SENTELCO

We at SENTELCO, LLC live, eat, and breathe surveillance so it is common for us to walk in to a room or look at a piece of equipment and immediately start thinking of monitoring points. "Where are the vantage points from which a camera could cover the door?" "Would the motor on that compressor benefit from a tachometer?" "How would we build a sensor to monitor that condition?" This curiosity is what fuels us and keeps us coming back to work every day.

Sometimes, however, we deliver a proposal and are reminded that not everybody lives in the same world that we do, or at least, they do not look at it the same way we do. Believe it or not, there are those who do not look at the fixtures in a business and imagine "what would their customer view screen look like?" Hard to believe, right? I know!

Maybe the word "surveillance" conjures up clandestine or voyeuristic thoughts. As if the act of watching is somehow forbidden. Unfortunately, television gives us that (mostly false) impression. Yes, there are some folks who can imagine no other use for cameras or sensors, but that is not what interests us at SENTELCO, LLC.

Our surveillance systems provide basic instrumentation to devices that do not otherwise have it. Imagine driving your car without a speedometer or a temperature gauge. Yes, you can get a general idea of how fast you're going or whether the car seems to be running right, but wouldn't you like to know for sure that you're driving 25 through a school zone and not 35?

We provide "windows" to your world, or as I like to call it: "reality TV." If you have cameras, then your customer view screen shows you the same thing you would see if you happened to be standing right in front of whatever you are watching. It just happens that you might be behind a wall, behind several walls, twenty feet away, or twenty miles away. We don't stop with cameras, either. Your SENTELCO monitoring system provides a dashboard for whatever you want to monitor. Go ahead, challenge us! We look forward to designing a custom fit monitoring system for you!

Please contact a SENTELCO, LLC sales representative for more information.

To all of our clients, vendors, friends, and family, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and hope the coming year is full of happiness and prosperity for you and yours!

Hello Everybody!

This morning I would like to talk about radiation.

Everybody has heard the word "radiation" usually with a negative connotation. For example, you might think of radiation as the stuff left over after a nuclear explosion or what is used to fight cancer (using something bad to fight something worse) or from the doctor's office where you know that x-ray radiation is something of which you ought not get too much.

All of those things are accurate examples of radiation, but it is so much more. "Radiation" means "to radiate" or "to give off energy." The sun gives off radiation which we detect as warmth and light. Definitely good things, but if you get too much of that warmth and light, you may turn a painful shade of red! We also use radiation to cook our food. The obvious one is a microwave oven since it sends tuned micro-waves of energy through our food, which adds energy to the water molecules causing them to vibrate and heat up. The heat coming from a flame such as from a gas oven or from a camp fire is also radiation, as is the heat from an electrically resistive heating element such as on an electric stove. Incidentally, the microwaves that cook our food are the same kind of radiation as that which carries our cellphone signals although the microwave in our house is far less powerful. All radio and television waves are also transmitted via radiation at specific frequencies.

At SENTELCO, LLC, part of our business is detecting radiation of all these forms and more. We use a variety of sensors such as small solar cells, microphones, temperature & humidity sensors, cameras, and a very special type of sensor called a Geiger-Mueller tube.



The "Geiger Counter" was invented in the early 1900's by Hans Geiger and Ernest Rutherford and later improved by Geiger and Walther Mueller. The "Geiger-Mueller Tube" remained relatively unchanged until 1947 when Sidney Liebson invented a version of the counter which uses lower voltage to operate. The basic principles behind the Geiger-Mueller and Liebson counters are as follows:

A sealed tube containing inert (non-conductive) gasses such as helium, neon, or argon is built such that two parts of the tube conduct electricity and they are separated by the non-conductive gas with a window made of glass or mica. One part is called the "cathode" and it basically means the negative pole. In the center of the tube, an "anode," or positive pole is placed and charged up to about 500-700 volts. In the picture to the right, you can see the anode in the middle of the glass tube connected to a cap on the end and the cathode cap on the other end. When the radiation particles pass through the gas in the tube, they very briefly form a conductive path which shorts out the positive pole to the negative pole. This momentary short is detected and counted. It is also commonly used to click a speaker which gives us the classic "Geiger counter sound." Basically, the more clicks you hear, the more particles are passing through the tube and thus the more dense (higher level) the radiation.

There are three forms of radiation depending on the "charge" of the particle. They are called alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Alpha particles are positively charged although very weakly. A single sheet of paper will stop an alpha particle. Beta particles are slightly stronger and are charged negatively. Beta particles will pass through the paper but can be stopped by a sheet of aluminum 3mm thick. Gamma particles are the strongest form of radiation. They are a neutral particle commonly known as "photons." Gamma particles can pass through several centimeters of lead.

All-in-all, radiation is not a good thing or a bad thing, it just "is." As with many things, radiation is very useful when we understand and can control it and can be very bad if we do not respect it. At SENTELCO, LLC, we want to help you understand this fundamental force of nature and and how it affects your environment.

