Alarms... [Control Menu]

The Alarms... dialog box is accessed from the Control Menu

Alarm system is used to alert the user to critical changes in one or more conditions. The Alarms... dialog box is used to configure the Alarm System. The Weather-Pro weather alarm system allows for the setup of six different alarm conditions. These conditions can then be used in combination to activate the alarms. Three different alarms can be activated when the alarm conditions are meet including a Real Time Display Alarm, a Dial up Pocket Pager Alarm, and an External Alarm.

To use the Pager option, the logger must be connected to the telephone network via a modem. The External Alarm Output is a weather station output line that can be used to trigger a warning device such as a siren, bell or flashing light.

The General tab of the Alarms... dialog box is used to enter the required Pager Dial up String and an Alarm Condition Duration before Activation time

The Pager Dial up String is a text string that is sent from the weather station to a modem if the Pager Alarm is triggered. This string instructs the modem to connect to the local telephone network and dial the phone number for a Pocket Pager. If your modem was supplied by Weather-Pro the required Pager Dial up String will be shown on the information sheet included with the modem. If you supply your own modem you will need to determine the Pager Dial up String from your Modem Users manual. For example, if you have a Hayes Compatible Modem and you want the weather station to dial a pager at the phone number 765-4321 the Pager Dial up String will be ATS7=1S=10DT7654321

The Alarm Condition Duration before Activation time is the number of seconds that an Alarm Condition exists before it triggers a Real Time Display Alarm, Pager Alarm or External Alarm. For example, if you require a Pager Alarm to trigger if the temperature goes below 4 degrees for more the 30 minutes you would set the Alarm Condition Duration before Activation time to 1800 (30 minutes x 60 seconds) and set the Alarm1 condition to Sensor = Air Temperature, Less Than, Limit = 4 and the Dial up Pager ticked.

The Alarm 1 to Alarm 6 tabs of the Alarms... dialog box are used to setup the six alarm conditions. An alarm condition must be enabled, a sensor selected, a Less Than or Greater Than operator selected, a Limit entered and an Notification (alarm type) selected for an alarm condition to trigger an alarm. In addition to this, the alarm conditions can be setup to interact with each other so as to trigger alarms on combinations of alarm conditions. This interaction is achieved using the Combine Alarm with Alarm Channel tick boxes. This function enables an alarm condition ONLY IF another alarm condition has been meet. This allows the user to set up an alarm that will trigger if and only if two or more alarm conditions are meet.

Examples of Alarm Configurations

Example 1

Pager alarm

IF Temperature is less than 4°C

Example 2

External alarm

IF Temperature is less than 4°C

Or Humidity is greater than 65%

Example 3

Pager alarm

IF Temperature is less than 4°C

OR

External alarm

IF Humidity is greater than 65%

Example 4

Pager alarm

IF Temperature is less than 4°C

AND Humidity is greater than 65%

Example 5

Pager alarm

IF Temperature is less than 4°C

AND Humidity is greater than 65%

AND Rainfall is less than 5mm

OR

External Alarm

IF Temperature is greater than 32°C