Can we call the fire station and remotely sound the siren?

[Charlie Davidson]

Thank you, holler.

I assumed it would require its own extension.
Would be nice if we had a fax line.
The fax could be disconnected when not needed.

Unfortunately, with the IP address phone system, I doubt this can work.

If the FD has reliable high speed internet, get you a MagicJack. That's what I had to do.

[holler]

Get vonage, reliable phone service through your high speed internet.

[Charlie Davidson]

Get vonage, reliable phone service through your high speed internet.

Yes but the price is much more than what a MagicJack would cost. $24.95 a month for Vonage is a bit much just for a siren..when compared to only $100 for 5 years of service via MagicJack.

[Gil]

Get vonage, reliable phone service through your high speed internet.

As reliable as your internet connection...

[holler]

Get vonage, reliable phone service through your high speed internet.

Yes but the price is much more than what a MagicJack would cost. $24.95 a month for Vonage is a bit much just for a siren..when compared to only $100 for 5 years of service via MagicJack.

Charlie you can't put a price on somebody's life, your starting to sound like our 911 director. A regular phone line is going to cost you about $30 a month also. Also Magicjack strikes me as being kind of a fly by night company, and I really wonder about their staying power. Vonage is much more well defined.

Personally, I would get a basic phone line put in. Two pair cable with no call waiting or outgoing calls. When peoples lives are at stake I would trust it more.

[Charlie Davidson]

Get vonage, reliable phone service through your high speed internet.

Yes but the price is much more than what a MagicJack would cost. $24.95 a month for Vonage is a bit much just for a siren..when compared to only $100 for 5 years of service via MagicJack.

Charlie you can't put a price on somebody's life, your starting to sound like our 911 director. A regular phone line is going to cost you about $30 a month also. Also Magicjack strikes me as being kind of a fly by night company, and I really wonder about their staying power. Vonage is much more well defined.

Personally, I would get a basic phone line put in. Two pair cable with no call waiting or outgoing calls. When peoples lives are at stake I would trust it more.

I was going to recommend a landline too..but Robert said they have an IP phone system. Landlines are very reliable.

However, that Magicjack thing I have has worked every time I have called it, so in my opinion it's pretty damn reliable. Speaking that our router has a backup battery, as well as that computer that its on.

[holler]

Charlie this actually going on a REAL siren, not a play toy.

[Adam Pollak]

If you have the means to and the money, and if the siren is going to be regularly used as an active and meaningful warning device, I would do nothing other than radio activation or get a regular land line.

Doing any internet-based systems just adds on more and more methods of possible failure. If there is any failure along the way, there is not much that anyone will care to fix it all that fast, or even be aware of it.

If a land line goes down, the phone company is well aware of it and in addition to the phone systems having battery backups, they are also a repair priority. If you can see what the most-basic phone service you can get is, I would definitely go with that if the money is available to do so.

[djscrizzle]

Get vonage, reliable phone service through your high speed internet.

Yes but the price is much more than what a MagicJack would cost. $24.95 a month for Vonage is a bit much just for a siren..when compared to only $100 for 5 years of service via MagicJack.

Charlie you can't put a price on somebody's life, your starting to sound like our 911 director. A regular phone line is going to cost you about $30 a month also. Also Magicjack strikes me as being kind of a fly by night company, and I really wonder about their staying power. Vonage is much more well defined.

Personally, I would get a basic phone line put in. Two pair cable with no call waiting or outgoing calls. When peoples lives are at stake I would trust it more.

I agree on both fronts: MagicJack doesn't seem too reputable to me... And of course 2 phone lines would be much better - One as the siren line, and the other for a backup to the IP-Phones. Qwest doesn't charge terribly high rates for local land-lines. The only way the land-line's reliability can be improved, is if it's buried completely from the CO to the customer's Demarc box.

[djscrizzle]

If you have the means to and the money, and if the siren is going to be regularly used as an active and meaningful warning device, I would do nothing other than radio activation or get a regular land line.

Doing any internet-based systems just adds on more and more methods of possible failure. If there is any failure along the way, there is not much that anyone will care to fix it all that fast, or even be aware of it.

If a land line goes down, the phone company is well aware of it and in addition to the phone systems having battery backups, they are also a repair priority. If you can see what the most-basic phone service you can get is, I would definitely go with that if the money is available to do so.

Agreed. the KISS rule is typically the best rule to follow in mission-critical systems, such as warning sirens.
Also, Robert, Have you tried pointing a Yagi antenna towards Denver OEM's location and getting their siren activation signals? Yagis are crazy good at direction signal pickup. Point the antenna towards your target, Hook up a scanner and a CATV/antenna amp (good from 5-900MHz with 10-20dB amplification) tune a scanner to the frequency used, and listen at test time.