL Broadband. We have fitted a few filters to systems that needed them and the problems seem to have gone. One system needed two filters. (A little bit of help from one of our customers came in handy - thanks Adrian). ADSL is a problem with alarms and should not be ignored.

Telstra have done it again! The new Telstra 101 message bank can cause an alarm not to dial. If you have a message waiting on your phone and the alarm needs to dial, it may not recognize the tone (those of you who use the service will know it is pulsing when there is a stored message). If you have this service on the phone line the alarm is on, you'll need to get your programming adjusted.