Customer Reviews

Dakota Alert Long Range Alert System Kit

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Here's a device that does what it says. I've been able to hear the alerting transmitter as far away as six miles.
This unit operates on MURS channels which are in the VHF spectrum between
151.82 mhz and 154.6 mhz, respectfully.
This means that this unit is also fully compatible with the Dakota MURS intercom system.
I have both and have units in my Shop, Barn and House.
I am able to hear an alert on all three and intercom as well.
I almost never have any false alarms. I've mounted the alarm unit on a tree at about 4 feet elevation. The beam width if fairly narrow but detects cars, people or animals out to about 50 or 60 feet.
One nice feature allows an external contact closure at all of the receivers when an alert comes in.
This could be used to open a gate or perhaps another outside alarm or even a garage door. Lot's of possibilities here.
Dakota also makes a hand held unit that could hear the alert and also intercom with all the rest of the units in the system.
Great for us farm operators that might be out in the pasture working.

Care should be given when adding to this system as Dakota also makes a short range alert transmitter that looks like the MURS units. It is not the same and operates on UHF channels.
Make sure the device stipulates MURS or VHF operation.

I own the entire set- the base station, two walkie-talkies, two motion sensors, and two of the driveway sensors. I've been using the setup for about six months without any problems, the units are great.

I used the driveway monitors, which are buried seismic sensors, to alert when vehicles near my gates. The motion sensors are placed inside the gates. The buried sensors are more accurate so they are placed on the perimeter. Once dialed in correctly, the motion sensors detect vehicles and humans with minimal false alarms. Most false alarms here on the motion detector are caused by wind blowing nearby bushes.

The range is fairly decent for my purposes, the farthest sensor is about a quarter mile, maybe a third, from the base station. The base station will pick up signals better than the hand unit, but both are adequate and are fine. I have clear line of sight without obstructions, and the antennas on each end are placed high (15' high for the gate sensor, 7' high for the indoor base station.)

I've yet to change the batteries in any unit after six months. At first I did have some issues with constant false motion sensor alarms which required strategic placement and settings inside the motion unit.

Other than that, this setup is exactly what I needed at a decent price. Five stars.

UPDATE Jan 2012:

I've been using these units for over three years now, and they're still great! I have added a second base unit, with now a total of eight sensors. Six motion detectors and two buried magnetic sensors. My outdoor dogs have learned to listen for the interior base unit alarm.

The motion detectors work best for sensing humans and wildlife, while the more accurate and reliable magnetic sensors are best for sensing vehicles. The 12"x1" magnetic sensor can also be placed above ground, doesn't have to be buried. Once set up properly, these units work daily without fuss.

I live in a high lightning area and have lost three motion units due to electrical storms. I've sent each back to the factory for repair for about half the price of a new one. Good service. I should mention that I have the transmitter units mounted on steel posts, which is probably attracting the lightning. I plan to change the steel posts with wood stakes.

The range continues to be strong at 1/3-1/2 mile, no problems there. Haven't tested longer lengths but the signal is very strong at the base station. With the proper conditions (no obstructions) and frequency matched high gain antennas (if they exist) it would seem the range could be extended to 1.0 - 1.5mi easily.

I have 80 acres adjacent to a national forest. My gate is approximately 1/4 mile from my house. My driveway winds through heavily wooded areas and around a small lake to my house. I have needed a long range driveway alert system that would transmit through heavy forest. I have been extremely pleased with the performance of this system. I have had very few "false alarms". I suspect that they were deer or coyotes. I purchased the "bird house" to hide the transmitter and it really looks like it is a bird house (except, if you look really close, you will see an antenna coming out the roof. I was going to wrap the antenna with camo tape, but it was not really necessary since from about 20 ft away, you can't really see it. I also purchased a hand-held receiver for when I am working outside or walking in the woods. I can also use it to communicate with the base station. Good value! The only improvement I would make to the design would be to transmit sound and maybe a picture, but that would make it much more expensive, stretch the technology, and use up batteries too quickly. I am happy with what I have.

Tried several other driveway alerts, including an earlier Dakota ( that was junk ) and this MURS system is the best I've found....which is not to say perfect, but lot better than the previous units I've tried.

Have both the magnetic probe and the motion sensor transmitters. The magnetic probe is a battery eater compared to the motion sensor, using a set (6 AA ) of batteries about every 3 months compared to the motion sensor, I get about a year on that unit. Both are set on my driveway, ( which is 1500' ) and the motion sensor actually goes off more than the mag probe, due to deer and my dogs setting it off, but uses batteries less.

Had the units about 5 years now, and still operate reliably.

Couple notes if you use this product:

1. When the mag probe batteries get to a certain point of discharge, the "Alert Zone" will start to sound every 60 seconds. This is your message to replace the batteries. First set of batteries I put in my new unit apparently had a bad battery of the six ( brand new, out of the pack CopperTops), so the unit starting sounding off every 60 seconds. Called Dakota, they had no clue, sent me a new unit....which, of course, did the same thing.....they sent ANOTHER ( all at their expense, I give them credit ), and it did the same thing.....finally, I tried another set of batteries....BINGO. Put a voltmeter on the other batteries, and sure enough, one of them was doornail dead.
But the AMAZING part was Dakota didn't know their own product enough to say "change the batteries" the first time I called !