Contact your SENTELCO, LLC sales representative if you would like more information.

Once installed, SENTELCO® monitoring systems can pretty much run themselves. However, that doesn't mean you cannot interact with the system!

Every SENTELCO® monitoring system comes with a management console (desktop computer with a web browser) specifically set up to manage your system through a personalized web-based command center. During the installation phase, we work with you to put exactly the information and controls you want or need on to each screen, fully explaining the system as we go.

Wondering what to do after we leave your site? No worries, help is only a phone call, email, or on-screen contextual help click away! There are no additional support costs with your paid subscription. We take pride in our pricing and feel it is one of the easiest in the industry. Truly a "cafeteria plan," all pricing is worked out in advance and you pay one price. There are no "per-call" charges, no false-alarm fees, no "early termination" fees, no hidden taxes or levies.

As they say, "knowledge is power" so call your SENTELCO® account representative today and we can bring your systems intelligence to your desktop!

... somebody would invent a system that could be installed in restaurant coolers so that if they went out during a busy lunch or supper rush it would send an alert to somebody that could call a repair guy right away. Wouldn't it also be great the people working at the restaurant did not have to stop serving customers to focus on the equipment while all of this was happening?

Oh yeah, somebody did invent that and it is available today at SENTELCO, LLC!

For about $36 a year per cooler (plus one-time installation cost), you can do what you do best: run your business. Let us keep an eye on the dials for you!

But what about that "one-time installation cost" you ask? That's where we get you, right?

Not really. Of course, all installations are different but they're usually not that expensive. You'll likely spend more running the lights for a month or two than it would cost to install a SENTELCO® monitoring system.

However, we are a little different than what you may be used to. For example, unlike the other guys, we don't rush in, slap a white box on the wall, tell you how cool you are now, plant a blue sign in your yard and disappear. Our signs are black.

But wait, there's more! We're in this with you for the long haul. We are not in business to sell white boxes, we are in business to protect your assets and provide event management when equipment breaks. We can even help you proactively maintain your equipment to avoid costly breakdowns in the first place. There are no per-call fees and no early-termination fees.

Forget about the little white box. Our displays actually tell you what is going on. In high-definition color. As detailed as you want to get.

Call or email your SENTELCO® account representative to chat about what we can do for you.

...and how! (remember "Alfalfa" anyone?)

Summer is here and wow is it hot! A quick reminder to everybody who keeps a refrigerator or freezer in the garage to keep an eye on their appliances (or let a SENTELCO® monitoring system keep an eye on it for you!).

Just like an HVAC unit trying to keep your home or business cool, when it is hot outside the compressors in your cooling units must work extra hard to keep the temperature low. Think of it like a stress test for your equipment. And when does equipment fail? When you need it most!



In the picture to the right we can see the outgoing and return air temperatures in an HVAC system over three days. Notice in the middle of each day that the outgoing temperature stays low, indicating the compressor is running constantly. Even so, the temperature line is camel-backed which means the HVAC is not keeping up with the temperature.

In the image to the left, one garage is roasting at 105 degrees F during the day, while the other one stays in the low 80s. Neither garage has HVAC recirculation. The differences are the garage depicted by the green line faces the south and does not have an insulated door whereas the red line faces west and has an insulated door.

Below the garage temps are the internal temps of deep freezes in each of the two garages. Notice how the lines are mostly flat during the heat of the day indicating they are running constantly for hours at a time. Both freezers are fairly new and have good seals.

Call your SENTELCO® account representative if you would like more information!

What is "out-of-band monitoring," anyway?

Out-of-band, or "OOB," simply means that the system doing the monitoring is not part of the system being monitored. For example, suppose you have one of those new refrigerators with the digital temperature gauge built in. That's nice as long as the power is on. What does your temperature meter read when the power goes out? What tells you that the power has gone out? An OOB system is a separate system designed to tell you when the power has gone out, or when the temperature is too high or too low.

SENTELCO's monitoring system is a self-contained perpetual watchdog, designed from the ground up to withstand power outages and specifically trained to "bark" when it detects anomalies. And bark it does. You can choose from any combination of a variety of notification methods: text message, email, video alert, voice annunciator, flashing lights, or any custom requirement you may have. Location does not matter. If your cooler is in Wisconsin (love your cheese) but your winter home is in Texas, not a problem, you can watch your systems over the Internet or from your phone and be notified just as fast as if you were in same building. We'll even notify your service company if you want at no additional charge!

Call or email your SENTELCO account representative to find out more!

Thank you to all the service men and women who fight and sacrifice to keep us free!

Hi Everybody!

I just wanted to remind everybody that SENTELCO, LLC does NOT charge false alarm fees. We have the same simple low flat rate per sensor pricing that we started with and see no reason to change.

