Astec alarm- alternative to landline for monitoring?

jack of all

Hi

I have an Astec alarm fitted in the house with digital dialler, but I'm looking at relocating in the near future which will mean cancelling my eircom landline service and thus losing the monitoring of the alarm at this address. I spoke to guy at Astec about other options and the only one available to me is to purchase a GSM dialler, but this is expensive (€300 or so). Has anyone here done this and what are my options, any advice appreciated.

KoolKid

Is this alarm monitored by a central station. ?
GSM is no longer considered a secure method of transmission due to the increasing availability of jammers. If you are cancelling your phone line to save money then there is no point in looking at radio etc as this works out dearer than what line rental would be.
UPC or another provider would be you cheaper option.

jack of all

Thanks for the reply KoolKid. The alarm is not monitored by a central station, it's monitored by me- it calls my mobile and other programmed numbers with a recorded message in the event of an activation. I'm cancelling/ moving the existing eircom landline as I will be living elsewhere in the country; however I want to maintain some form of monitored alarm service, but without maintaining the landline, which will no longer be used for anything other than monitoring the alarm. I don't have a UPC cable service so this is not an option.

KoolKid

You can get generic GSM digis for about €180- €200 but with Astec you will also need a relay card to trigger it.

altor

jack of all wrote: »

I don't have a UPC cable service so this is not an option.

If you install one of these you will still get the voice message from the alarm system. It works out a lot cheaper than the dialer to mobile that you can get off Astec but does the same job. R.E.W sell them.

jack of all

Thanks for that Altor, any idea how much this would cost? Who are R.E.W (electrical wholesalers I presume?)? Is this a DIY install; I installed the original Astec alarm myself with some minimal assistance from an electrician, so I am confident enough as regards the electrics, programming etc. Thanks for all the advice!

KoolKid

Here is the details on REW

REW (Richmond Electrical Wholesale)
Unit 17 / 18, Finglas Business Centre,
Jamestown Road,
Dublin 11
Tel:01 858 0960 Fax:01 8569830

altor

jack of all wrote: »

Thanks for that Altor, any idea how much this would cost? Who are R.E.W (electrical wholesalers I presume?)? Is this a DIY install; I installed the original Astec alarm myself with some minimal assistance from an electrician, so I am confident enough as regards the electrics, programming etc. Thanks for all the advice!

They are in Ballymount also. The unit costs 242 Euro. It is very easy to connect this to the alarm as you are only providing mains to the unit and a cable for the line, plus you can add a back up battery. You can tamper the unit by putting a 27K resistor across the tamper and wiring it into a zone. If you had the self monitoring set up already it will work as if the line was there.

Raville

Hi all.

Have a dialer unit on my alarm also and have it set to ring mobile phones. Have barred mobile calls from my house phone due to kids, . How do i change the specified numbers that i had originally set ? i want to add all landlines now !

altor

Raville wrote: »

Hi all.

Have a dialer unit on my alarm also and have it set to ring mobile phones. Have barred mobile calls from my house phone due to kids, . How do i change the specified numbers that i had originally set ? i want to add all landlines now !

To delete press CLEAR FN 8 (user code) select the phone 1-4 then press set bypass set.

If you press CLEAR FN 8 (user code) select the phone 1-4 then press set, enter the new number, press set again to save.

Raville

Thanks Altor,

That worked a treat. If you don't want to enter a number in one of the slots, can you erase the stored one n just leave it blank by pressing some button r do u enter in zero ?

altor

Raville wrote: »

Thanks Altor,

That worked a treat. If you don't want to enter a number in one of the slots, can you erase the stored one n just leave it blank by pressing some button r do u enter in zero ?

Good to hear, to delete press CLEAR FN 8 (user code) select the phone 1-4 then press set bypass set. That should clear the number.

Raville

That worked perfect ! Just hav to do checks advised re fault code on display n see if dat will let me set alarm now. Bell, at least is not going off randomly. Wil let u know how I get on

altor

Raville wrote: »

That worked perfect ! Just hav to do checks advised re fault code on display n see if dat will let me set alarm now. Bell, at least is not going off randomly. Wil let u know how I get on

Hopefully that will be it sorted but if not you know where we are.