8B — May 30 - June 12, 2014 — Owners, Developers & Managers — M id A tlantic
Real Estate Journal
www.marejournal.com
S afety & S ecurity By Brian Arenofsky, BH Security
Your fire alarm systems and phone lines: The truth about their future together
A
Soon you will have a fire alarm system that is not commu- nicating or supervised with your central station as there is no measurable voltage going through the fiber. The solution is very simple. Install a radio communicator that is listed as a dual path communicator. To meet our customer’s needs, BH Secu- rity started building our own private radio network utilizing AES IntelliNet Fire Radios. These radios utilize a star pat- tern which retransmits signals from one radio to at minimum two other radios in our net-
work until they reach the radio receiver at our office as well as at the central station. This is even more redundancy than is required by NFPA. The signals are normally at the central station being processed by an operator within 3 to 5 seconds after the fire alarm system has activated. In the three years since we started installing ra- dios in lieu of utilizing phone lines, we have a network of just under 300 radios. Not only have we been able to give our customers a much more reliable means of com- munications, we have elimi- nated the nuisance calls about down phone lines and at the same time have saved our customers approx. $500.00 per year. Brian Arenofsky is the sales manager and director of business development at BHSecurity in Union, NJ. n Fort Washington, PA — McMahon Associates announced the addition of Si- mon Lewis, Ph.D. as product specialist for TRAISRTM. Dr. Lewis is recognized as a na- tional authority on transporta- tion information systems and asset management systems with an emphasis on state government DOT needs and solutions within the US. He combines unique knowledge of a wide range of software ap- plications and data solutions for complex requirements in all aspects of transportation infrastructure, performance and safety management. He has an expert grasp of geo- spatial information with both modern and legacy databases in transportation agencies. Over the last seven years Dr. Lewis has worked in de- veloping and applying asset management solutions at both state and local levels. He also founded and man- aged ITIS, which has carried out integrated transportation information systems projects in several states and in Can- ada. In 2003, he founded and became chair of MAGTUG, which is the Mid-Atlantic Geo- Spatial Transportation Users Group, whose purpose is to share transportation applica- tion development experience and use. n McMahon Associates, Inc. hires Lewis, Ph.D.
long time ago fire alarm systems trans- mitted their signals
line went down. As technology advanced and the costs associated with the installation and maintenance of the direct lines increased another method was required to save money yet be as se- cure. The digital dialer was developed and with enhance- ments met code as the primary means of communications for fire alarm systems. Supervi- sion was accomplished by con- tinually measuring the phone line voltage generated by the phone company central office. With a digital dialer you are required to have at least one
dedicated phone number and a second line that could be shared with a house phone for back up. As property owners it was not likely that you had a second line that could be shared so you are more than likely still paying for two dedi- cated lines. Now the issue is that most of our phone carriers are rapidly moving away from traditional copper lines and replacing them with fiber VOIP (voice over IP) which is not accept- able as the primary means of communications for a com- mercial fire alarm system.
over direct lines to the fire depart- ment, police department or a central station. This meant you paid for a line to connect di-
Brian Arenofsky
rectly from your fire alarm panel to the proper authority. This was a very secure path as it was continually supervised and you knew as soon as the
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