Hey, J. Sloud

Great.

I spent the morning at a site we're taking over from the local Sonitrol franchise. Three systems, all Napco, with various fire alarm devices placed here and there with no regard to fire code. None of the systems are listed for commercial fire use and they all only have one phone line and no secondary. One building had a riser with an unconnected waterflow switch. The other had a waterflow connected using zip wire right to the switch, wrapped around the riser pipe. In fact, all of the wiring was 22/4 ba and not listed for fire either. Some doors were contacted and others were not. Some wire was tied to high voltage conduit while most wire was loosely draped over whatever was close. The best part was the poor guy was paying: $249 a month. Scumbag local puke company.

My afternoon was spent meeting with a defense contractor about some smartcard/ RFID integration that, according to them, we were the third company they had talked to and the only one to have a clue how to do what they needed. Dumbass trunkslamming local dealers.

Monday I'll be at a T/S government facility working on a very large project having to do with homeland security and keeping your ass safe from being blown up.

Your welcome.

I know you take pride in your trade and I have great respect for what you do. You know my feelings about ADT's high volume and dealer programs. If it was up to me, I'd have combined the government, commercial, and national account divisions of ADT with Simplex and spun the residential side off two years ago. They're nothing but trouble for me. Believe me, every chance I get, I let someone on that side of the house know how the industry perceives them and how their short-sighted decisions effect the rest of the company. It's actually getting better. In the US, corporate ADT no longer leases residential systems. The average sale is over $800 now. There is less pressure on units and more emphasis on revenue. The reps are being better trained, because ADT is focusing on revenue per user instead of pushing RMR accounts. It's a slow process, but the days of two doors and a motion for $99 is gone. With any luck, the dealer side will follow suit soon.

J.

"J. Sloud" wrote

OK, you get my point. Yeah, the schlock isn't limited to the nationals, and ADT does the big stuff better than small dealers. I just need to blow off steam when I see some of the crap that passes for security. I haven't seen any improvement, but as you say it's a slow process. js

Naw, I knew it wasn't one of yours, Tom. There weren't any wireless contacts and the control panel wasn't mounted next to the front door. Line seizure was still evident, and the word Lynx didn't appear anywhere in the house. js

Home Depot sells em by the roll

When I was in the Marines I spent 3 yrs on active duty support for the reserves out of Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee MA. Our Armory had an ADT system in it and I know it worked well because every few months someone would lean against a bench wearing the panic button (a box slightly larger than a cigarette pack with a big white button sticking out from the front) and within a few minutes the building would be surrounded by state troopers with shotguns out and a pucker factor of 10. (we were an anti-tank unit - lots of TOW missile launchers, 50 cal and Mark-19 machine guns and a slew of M-16's.) Since the alram was silent we generally didn't know it until someone tried to leave....

Since I retired and moved to alarm business I have to agree with your assessment of the resi side of your company...based upon my own observations of systems we take over.

If you are in an armory with TOW missiles, 50 cal and M-19 machine guns having a few state troopers with 12-guages doesn't sound very frightening...

Which is why they had a pucker factor of 10...

They did know we never held any live missiles (they were always sent right to the ranges - I wonder why...)

But when we were gearing up for training we did house the ammunition for the other stuff.

Can you imagine standing behind a patrol car wondering if this is all another f*ck up or if someone is really doing something in there - and if there is they are gonna rip this car apart like tissue paper...

The beaten zone of an M-19 has got to be pure hell - at least with ma deuce you can get REEAALLLL LOW and hope...

Point is... we hated that stupid panic button... Even back then I saw garage door openers smaller than that thing.

But the dispatch was always right on time..