Elenco Electronics MO-1251 Manual de usuario descargar pdf (Pagina 29)

L

It

takes

more

than

a

water

-

filled

moat

to

protect

your

castle

HERB

FRIEDMAN

EARLY

MAN PROTECTED HIS HOME

against marauding beasts and the

things that go bump in the night by

blocking

the entrance to

his cave

with

a

large rock. As man's housing be-

came more sophisticated, security

was provided

by a

water

-filled

moat or

a

large

dog.

But as housing lots

shrank

in

size

there

was

no

longer

room for a moat, and a large enough

dog

eats

too much; so security

evolved into

barbed wire, trip

wires

that rang bells, and even a

flock of

geese -because geese provide early

warning

by honking at strangers. Un-

fortunately, except

for a mean dog.

none of those

security

methods are

very effective at protecting property

when no one is

around.

What was

needed

was

an

intruder

alarm that could

wake

the dead, or, at

the

very

least,

alert

a neighbor or the

beat cop -the idea being that a poten-

tial intruder knew

for

certain

that he

was likely to be caught in the act. It

was

electric power- usually provided

by batteries -that allowed

us to

use a

very

loud

bell as an

intruder

alarm.

Of course, in time the miscreants

learned how

to defeat a

simple

elec-

tric

-based alarm, so today we

use

high -technology

electronic equip-

ment to protect

our castles: micro-

processors, mainframe

computers,

electronic nightingale- floors, infrared

motion detectors, microwave sensors,

wireless

signalling,

automatic tele-

phone

dialers, subaudible

telephone

signals,

cellular- telephone

alarms,

and most important,

the central sta-

tion.

The

central station

Before we

go any farther, let's

take

time out

to look at the central sta-

tion -also

called a central monitor or

central station monitor-

because that

is really what

is behind the

effective

use almost all high -tech

home-

securi-

ty equipment.

Before

it became financially

neces-

sary

for the majority

of

women

to

work,

one could be reasonably

certain

that a neighbor would

be home to hear

.4.

Gt/IANT

an alarm bell, and

the neighbor

would

notify the police

if she heard clang -

clang- clang.

Also, in many areas,

there

were

"beat cops,"

policemen

who

walked

by your

home several

times a day.

Today, however,

many

communities

are deserted

during

working hours: If there

is

anyone

around

it's the postman

or the UPS

driver, and

when

they have moved

on,

the neighborhood

is

as

deserted as

Death

Valley

at high

noon. As for the

beat cop, he

vanished long ago from

residential areas-

you're lucky

if he

passes by twice a day

in a patrol car.

So an alarm bell can

ring for hours

and there

will

be no one to

hear it; a

fact that is well -known by both ama-

teur and professional

thieves. Because

of that, the central

station

-which

was formerly

used primarily

by busi-

ness

establishments

-has become the

front -line defense for the homeowner.

Basically, central -station

monitor-

ing

works

like this:

When

a home's

alarm goes off it also triggers an auto-

matic telephone dialer that calls a

1 2 ... 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 ... 99 100

Comentarios a estos manuales

Sin comentarios