On 18/02/2013 02:38, Rod Speed wrote:
....
Its just not possible for the crooks to know which DIY alarms
are being monitored by the owner of the DIY alarm....

They don't need to. They only need to know that the chances of the
Police responding to a DIY alarm are virtually nil. When I still had
factories to protect, I used to get regular updates to the criteria that
had to be met for the Police to attend a burglar alarm.

1) The call had to come from a registered alarm monitoring centre. That
effectively meant it had to be a professionally installed and maintained
alarm. In addition, my insurers required a 100 event log as part of the
system.

2) There must not have been more than two false alarms at the premises
in the past 24 months.

3) The presence of an intruder must be independently verified. At the
time, several years ago now, that condition could be met by using dual
technology sensors. However, when I last heard, there were serious
discussions going on about requiring the alarm monitoring centre to use
video surveillance to give the confirmation.

Colin Bignell