Typical Misdirection

On a site with a Napco P1632 the customer complained of being constantly disconnected. The CS history all looks normal. The only abnormal was the panel reporting a restore when the phone service tech reconnected the phone line to the house. The panel reported a phone line restoral... of course the phone tech happened to have his butt set hooked up and claimed that was a guaranteed demonstration that the panel was causing the problem.

I don't see anything wrong. Is it possible that the panel is seizing the line and then releasing it without calling out for no reason? Just want to be sure. I suppose if it had been mis-programmed it could do that, but not continuously every day, and not as a recent symptom.

Its in an outer suburb area that I think is running over a small carrier system. I suppose the phone company might not be providing full voltage at all times, but then the panel should report when the voltage comes up. Not seize the line and then drop it without reporting. Seems weird to me.

Sounds like a telco problem and they are just trying to blame the alarmco, but if anybody can think of a possible cause I would sure like to check it out.

Of course the phone company guy told the customer he is an expert on alarm systems.

Reply to
Bob La Londe
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Bob,

No question you need to get there and do some testing of all those things that go bump in the night.

Les

Reply to
ABLE1

Yeah, no kidding. You know its not the first time that the phone guys in that area have claimed that the alarm was causing all the customer's problems. A couple of them I switched to cellular and guess what. No unusual airtime charges. Imagine that.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

RHC: Bob, we still have a major problem with either Bell Canada technicians or Rogers Cable technicians screwing up the alarm system when changing from one system to the other. It doesn't surprise me that don't understand the fine points of alarm systems. Up here, Bell use subcontractors to do installs and most clearly don't care. Rogers on the other hand, have taken to charging the technician $40 if the subscriber calls in complaining about the alarm "beeping". Unfortunately, the first call is to me, not the Rogers guy, who can never be traced back.....

Such is life; clearly this problem is not going to go away quickly...

Reply to
tourman

Just a quick thought, The panel isn't programmed to pick up for downloading by any chance. That might be the problem?

Reply to
Paul Ekins

I have had a phone tech deliberately double tap a panel for answering machine over ride and claim that was a proof of the problem before. It's a good thought, but in this case the customer is claiming the line is just going dead or cutting off several times a day while they are in a conversation.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Personally I think the phone company has a small carrier system feeding that area and that they have a heat sensitive repeater out there. That is one of the problems with the way big phone companies divide labor and provide limited training anymore. There are very few technicians who can see the big picture. I worked for a small phone company way back when, and I got OJT training in carrier systems, central office switching, underground, premise service, aerial work and anything else that needed to be done. I was pretty unhappy at the time that I never got any of the formal training I was promised, but in retrospect I learned a lot... I have forgotten a lot too, but some of that knowledge still comes in handy.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Hi Bob I know that out in your area a service call can be an all day affair, however, I know that when you have the panel set for telephone line monitor, it will periodically check the line. I'm wondering if, because of the possible weak telephone line service, that when the panel checks the line that it might be causing the problem. The only way you could tell would be to remove line monitoring from the programing.

Reply to
Jim

That is a good thought.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

I have had an intermittent phone problem in the past where the provider had put a small multiplex unit to double the amount of lines in the area. It was on a pole about 200Yards down the road. This was the fault but they refused to attend the site and denied it was even there until the panel was removed from the line all together.

Reply to
Paul Ekins

Here's a thought. Put a tellular unit on for a month and delete the phone line completely. Make sure the customer SEES that you're disconnecting the phone line. If the problem persists, you've got a great case for back-charging the telephone company for your time and aggravation.

Reply to
Frank Olson

.

Ummmmm ....... or not!

Reply to
Jim

Yeah... Fighting the phone company is a lot like trying to fight City Hall. You have to fill out all the right forms. But first you have to fill out forms to get the right forms.

Reply to
Frank Olson

That seems to be it. I guess now I get out my little box of beat the phone company test tools and prove it's a phone line problem after all. Sigh!

Reply to
Bob La Londe

That seems to be it. I guess now I get out my little box of beat the phone company test tools and prove it's a phone line problem after all. Sigh!

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Bob, If the line is weak, and you're going to temporarily remove the panel from the line, you may want to find out what the ringer equivilancy of the panel is ( although I think all the panels are 0.0) In any event, you may want to add another cheapy hand set to the line just to load it down a little more.

I'm trying to remember what I did a lotta years ago when I had a problem with a phone line and the Telco saying the line was alright. I remember thinking that I would "flash" the line with 110VAC. That way if it blew, at least the telco would have to come back and fix it and probably switch the pair rather than try to fix it ..... as they usually do. But I don't remember if I actually did it or not. Telco said it was the alarm panel. I remember that the customer knew it was the phone line because the problem occured AFTER the Telco worked on the lines outside of his house. It's just that Telco wouldn't do anything about the "hum" and weak connection because you could still hear a conversation reasonably well. Most of the "noise" was on the line when it was on hook. It was just that the alarm panel was detecting line loss and sometimes during an alarm condition, had to multiple dial taking central a long time to receive the signal. Could be the customer complained loud enough for them to fix the line, also .... it's to long ago to remember.

Reply to
Jim

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