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 [1]. 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 [2] 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 [3] 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.”)