January 16, 1978

BY GREG KENNEDY
Of The Observer

Anyone with two pieces of brass could have gone into the burglar alarm business before 1900.

The first burglar alarms were simply two pieces of brass rubbing together on a door. In New York City before the turn of the century an alarm was only as good as its jangle. Those days have gone forever.

In a world of mushrooming technology and television shows which offer instructions to would-be thieves, Dave Curie, 34, 1009 Lockhart Circle, Sarnia is the owner and operator of Damar Sound and Alarm Service.

Damar Alarms began as a part-time venture for Dave, who came to Sarnia in 1970 as a broadcast engineer for CKJD. Born In London, he had worked for Bell Canada for seven years prior to his moving here. He studied electronics at Beal Technical School in London.

"I got into the business as a favor to a friend in London. His father had a office-building and warehouse complex and I sat down and built an alarm system from scratch for him," Dave said.

Burglar alarm systems are highly sophisticated pieces of electronic equipment nowadays, he said. In some, respects, though, the old principal of two pieces of metal still applies. There are still door contacts, but now they are magnetically operated contacts or switches.

"Conductive foil is still applied to windows," he said, 'and that has been around for a long time."

Photo-electric beams are used as security devices. "Most people conceive them to be a bright white light shining across a darkened area, but now the beam is invisible because it is infrared," he said.

All a person has to do is take one step into an area protected by a microwave or ultrasonic motion detector to trigger the alarm. Dave has installed 60-65 of them in Sarnia.

When questioned about the creativity of the crooks who challenge the modern alarm systems, Dave replied: "If man has designed it, man can beat it." Of course, the degree of protection we put into a system is based upon the degree of risk, what the customer stands to lose."

There is no such thing as a standard system. Every burglar alarm system is designed to meet the requirements of the area to be protected. All exterior doors and windows are bugged, and usually some form of motion-detecting equipment is installed within the premises.

Dave has 150 systems around the Sarnia area. Anybody with a business which could be broken into could benefit from the services of Damar Alarms, he said.

His customers are mosty solid-type businesses, by which he means they will remain in the area for years. Dave estimates that 75 per cent of his business comes from store owners after several break-ins have occurred. Large department stores, warehouses, milk stores, offices, and even Lambton College and Lambton County Fire School are guarded by Damar alarms.

"We are the only alarm company doing serious - we are listed by the Underwriters' Laboratories of Canada - work in the Sarnia area," he said. Damar Alarms became listed with the ULC In September of 1976. In May of 1977, Dave established and obtained listing with the ULC for a Grade AA burglar-alarm monitoring and a central station fire alarm service.

"The ULC tends to supervise and monitor what we do by surprise testing," Dave said, "and routine inspections of our installations and facilities."

Insurance companies are also interested in the type of installation and services provided by Damar Alarms.

"In many cases our subscribers can realize a substantial insurance premium discount once our service is installed. In some cases Certified Alarm Service (ULC) Is a prerequisite to obtaining insurance protection," he said.

The nerve centre for all Dave's systems, which extend as far as Chatham, is the central monitoring station. The location will remain secret so the effectiveness of his operations will not be jeopardized.

To enter this storehouse of electronic hardware, one must first get into the building and identify himself over a plain grey phone in the bare hallway which is watched via closed-circuit TV. There is no sign of any sort. After initial clearance the person enters a small chamber between two doors. The inside door has a peephole, and is opened magnetically only when the equipment supervisor is visually satisfied of the person's identity.

All alarm signals enter into the central monitoring station. The ESC 5000 terminal within is the most up-to-date station available. It meets the highest standards now required in both Canada and the United States, Dave said.

"It has never been beaten anywhere since it was designed in Canada and manufactured by Canadians over four years ago," he said. There are 600 pairs of wire which carry signals into this centre," he said. "We have to lease a lot of facilities from Bell Canada to get the line signals to this central monitoring system."

A loud clicking noise is heard when ever an alarm is activated. The noise emanates from the little machines resembling ticker-tape outlets which put a number code on paper ribbon. The number identifies where the alarm is happening and its nature.

The person on duty then consults a carefully-maintained book and notifies the police or fire station as the case may be, then the owner of the premises, Dave said.

"It is just a matter of seconds until all parties involved are notified," he said.

There are three distinct alarm signals which can be triggered. A super-high security system will go off if somebody is tampering with the equipment during store or business hours. Another alarm will tell whether the customer's alarm is switched on or off. The third alarm signal will indicate if the business is open or closed. There is also an auxiliary alarm the owner can activate to indicate a robbery or break-in in progress.

In the event of a power failure, Dave has an entire room of batteries to maintain full power for a minimum of 48 hours at the central monitoring station. Not all alarms are out to detect people. Damar Alarms also monitor Damar Alarms also monitors fire alarms and sprinkler systems. There are even alarms to make sure that water pressure is sufficient in the pipes leading to the fire sprinklers, he said.

"If somebody even starts to close a water valve," he said, "we get a signal. It's our responsibility to investigate immediately and get it opened up.

One of the problems in the alarm business is false alarms. Most of them arise from equipment failures, which are few and far between. Nuisance alarms are caused by misoperation of the alarm systems by the customers themselves, he said.

"We get an average of three legitimate alarms a week in Sarnia and district," he said.

In September of 1977, Dave Currie became the founding director of the Canada Alarm and Security Association, which came into being at the same time. Its aims and goals are to promote faster installations of higher quality and to maintain the good reputation of the business.

He is concerned with the numbers of people buying such alarm devices as home smoke detectors which have no approval by the ULC.

"Devices with just the UL label are not recognized in Canada," he said," and they probably do not meet the higher requirements of the Canadian authorities. We do not market home smoke alarms ourselves."

The name Damar comes from the first two letters of Dave and the first three letters of the name of his wife, Marie. They have two children, Michelle, 4, and Christopher, 15 months.

Dave has seen his business steadily expand over the last seven years to the point where a line will be going into Forest in the near future. The company maxim is: Don't give a burglar a chance.

Dave Currie doesn't.