Dual site supervision for a control channel cellular radio used in a fire alarm reporting system

摘要

Dual site supervision is provided for a control channel cellular radio for a fire alarm reporting system that uses logic that causes a control channel cellular transceiver to operate in a nonstandard manner and to use a different and second cellular base station or site that the unit would not normally select operating pursuant to a standard cell phone software module. The logic causes the control channel cellular transceiver to monitor and test through more than one cell base station or site, thereby meeting the dual communication path supervision requirement for UL listed communications systems for stand alone fire alarm reporting systems. The available cellular control channels are first scanned, and the signal strength of each cellular control channel is measured. Then the cellular control channel with the strongest signal strength and the cellular control channel with the second strongest signal strength which are verified as being available for the assigned carrier are selected to report the status of the fire alarm system. A cellular radio message on the status of the fire alarm system is transmitted over the cellular control channel with the strongest signal strength, or if unavailable over the cellular control channel with the second strongest signal strength.