A Very Important Building thats open 2 times a year

 I drove by this one time old dumpy white pealing paint building not much bigger than a large shed   along E. US 22  next to the Pittsburgh Speedway ( Keystone Drag-way)  not knowing it's purpose thought it was just another abandoned farm shed with classic old out house out back for many years possibly part of an old extinct farm  on my way to Blairsville, Johnstown, Altoona or State College

When they went to widen US 22  that summer in 2004  it disappeared or so I thought till I saw the state had moved it up the road about a mile from where it was , and then I saw people working on and fixing it up strange I thought of this old white dumpy looking building  why where they saving it. I thought it was abandoned. Well the answer would come out in the Tribune review in late 2004 This was no dumpy building it was one of a very small handful of stand alone polling places you went to to vote.

They have been working on it and most recent article on it being ready to reopen is below .

http://triblive.com/news/westmoreland/3662716-74/voting-county-polling#axzz2RwZdA3Hp

In the days of horse and buggy these stand alone polling places where very popular in rural America but all but a handful   exists now.

Not wanting to use a barn  as a local school or other suitable building was not always available or close by  these small buildings where set up and used 2 times a year for election purposes where for many years ballots where on paper with pencil and deposited into a locked box to be counted at the end of the day.  I am glad to see this building which I thought was abandoned has been saved and is being recognized for it role in American history. Soon to be open to the public again

Honeywells New Turbo Series Alarm panels a Major Disapointment

I like the advanced series of panels Honeywell makes for commercial work like the Vista 128/ 250 BP  and 32,128 and 250 FBP
But the problem none of them would work with Total Connect 2  the more advanced of the total connect services or the Tuxedo Keypads  available thru Honeywell they only worked with TC1
There answer to this was the new Turbo series panels Vista   128/250 BPT and 32,128/250 FBPT
great you get the best of both worlds with more features . WRONG
In fact the new panels are lacking several handy features dealers like my self use  and you pay more for the turbos to get less makes no sense .
Gone are the Direct Wire down loader feature where you can use the 5104 serial input module to program on site  . Gone is the handy feature to allow a small add on beeper piezo which follows the keypad beeper when you need to know in back of shop or in big warehouses someone has come thru the door plus many others  in my eyes not worth the $100.00 cost increase for the new panels just so the will work on TC 2  Once again build something you think dealers and customers want but never ask.

Sorry but my customers do not want to pay more to get less.  While yes the turbos give you TC2 and Tuxedo capability which some commercial customers will pay for most will not once again a total disappointment .

After the break up of AT&T accessing low cost long distance carriers lines was a challenge

After the break up of AT&T in early 80's   many new low cost long distance carriers came on the market to challenge AT&T. like MCI, LDI and Sprint  The problem was the lines where where not yet  totally deregulated and shared as they are now  and to make a long distance call and save money you had to first dial a 10 digit 800 toll free number to access the carrier then dial the 10 digit number of person you where calling a real pain in the ass. So the long distance carriers came up with a solution a re-dialer  whereby  when you made a long distance call  by dialing certain area codes the re-dialer  recognized these numbers and would then seize the line and dial the 800 number automatically connecting you to the long distance carriers 800 number. In fact Phone systems at the time incorporated these dialer's in a sophisticated  means called Least Cost Routing  LCR where the unit would see where you where dialing and put you on the phone line and into carrier with the best cost.

To allow these units to work special phone blocks known as RJ31X blocks had to be installed to allow the re-dialer to capture the line in the same way Fire & burglar alarm s do. I was often hired by these carriers to install the blocks on mine and other customers of theirs phone systems so that there dialer technician could come by hang the unit and program it and just plug into the phone lines.
With the advent of Digital phone switching and full deregulation where AT&T and the baby bells  had to now share there lines with other phone carriers the re-dialer's where no longer needed and  where shut off and removed  and became a forgotten relic I ran across this old one in picture below  while  helping a friend move his imaging company's phone system .

Old deactivated MCI Re-dialer

But while this era of re-dialer's went away the technology itself is still used today in varying ways in the alarm industry.  need to take over an account and send the burglar alarm signal to your central station but the panel is locked out and you can not get into programming ? Well they make a simple re-dialer you hook in line which redirects the call to your central station and account number .

http://info.nextalarm.com/products

Also with many phone land  lines going away and cellular or Internet being used again re'dialers or re-directors as some call them are again being used to plug the panels existing dialer  lines into the cellular or internet communicator  where signal is converted from a dial up phone line to a cellular or internet digital signal.
Seems when theirs a communication issue in the field some smart engineer is out there figuring out how to make a unit still operate with out replacing a whole system

Have a large warehouse ? Want a Shift Start & End Time Tone? Also need a door bell to know a customer is at shipping door but want to avoid the expense of multiple bells and buzzers ? There is a solution

If you have a large warehouse or distributing business like my customer has  and need  to know some ones at your shipping / receiving door  and you also would like to have a clock controlled shift  start / end and lunch time tone  but do not want to spend a fortune to do it  . Then you need one of these modules  I just put in a very large food distribution facility in W.Va.  after the manager asked me about how to keep the cost down with out all the wiring and bells and said he had a crazy ideal could he put it over paging system he had every where  my answer was yes using this item

http://www.vikingelectronics.com/

Does your warehouse have a  Paging system then all you need to do is add a simple module to get the door bell and or the clock tones.
 the  CTG-1 and CTG-2  clock tone controllers fill the bill

http://www.vikingelectronics.com/products/view_product.php?pid=559#

 What they do is add simple tones over your new or existing paging system.

Want a door bell run a simple 2 wire circuit from door bell switch to controller then 2 wire from controller to paging input and thats it 

Those same 2 wires you hooked from controller to paging amplifier also sends the shift change  tones which you program into the controller with simple commands via simple schedules you can set for once to several times a day.

 You can even hook the facility burglar alarm in so it sends an alarm tone all thru the place

or even just a door or any contact  to a device you need to let every one know needs immediate attention. there is also an emergency whoop tone alert for use to evacuate the plant if theirs a fire ,tornado etc. all in all a simple solution to what is usually a mess of wires and devices.

Viking even makes a device you can add to existing paging unit to provide mass evacuation tones and voice commands . how ever you will want to make sure the device and paging system has some type of  back up power like a UPS

http://www.vikingelectronics.com/products/view_product.php?pid=446#

I just love all the neat products Viking is coming out with because it allows me to provide solutions for customers with out an extreme cost and complication.