Don't Forget That Little Green Wire

That simple Green Bonding wire on Fire and Burglar Alarm Cabinets,
it really does nothing and doesn't need
hooked up, right?
WRONG!

by Nick Markowitz, Jr.

A fire alarm system is sounding its trouble signal in a commercial building and the maintenance man has summoned me to check it. He pulls out his ring of keys, inserts them into the lock, then quite suddenly he's unable to move--he is frozen in place.

What exactly has happened here do you suppose?

Well, it's my guess that he's received an electrical shock. Luckily, this time he manages to pull away, but a few seconds more and he could have been toast. So what happened?

It appears the people who installed the fire alarm panel did not do their job properly as they forgot or simply failed to install a small green bonding jumper from the removable panel lid to the back box. This allowed electrical current to flow through the lid when the hot 120 volt wire supplying power to the panel pulled loose, coming in contact with the lid.

Now, had this jumper been bonded from lid to back box, and if the panel had been grounded properly, this event would not have taken place. The breaker would have tripped out and just the trouble signal would have sounded. The problem would have been spotted as soon as the lid was opened. Instead, because the jumper was not used, the maintenance man got a severe jolt.

Grounding and bonding of electrical equipment is critical to assuring that it operates properly. It also assures that any type of overload is cleared. It also assures that if a wire or component disintegrates and touches the metal enclosure in the system, nothing bad will happen to someone working on it.

Now, here's the kicker, not all lids need to be grounded. This is especially true if it is permanently attached to the panel box by means of a full-length piano-type hinge. In this case, code considers the lid properly bonded due to the continual path of metal touching. This is not something you have with a removable lid where only 2 small areas of the lid touch the panel box.

You say "bonding and grounding, what's the difference?"

Bonding is used to eliminate a possible hazard, like with the removable lid. The back box has a ground wire which runs the entire way back to the main service entrance for power. I know it's confusing, but follow the manufacture's guide lines and you'll do just fine. But if you fail to follow them, sooner or later something will fail and there will either be a fire or someone will get shocked.

With electricity it's just like a chain... the weakest link is where the problem will develop.

Killer Winter Storm Proves Digital Flaws

The Killer Winter Storm of 2010 has proven the lack of foresight and planning when it comes to using digital technology

by Nick Markowitz Jr.

The winter of 2010 has been a real challenge for Power Company's and there crews With snow amounts of 36+ inches plus temperatures in the single digits and lower. But one thing which has been a real headache is the ability of individuals to communicate.

The problem is the continued increase in the use of digital technology for phone and 2-way radio communication along with remote control. When the power is on, everything works fine, but lose power anywhere along the signal path and all chaos begins. Analog technology gets its power from only one end, such as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service where digital requires power at both ends, such as T1, DSL, Cable, FIOS and other Broadband services.

While some of these services provide an 8-hr battery back-up, which is fine for most minor power outages,a but when it goes over 8 hrs and it heads toward 24 or more, this is when real problems start setting in. The problem with broadband signaling when power is lost, you lose signaling and phone communication altogether.

Okay, you say "no problem, we have installed bigger back-up batteries at our location to make sure the phones stay on," but not so fast my friend. Digital broadband services require several repeaters along the route before it gets to your location. This means that broadband providers must provide back-up power (batteries) in boxes on telephone poles or in underground vaults along the way. This is done to insure the signal stays on. Lose one of these repeaters anywhere along the path and everyone beyond this point also loses service.

Well, "no big deal," you say. "Our employees have cell phones they can use." That's fine and dandy if the cell towers are working and not overloaded and they have power, but while some towers have back-up batteries and generators, some do not. This does not mean they'll come on and operate properly either.

T3 circuits also run between towers so they can get signals to land lines. If they're out of power, guess what, you can call cell phone to cell phone but not to a land-based line. Now what are you going to do when you need 911?

Keep in mind also, cell phones need charged, so do your employees have their charger with them, do you have power to charge them, and if there is no power, do they have a car charger they can use. And what happens to those employees who used public transit in order to get to work?

"No problem, I'll just send everyone home," you say. But what if you're a nursing home, hospital or some other type of facility--how are you going to move patients now that you have no power, no alarms, and no communication?

"No problem, 911 will get a bus or other transit here so we can evacuate to a warming center," you say. Really?

Remember, with all that snow out there, emergency responders will be lucky if they can get to you at all. In fact, the emergency responders are having their own problems since those same T1 and other broadband services allow remote 911 dispatchers to get radio transmissions out to fire and police. So in some cases they cannot use their 2-way radio systems properly and those departments using trunked digital, 2-way radios are surely having their own problems, and let's not forget the fact that the duplex repeaters may be out as well. Thus communication may be equally bad for them as well since many digital radios do not have simplex channels which allow radio-to-radio communication. Thus they must got through the repeater tower which is not working.

So now you find yourself sitting in the dark: no phone, no power, no heat, no help is coming and you have 20 patients to deal with. What are you going to do? Think digital is worth getting rid of all the POTS lines. Is it really worth all the money you're going to save? Better think it over again.

Analog is a sure technology--it works. Analog was the technology behind those little red public boxes many towns once had that worked no matter what. But all of them are gone now. Now you're going to let phone companies do the same to your sure-working POTS. Yes, analog technology may appear to be a dinosaur in today's modern world, but without proper back-up and planning, today's digital is not a suitable substitute for yesterday's sure-working analog.

1st Blog Entry- Fire alarm dialers

Are Two Telephone Lines Still Needed for a Fire Alarm Digital Alarm Communicator Transmitter?

By: Nick Markowitz Jr.

Have the days where two phone lines hooked up to a fire alarm Digital Alarm Communicator Transmitter (DACT) become numbered? Personally, I do believe so.

As more and more phone lines go digital--feedeng either a T1 Channel Bank or some other digital technology, like Verizon's FIOS--redundant phone lines are really pointless. In the true analog POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) days, having two numbers asured that the signal would get through since the chance of both numbers going out at the same time where slim to none.

When we talk about modern digital phone lines, or what is known in the NFPA 72 Code as Managed Facilities Voice Networks (MFVN), when we loose one of them, we loose them all. When the broadband signal that tells the interface device to put out the individual voice paths is lost, all signal paths are lost. This of course includes voice circuits, Internet and phone. So at this point what sense does it make to require two phone lines?

My answer, there is no point.

Ultimately AT&T and other communication corporations want POTS to go away altogether by 2014, and yes this will cause a burden to many devices which require true dialtone to dial out, but luckily there are alternatives available, such as cellular and two-way radio, along with dialer capture units that retransmit the signal over the Internet, known as Internet Dialers. But the bigger question has still not been answered and that is how to safely back-up most digital systems. Most of these systems have no battery back-up to keep them operating. And when they do, it's only for a couple of hours, which will does not comply with NFPA 72. On the other hand, good-old POTS will keep on working.

You say, "No problem, when digital goes out we know its not working as Internet dialers are supervised." But what good does that do when you cannot tell what's going on at the unattended premise when it's a long holiday weekend? Are we really willing to take this kind of chance? More so, will the client be willing to sacrifice the safety of his or her facility and those who work, play, and visit there? Not if they're told--and will you tell them?

This is the price we're going to pay for digital convergence and this weekend of Feb. 6^th 2010 is really going to prove out all the disadvantages of digital with snowfalls of 20 to 30 plus inches of snow along the East Coast. Better get out the cell phone and hope it works. And where's that car charger, you may need it to keep the battery in your cell charged so you can stay in communication with critical services if you should need them.