Page 1 of 2

DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:02 pm
by chepachet
When I tested my DSC alarm dialing out through Ooma, it keeps trying to dial but never connects the the central station. Any one know what is going wrong and what the solution is?
The telco line to the street is disconnected and the Ooma is plugged into the house supplying dial tone to all circuits.

:(

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:06 pm
by lbmofo
Are you seeing these call out attempts on your call log? If not, then line seizure is cutting off ooma dialtone to your alarm unit; you'd have to feed the ooma dialtone somewhere upstream to your alarm.

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:14 pm
by chepachet
The calls do show up in the outbound log. Each one is about 26 seconds long.

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:58 pm
by murphy
Did you program the panel to dial *99 pause prior to dialing the phone number?

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:14 pm
by chepachet
murphy wrote:Did you program the panel to dial *99 pause prior to dialing the phone number?
I did not. Is that the same as giving it the 2 second delay which the documentation speaks about?

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:22 pm
by murphy
chepachet wrote:
murphy wrote:Did you program the panel to dial *99 pause prior to dialing the phone number?
I did not. Is that the same as giving it the 2 second delay which the documentation speaks about?
Yes.

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:33 pm
by chepachet
murphy wrote:
chepachet wrote:
murphy wrote:Did you program the panel to dial *99 pause prior to dialing the phone number?
I did not. Is that the same as giving it the 2 second delay which the documentation speaks about?
Yes.

I will try this. Below is the documentation DSC has for this panel to add special hex codes:

NOTE:Telephone numbers can be up to 32 digits. This allows
you to add special digits if required. To program the telephone
number, enter the numbers 0 through 9 as required. The following
is a list of programmable HEX digits and the functions
they perform:
HEX (B) - simulates the [*] key on a touch tone telephone
HEX (C) - simulates the [#] key on a touch tone telephone
HEX (D) - forces the panel to search for dial tone
HEX (E) - forces the panel to pause for 2 seconds
HEX (F) - marks the end of the telephone number
NOTE:The first digit of all telephone numbers must be the HEX
digit ‘D’ for dial tone search, or HEX digit ‘E’ for a two-second
pause.

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:27 pm
by ajw522
chepachet wrote: I will try this. Below is the documentation DSC has for this panel to add special hex codes:

NOTE:Telephone numbers can be up to 32 digits. This allows
you to add special digits if required. To program the telephone
number, enter the numbers 0 through 9 as required. The following
is a list of programmable HEX digits and the functions
they perform:
HEX (B) - simulates the [*] key on a touch tone telephone
HEX (C) - simulates the [#] key on a touch tone telephone
HEX (D) - forces the panel to search for dial tone
HEX (E) - forces the panel to pause for 2 seconds
HEX (F) - marks the end of the telephone number
NOTE:The first digit of all telephone numbers must be the HEX
digit ‘D’ for dial tone search, or HEX digit ‘E’ for a two-second
pause.
Make sure you do *99 and the HEX (E) - forces the panel to pause for 2 seconds option.

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 4:55 am
by Lilly's_Closet
Not sure how diffrent the systems are but maybe this will help
I had to change 3 settings in my ADT GE Concord 4 alarm to have to dial out successfully to the ADT monitoring center. All the setting are under programming and you will need to have the installer code to make the changes. In addition you have to have the alarm wired correctly to have line interrupt to work.
1. Changed setting in the alarm from (wait for dial tone) to (dial out after waiting a few seconds)
2. Changed the setting in the alarm under (disable call waiting) to use the fax prefix of *99. So basically you have to call OOMA to have them disable call waiting, you can’t just enter a disable code like Ma Bell. So this setting is useless to me except that it allows me to enter the *99. Originally added a pause and *99 at the beginning of the caller center number but that only worked 50 % of the time.
3. Changed the SIA/CID reporting from CID to SIA- I think that this is was really the fixed it but I haven’t tried it with only this setting.
Of Note: Most alarm systems have a built-in line voltage meter on the phone line. This is why you will receive a message on the alarm when you alarm is disconnected from a phone line. However, the absence of this message DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU ALARM CAN CALL HOME, only that the alarm is detecting voltage on the phone line.

To truly test that you alarm can call home you either need to do a phone test from the console or call the alarm company and have them put your alarm in test mode and then set off the alarm. Also you need to do a line interrupt test to make sure it can still dial out after the burglar takes the phone off the hook. Easy enough call the alarm company from your ooma phone and then when the alarm dials out it will have to disconnect you first. Many of the people I have spoken to on this forum who claim to have ADT working were sadly disappointed when then did a phone home test to the central monitoring office. They incorrectly thought that if the alarm is not complaining about not having a phone line then the alarm is working. Good luck and I hope that this helps. It certainly took me long enough to figure it out.

Re: DSC Powerseries alarm

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:24 pm
by aalim
I did not see calls on my outbound log. Thanks for the tip.

It turned out that I needed to modify the wiring so that the Ooma was feeding the alarm first. I was just plugging the Ooma into an unused wall jack which worked fine to make calls, but when the alarm was activated, it grabs the "main" line. I needed to re-wire this so that the line coming from the jack where the ooma was located acted as the "main" line.

After that, adding the hex E + *99 as a prefix to the number did the trick