[Gllug] Autodiallers with “Line Sensing”

[Richard Westlake]

Hi
Has anyone used or know of any Alarm Diallers or Autodiallers which have a 
“Line Sensing” function.

By “line Sensing” I meant that it continually monitor the telephone line 
and if the line is disconnected or has some other problem then the device 
exerts a digital output e.g. closes some relay contracts.

We would like to install an environmental monitoring system to warn of 
critical conditions in a server room. For example:
*)  room temperature to high
*) under floor water rope sensors have detected a leak
*) Volt free critical alarms from the air conditioning units

I was hoping that the monitoring system could trigger an autodialler which 
would then call the buildings main reception, which  is staffed 24x7, they 
could the pass on the message to the appropriate people, usually the 
estates and facilities department. At present the institution for sending 
this like of alert is a voice call to reception or a rather expensive 
connection to the Building management System (trend)

I am concerned that as critical alerts should be very rare a problem with 
the autodialer or its phone line could go undiscovered for a long time.

A solution would be to have the autodialer actively exert a digital output 
to indicate that it was operating normally and exert a second output to 
indicate that the line was OK. Alternatively it could just exert one 
output to indicate that everything was working normally and the telephone 
line was OK. The monitoring system could also check these digital outputs 
and notify the IT team by email or some other method.
This would be a problem for the IT team rather then Estates and 
Facilities.

I would prefer it to actively exert the output e.g. close relay contacts 
which are normally open as this provides “fail to safety”. If the power 
failed, the monitor cable was disconnected or the unit developed a fault 
then we would get a notification.

I release that there is the risk of an “out of hours” critical alert and 
telephone line failure occurring at the same time, given the rarity of 
each individual event this is somthign we ca probably live with.

All the best

Richard Westlake

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                Truth endures but spelling changes    --  Anon.
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