beeping alarm system and turning phone line off

[creecree]

i have a alarm that is no longer on and it turns my phone line off when it beeps. how do i disconnect it? help

[Mr T]

By no longer on you mean?

Alarms have a line siezure device to make sure it can get a dial tone to call for help. It is either malfunctioning, or trying to dial.

I am not an alarm tech. Please post your make and model and more details about "no longer on" so we can further help.

[Chucky]

Mr.T is correct. Most panels use line seizure which means the technician is basically taking line (tip&ring) from the street directly to the panel. The panel then feeds the house phones. This is so a burglar cannot just busy the line by taking a phone off the hook or initiating a call. There is usually a jack (8 pin)in or near the panel with an rj45 cord connectd to it. Locate this and disconnect it. this should solve the problem but, make sure you power down your alarm as it could cause annoying trouble beeps telling you the line is disconnected.

[dkerr]

I wonder how good these alarms are when someone cuts the line on the outside of the house prior to entering and setting off the alarm ?

1ns if the alarm panel takes over the line during a alarm to call out, would it not prevent a person on the inside from making a 911 call ??

Or does it transmit dsl type data which allows phone calls to be made which a alarm call is being sent, still would not help if the line was cut on the outside of the home.

Another option that some companies may get into in the future is transmission of the alarm via rf / electrical lines - no one is going to cut a main incoming electrical line on the outside.

Just curious ?

[suemarkp]

I believe you're correct -- if the alarm goes off, it takes over the phone line to call the monitoring center (not sure if its right away or after a delay). You can not use the phone. So you need to turn the alarm off before the phones will be available again.

If someone cuts the phone line first, the alarm will generate a trouble report. If it is setup to report trouble items to the monitoring center, it will try and call to report it. But if the line is cut, that won't happen. I don't know if the inside lines are disconnected during an automated report a trouble call. Perhaps (because the call could fail if an extension is picked up while the modem tones are going out).

Higher end alarms have a cell phone or RF reporting option. If you can't spring for that, about the only other choice you have is to have two phone lines (one for the alarm and one for phones) and harden them well (and perhaps install a decoy phone line as easier bait too). This way, you can call out on one line while the alarm is using the other.

[Chucky]

Those are excellent points. This is why a lot of people are going to cellular backup. In all honesty though, speaking from 15 yrs experiance, Ive only ever
seen maybe 4 or 5 line cuts in my time. These were all commercial accounts.

Another more economic option is what we call a Bell re-route. We dig down
about 2 feet where the bell line comes up out of the ground and drill a hole through the foundation. usually drilling into the garage or the basement.
Then we mount our Bell box inside and all exposed wire is gone.sometimes we will replace it with a fake line which is just a Bell line run straight to a zone on our panel which, will trip an alarm when cut,(programmed as a 24hr trouble zone). By the way....this procedure drives Bell technicians nuts:eviltongue: .

One more new way of monitoring that is coming into fashion is through an internet connection. Your alarm system is basically logged into a server and
if it loses its connection, that server reports to your monitoring center. I havent installed one yet but, the thought makes me giddy:itsme:
There are a lot of changes coming quickly and the industry is starting to get really interesting.