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Letter Re: Advice on Driveway Alarms for Retreat Security
Mr. Rawles,
Thanks for the perimeter defense blog today. Can you please give me your
opinion on driveway alarms? There are some cool units I found at drivewayalarmdepot.com.
They have units that are wireless and reach out to 3,000 feet. I think they
also have a unit that reaches out a mile. Are these infrared units suitable
to serious perimeter defense?
Thanks, - RP
JWR Replies: By all means do comparison pricing, but you
should beware of
the driveway alarms that are made in China. From most reports they are shoddy
and
unreliable.
(Most of them are not truly weatherproof.) The best non-Chinese brand
of wireless IR driveway alarm on
the
market
is
the Dakota Alert. These are American-made and
have long-term
reliability. The wireless models use MURS band
frequencies, which is a plus. (You can get MURS walkie-talkies tuned to the
same frequency, so you can have a portable
alerting device right on your belt, that doubles as a voice walkie-talkie.)
OBTW, our advertiser MURS
Radios sells both discount-priced Dakota Alert system components and
MURS band transceivers. They can program the latter for you to match your Dakota
Alert frequency. Tres cool.
Infrared alarms can indeed be effective for perimeter security, if properly
emplaced on likely avenues of approach. With Dakota Alerts, you can emplace
multiple alarm transmitters, each with a distinctive audible alert. (So that
you'll know which approach has an intruder--such as "Alert, Zone Two.")
