Definition of Subscriber?

I don't have any particularily strong feelings one way or the other on this issue of AC failures. I just can't see the need to transmit thousands of signals that really don't tell anyone very much of anything. There have been a few very valid reasons to do so outlined in this thread, and at least one person replied who personally sees a need to know when his panels may crap out after a long AC failure. No disagreement there; however, for me, it is enough to respond to low battery signals, which will come in after any AC failure duration. Why flood the station with thousands of useless AC signals, thats all. During the great ice storm of 1998, when power was out for weeks at a time, I can only imagine the number of AC signals received at all monitoring stations, and wonder what purpose they served, since the whole country knew we were in a major state of emergency at the time.

Perhaps I don't know enough about how stations respond to all these "spam signals". I would agree wholeheartedly with you on your statement about a CS that couldn't handle this type of mass receipt of signals being one to avoid. However, I have to question the wisdom of sending this flood of AC signals to begin with if it serves no useful purpose....

RHC

I agree with Jack on this one, in the end it doesn't matter what the central station does but I want that signal for the same reason I want a recent closing or exit alarm signal, it gives more information that may come into play in the future like troubleshooting or even a lawsuit. I guess its a better safe than sorry thing.

In your scenario I couldn't tell if the customer has a low battery due to AC loss or just that the battery is bad.

The real fun is when a hurricane comes sweeping in, I can't tell you how many trouble signals will come in from places like Puerto Rico, Florida and of course Louisiana. Thank god for MLR-2000's :)

I an event history report fetish also..... :-))

I have an event history report fetish also..... :-))

No stutter........ A brain fart..... :-))

How does a CS turn off signals coming in? The receivers still have to process the signal to know whether it's an AC fail or a medical.

We don't use the term "subscriber", to phone the site we use the term "PREMS" short for premises, and "KH" short for keyholder (contact list), "GRD" for guard (it is not common practice to dispatch police/fire in New Zealand).

Example: ACTVS - ph prems, n/r advise KH, n/r dispatch GRD

In this example the operator would phone the site, confirm the identity by way of either: the account "OK" password, their individual "OK" password or their PIN number.

If there was no reply to the site or identity couldn't be confirmed, we would move on an advise a keyholder from the callout list.

If there was no reply to the keyholders, no-one was available, or they requested we send a guard... then we would.

We (the CS) don't "turn them off", we receive them and handle them as usual. We just automate the process of logging-off the A/C failures without operator intervention and without the automatic generation of review events or service requests during a wide-are-outage. All other signals still get handled as usual. During Monsoons (wide-area-outages) the PD won't go unless we contact an RP (responsible party) to confirm a real emergency (which could be dangerous, but PD simply can not respond to all alarms during storms).

They let you out of the coding room did they?

:-)

Thought I'd take a peek to see what the rest of the world looks like these days.

Go back to your cubby.

later dood... :-)