The SSAIB courses on DD243 that have been running in conjunction with BT RedCARE this year have been extremely well attended and continue to gather pace as more companies request training on this subject.
Many attendees on the DD243 courses have been concerned regarding the handling of alarms by the Alarm Receiving Centre.
An exception to the delay period may be made where when the four following conditions are satisfied:
The ARC has agreed in advance with the client to provide monitoring of the set and un-set conditions in accordance with BS5759.
Sequentially confirmed alarms are received at least 30 minutes before the earliest time agreed for setting.
Sequentially confirmed alarms are received at least 30 minutes before the earliest time agreed for unsetting.
The ARC has separate evidence indicating that the intruder alarm at the protected premises is in the set condition and has been set for a period of not less that 15 minutes.
Alarm companies need to advise customers in writing that where a mis-operation signal or unset signal is received by the ARC, within the specified alarm filtering delay time, the ARC will normally cancel the alarm condition regarding it as false alert.
When alarm monitoring is affected at the ARC, the processing of alarms by the ARC may become delayed. This is allowed for in BS5759. Under these circumstances it is allowed for alarms to be held in the alarm filtering delay for longer than 120 seconds and for the alarm to be cancelled if a mis-operation signal or an un-set signal is received during extended alarm filtering delays. Having said this, extension to alarm filtering delays should be kept to a minimum in compliance with BS 5979. There should also be an indication at the ARC available to the supervisor of the number of alarms held in the filtering delay to enable use of operators and the contacting of staff in reserve.
The second part of the question was:
How should it be installed to meet DD243 requirements?
Intruder Alarm Systems may be confirmed audibly using:
Audio Listening Device (ALD) which is triggered by an intruder detector; Or: Audio Monitoring Device (AMD), a single device which provides a dual role as an Audio Monitoring & Audio Listening Device.
When using audio confirmation you need to ensure that the:
When an audio alarm is received at the ARC the listening periods are a minimum of:
For audio confirmation of intruder detection:
There is a ten seconds pre-recorded stored audio before any activation and at least 15 seconds stored after the activation, this can be accessed by the ARC on receipt of an alarm activation.
For audio confirmation of an audio monitoring device: There is one second of stored audio before an activation and 15 seconds stored audio after an activation which can be accessed by the ARC on receipt of an alarm activation.
The system design should define the scope, extent and coverage of the audio confirmation facility, including those areas within the protected premises that are within the expected range and proximity of audio listening devices. It’s also important to site audio listening devices to avoid noise sources that can interfere with the devices when ARC operators listen in. Systems can be installed which only have audio confirmation of intruder detection or which only have audio confirmation of audio monitoring device activations. Alternatively a combination of these two methods together with other confirmation technologies may be implemented.
Finally, care needs to be taken to ensure that any part of the protected premises that is likely to be occupied whilst the intruder alarm system is in the set condition, should be configured in such a way that it is possible to isolate both the detectors and the audio listening devices that primarily cover the unset area or group. In multiple area or group systems, only the audio listening devices in the activating area or group should be capable of providing audio capabilities.
I hope this article has been useful to readers.
As DD243 now forms a significant document on which systems are installed and more questions are asked, we will endeavour to keep you all informed. Make sure you see next month’s edition of Security Installer.