It's probably unusual seeing good news, but we're pretty positive folks around here. Others may send out notifications that their rates are increasing ($150 for second false alarm, up to $500 for each subsequent false alarm), which we think is ridiculous.

So, please feel secure knowing that we're keeping an eye on things for you and we're not going to nickel-and-dime you out of business. If something happens, we'll call or email or text message you or the service company of your choice at no additional charge.

Thanks again for your business and remember to be safe out in this heat!

Hi Everybody,

You may have noticed a change to your uninterruptable power supply graphs. We've updated the way we're reporting and polling them so now you can monitor multiple UPS's from the same site processor. "How many?" However many you want!

As always, you don't have to do anything to use the new functionality, it has already been rolled in to your system and is running now.

Enjoy!

Okay everybody, need your help here.

I found a great deal on some xenon flash modules and now I need to figure out what to do with them. These are similar to the detachable flash used on a film-type camera. You know, the ones that make the high-pitched squeal when they're charging.

Anyway, I have a bunch of them and I'm looking for ideas to turn them in to something useful.

The flash uses about 330V to fire one pulse and then it takes about 3-4 seconds to recharge. 330V is enough to make a fairly effective "bug zapper" so there's one idea. Another idea is for "chaser lights" around an advertising display.

Any other ideas?

Hello Everybody,

We will be moving switches and servers this weekend so there will be periods of downtime beginning Friday evening into Saturday. We will be swinging over the servers one at a time so your site processors will automatically reconnect to a different server. Reports may be slightly delayed as there will be fewer servers in the farm working on them for a few hours.

Please contact your SENTELCO account representative if you need any additional information.

... or big government.

"Surveillance" means "to watch over." Show me somebody who has nothing they want to keep an eye on or protect and I will show you someone with an empty life, indeed!

SENTELCO provides the tools for you to watch over, or surveil, many types of objects, activities, or processes. Whether it is monitoring a parking lot or driveway, temperatures of HVAC equipment, operation of a pump, motion in a house, or nearly anything else you can think of, SENTELCO can figure out a way to monitor it.

Once the sensors have been placed, they are integrated in to your SENTELCO monitoring system and can be viewed from anywhere you have a network connection. If you want to watch the barn from the house but have no desire to watch the barn from another town or state, no problem! Or, if you have properties under construction all over the metro area and want ensure the security of the site through the night, we can install temporary remote video and audio which can be securely monitored from anywhere on the Internet. 400 feet or 4,000 miles away, your peace of mind is as close as your SENTELCO monitoring solution!

Send us an email or call a SENTELCO account representative. We will be happy to help you solve any monitoring challenge!

Hello Everybody!

We've added some dedicated video processing servers at the core. "For what?" you may ask? We're improving our automated archival video creation!

Automated archival video creation? What the heck is that?

Archival videos are the movies created from the thousands of images saved when your SENTELCO system detects motion on your cameras. The images have always been available for your review. Now you can download a disk image that can be burned to a DVD and viewed on any standard DVD player.

Please contact your SENTELCO account representative for more information.

All cameras (electronic or film) use a lens to focus the image in front of them to a smaller point within the camera. On electronic cameras such as those used for security or monitoring that point is the sensor, sometimes called a "CCD" (charge-coupled device).

The CCD sensor has thousands of picture elements ("pixels"), each of which sense a very tiny piece of the picture. The number of elements depends on the make and model of the sensor, but in general they are the same within a class of devices. Ironically, while there are dozens of brands of cameras they all use the same model of CCD sensor manufactured by one or two companies.

"So why do the pictures look so different?"

That is where the lens enters the picture, so to speak. The way the lens was made, specifically the thickness of the lens, determines the effective focal length. This distance is what determines how much of the image gets to the CCD sensor, also known as the "crop factor." A smaller lens gives a wider angle of view.



The camera that took the picture above has a 6mm lens and a relatively narrow field of view. The CCD sensor in this camera has 420 TV lines ("TVL") of resolution. The TVL determines the clarity of the picture.

The camera below uses a 3.6mm lens and a CCD sensor with 550 TVL. Notice the much wider field of view and improved clarity.



The higher the number of TV lines generally means the higher the cost of the camera. How you want to use the cameras determines how much quality and therefore how expensive your system will be. For instance, if you only want to know if the horses are in the barn you can use the lower cost camera. However, if you want to know which horses are in the barn by name, you may want to go with the higher resolution models.

Another factor which contributes heavily to the cost of your surveillance system is the type of camera and associated back-end system. What I've described above is a CCTV, or "closed-circuit television" system. Another system which is typically significantly more expensive (but can have much better resolution and more flexibility) when deployed in quantity is a "network" or "IP" camera. I'll compare some IP cameras in a later blog post. Until then, please call or email if you would like additional information about video surveillance or your specific monitoring needs.