***9/21/2010, Update., I have what appears to be two broken M538-HT Transceivers., They will not communicate to each other on any channel., I have emailed Dakota Alert twice via their contact form with no reply as of yet., I will update you on how things go from here. ***
***9/23/2010, Update. I still have no reply from Dakota Alert., I will call them tomorrow if I don’t hear anything by then. ***
***9/28/2010 Update., The M538-HT radios are fine they are not broken., I am apparently a ninny., Long story short… there are sub-channels which are found by hitting the mode button., Secondly… call Dakota with any issues as they seem to ignore their “contact us” form.
There are plenty of driveway alert systems on the market, although very few are actually worth spending your hard earned money on., The Dakota Alert systems (specifically the MURS type) are, by far, the best I have found.
Dakota Alert has a version of their wireless driveway monitor that uses the MURS frequency in the VHF spectrum (between 151.82mhz and 154.6mhz)., There are reports of people getting up to 6 miles of range on the MURS frequency, this depends on your surroundings however., With this kind of range the system can be used at most businesses and homes with serious acreage., The system uses infrared heat motion detection so false alarms are very rare.
My favorite part about the MURS based alert systems is that you can use multiple devices to listen for zone alerts., For example you can have four motion detectors and mix and match the receivers between base stations and MURS 2-way hand held radios, etc,, Very easy to use and setup.