Vista 20p problem


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Old 09-12-10, 06:47 PM
J
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Vista 20p problem

Through reading this forum, I've learned all kinds of alarm system tips, tricks and lingo, but still can't solve my problem. I moved into a house with an alarm system installed (Vista 20p w/ Ademco 6150 keypad), and the company that did the installation has changed the installer code, and locked the #* entry on power-up, even holding #* while restoring power (either by arming partition 2, which is unused, or by entering a 1 or 3 in the *88 menu and exiting with *98). I don't even have the master code to check partition 2. So, after learning all this (mainly through the guidance found in this forum) I'm stuck here. Can anyone offer any further help?
 
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Old 09-12-10, 07:09 PM
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Short of the cooperation of the original installers, it's a brick...

The partitions won't end run around lockouts.

If they've locked out both versions of * + #, that means they've locked out local programming access; period.

All you can do with this is replace the control motherboard (and if you don't have an alpha keypad, you will need one of those, as well) and start over with your existing contacts and wires.
 
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Old 09-12-10, 07:18 PM
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Thanks. The company that installed it will come out and do a service call and "power-up" for free, with my kind monthly donation for monitoring service. But thats not an option, since I'm not getting a land-line hooked up and don't want to pay for the wireless option, or the monitoring service. So, for $85, they'll do the service call without monitoring service and the technician will "tell me how to use the alarm system." I'll call again tomorrow and ask for the installer code, since i now know somewhat what i'm talking about. I doubt they'll give it up though. Any tips on how to "smooth" talk it out of them?
 
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Old 09-12-10, 08:09 PM
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You can't. They won't give it to you. It is considered their intellectual property and is therefore not to be disclosed to the public (their phone jockeys wouldn't know it anyway). A likelier scenario (if this is not the "A", "B" or "S" company, since they use custom boards) is that they default the panel and assign an arbitrary installer code, but they will most likely charge you for that if they'll do it at all. For slightly less than the $85 they would charge you to come out, you can buy a new system board and program it however you want (provided you have an alpha keypad).
 
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Old 09-13-10, 06:28 AM
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Thats what I was thinking, but how can they justify locking me out of equipment that they don't own?

Another unrelated question... My one and only keypad (Ademco 6150) was set to address 17. The manual and various other posts say the first keypad is address 16, but I can't find anywhere that says it _MUST_ be at 16. Any thoughts?
 
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Old 09-13-10, 12:25 PM
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If it's their custom firmware in the chip, then they have every right to deny you access to its programming. That's basically what it boils down to. Like I said, change out the main board, buy an alpha keypad (6160) and be done with it.

Nothing wrong with the address. 16 may have been assigned to the installer's programming keypad. As long as its between 16-23, it's fine.
 
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Old 09-13-10, 01:47 PM
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Originally Posted by justin.brown.86
Thats what I was thinking, but how can they justify locking me out of equipment that they don't own?
You think that's a simple question, don't you?

What Jersey Matt says is true, but it's even more complicated than that--even if there's no custom firmware involved.

Basically, all monitoring contracts have an ironclad clause in them reserving control (actually, owership) of "the dialer" for the monitoring company. (This charming custom of calling a control panel a dialer was begun back in the long-ago days when controls and dialers came on separate boards).
They can justify this by the fact that a dialer left capable of dialing into their Central Monitoring Station (C/S) will tie up an account number they can't reassign to another customer. Or, a strong argument, can send signals that cause false alarms on another customer.

If John Doe calls up and says, "You're fired!" and unplugs the RJ31X jack, his equipment can still dial in and report alarms and troubles five-10-15 years later when Jane Smith buys the house and starts tinkering with her new toys.


The control panel, when it dials in, doesn't say, "Burglar alarm,Zone 5, kitchen window, at John Doe's house".

It reports a digital code that translates something like, "1234567" which is broken down at one of the C/S Receivers as something like "Account 1234 on Receiver 8, reports a Condition 567" which is cross-referenced with their database to identify it as John Doe's house (along with the address kept in the database), and a burglary alarm on the kitchen window, assigned to zone 5 of the originating control panel. <--All that<-- was stored in the C/S's computer database to be pulled up when Receiver 8 (determined by the phone number the customer's control panel dials) receives a transmission of "1234567".

A "You're fired" voice message from John Doe over the phone doesn't free up account 1234 on Receiver 8 so that Alpha Delta Trotsky Alarm Monitoring Company can reassign that account number to Nellie Newbie. Not while the equipment that J.D. owned is left capable of sending in a "1234567" (and half a hundred other signals) which could cause the C/S computer to pull up "Nellie Newbie, Burglary alarm on upstairs bath window, zone 5."

If they do reassign that account, (which entails deleting John Doe's info from the computer file and replacing it with Nellie's info)--which sometimes does happen, from carelessness--then 2, or 5, or 10 years later, Nellie may be beset with a sudden spate of police cars, fire trucks, or ambulances showing up at her door at all hours--all in spite of nothing out of order showing on her keypad displays.

In simplified terms, that's how they can justify the need to control access to panels they are monitoring.
"Loosing" working account numbers from ex-customers costs money: Each C/S Receiver can only accomodate a limited number of accounts, and each Receiver is expensive and requires manintenace, both physical and managerial. It doesn't work just to throw accounts in randomly. When enough lost accounts accumulate, it raises overhead significantly.

So your old panel in your new home, through no falut of your own, _may_ be costing the old C/S money by tying up an account number; but that's only true if someone cancelled his monitoring and didn't see to having a technician come out and reprogram the panel to free up that number at the C/S.

Of course, it's always possible that the old phone and account number was programmed out and the company locked up the panel anyway. They do sometimes abuse the justification (IMHO) to motivate customers to sign back on, or to make it harder for competitors to take over the system.





If you're interested in replacing your control panel, per the excellent advice of Jersey Matt, rather than reward the installing company for their lock-out policy---it's barely possible that you might be able to swap it out without having to use an Alpha.

I'm not too optimistic, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention it. A Vista-20P panel comes from the factory with the 8 on-board zones programmed as 1 Fire zone, 1 Entry/Exit zone, and 6 Instant Prerimeter zones. If your existing zone layouts can accomodate these default zones, then you wouldn't need to go into *56 zone programming at all. Of course, if you have any zone expansion at all, or motion sensors, this won't work.

There are other options, but swapping out a panel will still require you to locate the zones in your house, by location and type. For example, the door near the keypad would be Zone Type 1, an Entry/Exit zone. A motion sensor covering the area of the Entry/Exit door would be Zone Type 4, "Interior Follower". Since you can't go into your existing panel to read these zone numbers and types, you may need to experiment and locate them physically and surmise the zone types.

Does your panel currently show "Ready to Arm"? Do you have a written zone list somewhere? Does pressing * on the keypad cause the keypad to display a faulted zone number for a door or window that's open? If so, locating zones is a pretty simple task. Do you know how many zones you have?

Other than zone programming, the 6150 can be used to program anything else a home normally needs in its system. If you're going to go with a Local system (not monitored), the programming is easy.
 
 

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