Siren Mystery

[kb4mdz]

OK, couple more questions:

(blunt): How good is your electrician?

Is it just one contact closure to start the siren? Siren runs the same for each of the 2 tone sets? Or is there one siren sound for one set, and another siren sound for another set? This, I could see would be 2 separate contacts.

It all sounds to me like the Sentry systems' radio is not decoding tones properly, unless they are standalone, like (toneAtoneB), but if for example you have (toneFtoneDtoneAtoneB) , it doesn't decode. That's a radio/decoder problem. Most QC2 systems I've seen have some gap between tones and sets of tones.

[chunkman128]

It is one contact closure for the starter motor. The brain of the box where the programming is controls the contacts for the motor starter. The county uses a tone b tone for pager/siren activation. Here is a link to a video of the weekly test on Monday August 30th
https://youtu.be/MhuZeu_GRYU

[FSThunderboltfan1000]

It is one contact closure for the starter motor. The brain of the box where the programming is controls the contacts for the motor starter. The county uses a tone b tone for pager/siren activation. Here is a link to a video of the weekly test on Monday August 30th
https://youtu.be/MhuZeu_GRYU

Looking at your programing screens did you try setting your programming for the minimum tone lengths to T1 .5 and T2 2. This should allow plenty of time for the board to detect the tone. I see you have two different sets of tones in there are you having issues with just one tone pair triggering it or are both tone pairs causing issues?

[chunkman128]

Both are having issues. the first one is just for normal fire calls. The second is for the tornado siren. I have tried setting it to .5 and 2 with no luck

[chunkman128]

Also here is another video of the monthly test.
https://youtu.be/sDKpqpCmfGs

[FSThunderboltfan1000]

Is it having issues decoding every time or just sometimes?

[chunkman128]

It is everytime that our tones aren't the first to go off

[kb4mdz]

Haven't had a chance to listen closely, or put the audio thru Audacity, but the audio I hear is rather scratchy; how is that being added to your video? Is it a separate radio or scanner, or does the decoder box have a speaker?

Edit: removed comment on something I hadn't read properly. Start brain before typing.

[chunkman128]

The audio is coming from my portable radio sitting on top of the box. The box itself doesn't have a speaker. Plus using my phone to record it. Yes if ours is not first it does not work

[kb4mdz]

1st quick pass of all that audio thru Audacity, looks like all the tone sets are 1 sec. A tone, 3 seconds B-tone. Standard. I'd say it's still something on the decoder board.

Notice starting at 0:40 seconds, there's one tone, and Tone 1 light comes on, and stays on thru the 2nd tone, even tho they are different, way different. That's wrong. Next, Tone 1 light comes on for the 1st tone in the next sequence then Tone 2 light comes on for the 2nd tone, and obviously it decodes and turns on the relay.

Taking your Bandwidth selection in the programming screens, 2.5, I'd guess (educated guess, but still a guess) that that's 2.5% bandwidth. 496.6 + and minus 2.5 % gives you a range from 484 Hz to 509 Hz.

Ahhh, let's half that: 2.5% BW is the TOTAL width around that center frequency, that will mean 1.25 % below, and 1.25% above; that gives 490.5 Hz, to 502 Hz;

A closer look with Audacity that 1st tone, the one that keeps Tone 1 light on throughout the whole A-B sequence, decodes to 480 Hz. Then 670 Hz, for B tone. The 2nd pair of tones in that time frame I see as 511 Hz, and 670 Hz. 5
Closest standard paging tones are 483.5 Hz, 510.5 Hz. and 669.9 Hz. Finding the 2.5% bandwidths for each of those is 477.5 Hz to 489.5 Hz, then 504.2 Hz to 516.9 Hz, and last 661.6 Hz to 678.2

Try changing your tone set 1 to 483.5 & 669.9, and tone set 2 to 510.5 and 669.9.

I'm sorry this has been going on for 2 years for you, that sucks. I have an opinion on who's doing the worst finger pointing, but I'll reserve it. IMHO, your actual transmitted tones should have been checked before installation. But you have to put your behind in your past. Over the years, lots of errors can creep into systems, and people THINK they know what settings are, rather than verifying in the field.

A competent radio tech with a decent service monitor should be able to generate these sequences at the site and test, or whatever tone sequences the decoder is programmed to respond to. Oh, and the radio itself needs to be on frequency; again, a competent radio tech should be able to look for the Local Oscillator frequency generated in the radio; it should be within a couple parts per million. I don't know much about the Maxon radio; probably programmable, and if it's LO has drifted too far, or the programmed frequency is just too far away from the actual radio frequency, decoding the tones will be very unreliable. But that is (again, IMO) a bit of a long shot.

Now, all this I've written is just from some quick noodling using the Audacity program, without doing a lot of proper filtering to exclude stuff that shouldn't matter to the decoder.

tried to attach a tone signaling chart, failed.