Customer Reviews
I own the entire set... 
2008-11-09
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.
Super Super Value 2008-01-13
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.
Very intermittent 
2007-05-31
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-
Reply from manufacturer re: Quack device does not work as advertised 2006-08-22
I wrote that a large grey fox (stood directly and side-on infront of the sensor - closer than any deer would and will just as much heat) and a large opossum walked around for fifteen minutes directly within 6 feet of the sensor/transmitter and no alerts were sent - he replies:
Sorry to hear you are having troubles with that system. The sensor will have troubles detecting smaller animals like fox and opossum. Things like people, deer and vehicles should be much easier to detect. Are you trying to use this as a driveway alarm or to monitor a game trail? Either way, your best results will usually come if you mount the transmitter 3 to 4 feet off the ground and about 20 feet from the trail or drive. You might experiment with moving the transmitter up or down slightly to find the best location.
Please let me know what happens when you try the different locations.
Thanks,
Jason Quam
Dakota Alert
