Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - Wireless Door Contacts Alarm on Opening

I ran into a problem with my wireless door contacts, they alarm on every door opening. Since these are on the front and back door this is not a good senario.

I have a DSC1832 panel with a RF5132-433 wireless receiver.
The sensors are enrolled in zones 17 and 18. The zone def for both of them is 01 (Delay) and the zone attributes for zones 17 and 18 have option 8 turned on.

What else do I have to do? I tried another sensor but got the same response so I assume this is a programming issue. Any help would be appreciated.

PS I should note that Zones 1 to 8 are hardwired and work flawlessly.

If the contacts are tripping an _alarm_ (not a chime...) on every activation, even if the system is not armed, then I suspect that you have not actually programmed them for the zone type you _think_ you programmed them for.

If you got one segment off, I'd guess you actually set them for zone type 10 or 11 instead of 01, which would give you exactly the effect you describe.

Thanks Ron, do you know of anything else that could cause this? I have tried Zone Definitions of 01, 02, 04 without success. The alarm company tells me it comes in as a personal emergency. It sure sounds like the wrong Def but I have an LCD display, so it is hard to get it wrong, especially so many times.

Could you have changed the settings in the zone attributes for those two zones? Those are what actually dictate how the zone will behave. Normally the only setting you would change in 117 & 118 would be the wireless attribute (8). View those locations and compare the settings to what they should be for a normal entry/exit zone.

Ron, just thought I would let you know that yes I did change the attributes at 117 and 118 but that was only after getting 10 to 20 alarms on the defaults. Just to make my day, the RF Jamming Zone 19 went off today at 3PM and since I had not put the Bell back on yet, (I wanted to test your theory just to be sure) I did not hear or know of the alarm until the Police landed at my door. I'm frustrated.

I guess leaving jamming on is out, there must be too much interference from other devices. I have cordless phones, wireless routers and PC's, and who knows what caused that.

I cannot have this kind of falsing however, if I cannot get these wireless devices to stabilize, wired it is for me. I will just have to work away at it. My intent now is to write DSC and ask if they will help me. I won't be doing anything now until next week, but I will let you know how it goes or what solves this issue if I find a solution.

If you have any comments or anyone else, please let me know. I am wondering if the 1832 Panel or RF5132 has a problem. I know I am grasping here, but from what I've read if you set the default correct (01) and you set the zone attributes correct (YYYYNYNYN) then the darn thing should work.

Yes, turn off that RF jam detect feature. In the real world, you will get more trips from the normal electronic noise in the environment than anything else.

I'm out of suggestions. Part of the problem is that your monitoring people are treating every trip on these zones as a panic/holdup alarm. I suspect that it's something small in your configuration, but short of playing "50 questions", it's difficult to figure out what is actually set wrong.

I figured out part of it . Each zone is defaulting to its default zone attributes regardless of what the zone definition is or what the zone attributes are set to. Example zone 17 is 24 hr Emergency (manual default) and reports that way when it alarms, zone 18 is 24 hr Sprinkler (m.d.) and reports that way when it alarms and zone 19 reported as Water Fall which again is the manual default.

Is there a setting that could have got changed that would not allow the panel to change the defaults even if you set the definition properly and the attributes properly?

Ummm, what location are you setting the zone types in?

You should be setting the zone type for zone 17 - 32 in programming location 002.

You are citing the default configurations for zone _type_ 17, etc.

It's actually a poor design in the programming work sheet for this system manual. I know what I was looking for, and it took me a couple of minutes to find the correct lines.

Professional installers have trouble with DSC manuals, so don't feel bad.

Ron, thanks for all your help thus far. You've given me an education. I do appreciate it.

I think I have tried so much now the only safe solution is to Hardware Reset the wireless receiver and the main panel and re-program everything and see how that goes. I will let you know.

Yes I was setting zone 17, 18 and 19 in programming location 002. So that wasn't it either. Anyway, I have also written DSC in the hope they will phone me back and maybe troubleshoot one wireless zone with me before I zap the panel for the final test.

I will let you all know. I really appreciate your forum and help. For someone that has never done this before, it is a real lifesaver. I don't understand why alarm companies are still so secretive. But I'm getting off track. It is frustrating that they don't want to help the people who are actually buying and using their product. So kudos to you; without you, guys like me would be up sh_t creek without a paddle. Again thanks.

"Yes I was setting zone 17, 18 and 19 in programming location 002."

Ah Ha! That was the problem. The correct entry in 002 should have been 01 01 01 (followed by 00 for all the unused zones in that block of 16). You enter the Zone Type code in those slots, not the zone number.

Thanks Ron but I wasn't very clear.

In section 002 under zone 17 I programmed definition 01
In section 002 under zone 18 I programmed definition 01
In section 002 under zone 19 I programmed definition 01

In section 117 the attributes were as default 1,2,3,4,6 indicated as on. On the LCD Panel it displays as:12346. I changed the setting to 123468 adding the 8 for wireless.

As soon as I open the front door of my house zone 17 alarms.

Beats me why, but someone once said what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I will keep plugging away.

I never received a reply from DSC for help so I kept plugging away myself. I reset (Factory Default) my RF5132 in section [996] by entering * 8 [Installer Code] [996] [Installer Code] [996]. Then I enrolled the wireless devices again. I had the same problem.

I again reset the RF5132 and the PC1832 panel (section [999]) and tried again. Still the wireless zone alarmed on opening the door.

I one last time reset the RF5132 and Hardware Reset the PC1832 panel. (Connected a wire between Zone 1 and PGM1 with the power off then powered back up the panel for about 30 seconds then powered off again and removed the wire, then powered up for programming.

I reprogrammed the whole system changing no settings from what I had originally done. But low and behold this time the wireless zone works properly. Everything is now working. I will probably never know why it didn't work the first time but I wanted to let you know what did work.

Thanks everyone for having a site you can go to for help and for providing the help that I needed to lead me to a solution.

I'm glad you kept plugging away at it. I suspect that you had some obscure setting misconfigured, but there was no way to "20 question" your way to it.

The full default and careful reprogramming was the way to go.