2. Set the motion detector transmitter in a location where you have a backstop about 20-40' out in front of it.....like a dirt bank, or a building wall, etc. Aiming it out into an open field doesn't let it "bounce" it's signal the best to pick up ANYTHING that passes in the pickup field. You will get more "misses" with the wide open field out in front of the transmitter. Also, ANY moving bushes or tree branches will set it off....so trim, or don't put them in the range of the unit.

I bought one kit and one extra receiver. In our application the transmitter is pointed at the driveway. The house is 100 yards away from the transmitter, the garage/workshop 100 yards away, and the house 100 yards from the garage - a triangle arrangement. Everything is line-of-sight; in fact you can see the transmitter from the window in the house where the receiver is on the sill. You can see the transmitter from the workshop's door.

On installation, the unit worked just fine for four days. The only annoyance was that turning the receiver's volume up high would result in feedback noise when triggered. Then it stopped triggering either receiver. The company sent me another transmitter. This one would only trigger one receiver, and the reception on that one was very scratchy. We tried changing locations slightly for all three units. We tried different antenna lengths. We tried different channels. We bought and tried another new set of batteries. No improvement.

Third transmitter -- out of 10 vehicles, one receiver received five alerts, the other received three. I've just gotten an RMA to return the whole bunch (at my expense).

-dan z-

We live on a ranch with a mile-long road to the highway, and I wanted a system to let me know when somebody drives in. I bought the Dakota alert plus an extra transmitter, and now have a pretty good idea when somebody's driving in the ranch road. It took a bit of tinkering, the transmitters came configured for maximum sensitivity, so every time the wind blew we seemed to get false alerts. I set the sensitivity to low on one unit, and to med on another, and we've had very few false alerts since then. I started with just one transmitter, but could never be sure about the alerts, since we do have animals moving around our property. With the second transmitter, though, I know it's definitely a vehicle.

I did rig additional snoots onto the transmitter to cut the size of the beam. I used a hacksaw to cut a 1 1/4" straight PVC coupler in half, and it fitted perfectly onto the existing snoot.

Had a theft a couple of weeks ago Then found this system,We received it just a few days after ordering.Last night it paid for itself.. We caught a prowler at our cars .. Thanks to the alarm system ,we were able to "detain" him until the cops got here.. Our neighbors are waiting for theirs to come in ...It is simple to use

Units arrived quickly. The receiver did not work as received so called the Help number. Bottom line, when dip switches are set to 00 they do not default to channel 01 as stated in the manual. So clearly, these are not tested before shipment. Once that was corrected it worked well. Mine is roughly 300' from the house and has slightly faster response to cars than the old unit (which lasted about a year). The receiver is currently in a window, so it's line-of-sight except for some small trees. Did not like the addition of the external antenna - makes it too easy to see from the road and succeptable to damage/weather - and did not like the 9v battery being replaced with 6 smaller batteries. Also, any cars moving past may be out of sight before the unit alarms react. The ring tone has been replaced with a voice..."Alert. Zone 1" sounds three times. This is irritating and there is no adjustment to limit the number of times it reports. Seems like they were "Lost in Space" at some time. Anyway, good unit and works better than the old one.

Product Review
Dakota Alert BS - Kit MURS M538 - BS
Long Range Alert System Driveway Alarm
(1) Extra MURS Transmitter purchased.

Bought: June 15, 2011
Arrived: June 20, 2011
Packaged and ready for return:
Tuesday June 21, 2011 7:30PM EST

This product is very poor on detecting Humans!

A brief history of installer:
36 years service work as an Electrical Contractor, Licensed Master Electrician

Installed as directed with the instruction that came with these units:
Units were installed using a self - leveling laser: for accurate angle of detection of DAKOTA's transmitter beam, all testing done in an unobstructed area.

LOCATION OF BASE UNIT: Unobstructed: Less than 125 ft. (but close to this distance) from Transmitters, inside a wood (stick) framed and finished house.

TESTING OUTSIDE:
Both transmitter units set @ maximum range
Very narrow beam of detection (angle of detection) on these units.
Human detection: Height @ 2' above ground level, outside, no signal was sent to Base Station until human was less than 5' away from Transmitter, Height @ 4' 6" above ground level, outside, 20' or closer before the units sent a signal back to base station. Beyond 20' no signal was sent at any height.

TESTING INSIDE:
Both transmitter units set @ maximum range
Very narrow beam of detection
@ Floor level: our cats had to get within 5 inches and look inside the detector before a signal was sent to base station.

What a waste of time and energy!

NO, 1-800 FREE CALLING BACK TO TECHNICAL SUPORT @ DAKOTA. (A must for installation of all electronic devices: Most all electronic suppliers offer this.)
Return to Amazon with free shipping. No problem dealing with Amazon personal.
Chase Amazon credit card used to purchase: Great, helpful service from Chase.

Purchased the receiver and two transmitters for our property, which is heavily treed and hilly. The system works very well, but the volume from the receiver is too low, and when I inquired about hooking up an expernal amplified speaker, I could not engage them in a conversation. It will hook to an external buzzer, but that will not tell what zone has had the activity. Again, works well, but the volume and the inability to hook it to an external amplified speaker has us questioning the money spent.