Radio interference on Omnipro 2

So...when we initially hooked up our OP2 board to the landline we had all the radio interference on the handset. We installed a coouple sandman am rf filters and we thought the priblem was solved as far as the handset was concerned. Unfortunately, when we set up the system to call our cell phones when the alarm is tripped, there is so much radio noise on the call that we can't hear anything from the omnipro. It seems like there is so much interference that the omnipro does not actually "know" that it is completing the calls as it calls as many as 9 times in rapid succession. Any ideas? Also, I heard there is an HAI rep on this board, may I contact him/her directly?

The Omni voice phone interface has never really worked great.  It can work anywhere from very poor to fair, but that is the range.  Check that your grounding on the phone line is solid, also try swapping the red and green phone wires to see if that helps.  Honestly, if you don't have a monitoring company to call you, I would highly recommend that you consider buying the email board and use that for notification, which can send texts or email. SO MUCH better than a voice call.
 
I don't think the problem is actually radio noise, its noise from the board which is being picked up by other parts of the board. Its most likely really a design problem.

Thanks ano. I'm pretty sure it's radio noise. I can literally hear the guy saying "this is KIRO radio" etc. It does seem to get picked up at the OP2, and like I said earlier we successfully eliminated it from the handset.

We do plan to use a monitoring service when we get the bugs out...do you think getting monitoring online would help with our problem? Can you use email communication w monitoring?

What did you do to get it eliminated from the handset?
 
I do not use the voice stuff on the OmniPro 2 but have tested it to work fine.  I have always heard a low buzz (over 10 years now) and never did get rid of it.
 
Local radio station noise is difficult to deal with.  

Yeah. There's 7 am radio towers nearby, and two are very close. We used sandman brand am rf filters. They worked great for eliminating radio noise from the handset.

I use a monitoring service (which sends me text) and software (which also sends me text).  Both texts arrive typically at the same time.

kaohao said:

We do plan to use a monitoring service when we get the bugs out...do you think getting monitoring online would help with our problem? Can you use email communication w monitoring?

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Yes, they work fine together.  The Omni uses the phone as a monitoring interface, and that works fine. Typically the monitoring company will give you a "box" that connects to the phone jack on the Omni, and the Internet and/or cellular.  The Omni thinks its communicating on the phone, but the "box" converts to other standards. Its very reliable. 
 
Phone lines picking up radio noise, and unless you are willing to completely rewire your house with shielded cable, its really hard to eliminate.  

One thing to check is whether it is the phone line itself that is picking up the noise or perhaps a telephone set (or the Omni) that is connected to the line that is the problem.
 
A POTS phone line is a twisted pair that should be fairly immune to RF interference.  Often, the problem is due to a phone (which these days often have diodes connected to the line that act as a RF detector) that causes the problem.

Thanks guys...we hooked up with alarm relay and are pretty much giving up on the phone monitoring. We purchased the bat wifi device from ipdatel as recommended by Alarm Relay. hopefully the radio interference doesn't affect that as well. Unfortunately, internet monitoring is an additional $5 a month (about $15) compared to phone monitoring. Anybody know of any better options for internet monitoring? 

We had already purchased the leviton omni notifier email board, but Alarm Relay said that the leviton device was not suitable for their monitoring because the " module is only for receiving email and text notifications for end-users. " Not that I have any idea what that means

kaohao said:

We had already purchased the leviton omni notifier email board, but Alarm Relay said that the leviton device was not suitable for their monitoring because the " module is only for receiving email and text notifications for end-users. " Not that I have any idea what that means

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They are correct.  The notifier board does not have any ability to communicate with a central station.  It only sends notifications directly to you via e-mail or text.  Well, it does that when it works, which for some is not often.

I'm getting the impression that the Omnipro 2 kinda sucks. Is this correct? Do people in the field generally prefer Elk?

kaohao said:

I'm getting the impression that the Omnipro 2 kinda sucks. Is this correct? Do people in the field generally prefer Elk?

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No, not at all.  Both platforms are getting a bit aged, but both very capable.  Your issue with radio interference seems to be an anomaly that most OP2 users haven't experienced and it seems you purchased the notifier board for a purpose of which it was not designed for.  Those issues doesn't mean the platform sucks.

kaohao said:

I'm getting the impression that the Omnipro 2 kinda sucks. Is this correct? Do people in the field generally prefer Elk?

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Nope. Just phone line use is so 10 years ago.  Its very slow when you have to dial, and thieves discovered that cutting your phone line pretty much made an alarm system unoperable.   Cellular monitoring is what you should be using anyway.  Also note, Alarm Relay seems to push out that IPDataTel, but they also use a TG-1, which is more reliable. Also, the IPDataTel may have problems. This is discussed elsewhere.