Emergency alarming apparatus

• US 6,067,345 A
• Filed: 10/07/1998
• Issued: 05/23/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: OKI Electric Industry Company Limited
• Original Assignee: OKI Electric Industry Company Limited
• Inventors: Sasaki, Hironobu
• Primary Examiner(s): Woo, Stella
• Application Number:
  US09/167,565
• Time in Patent Office: 594 Days
• Field of Search: 379/39, 379/44, 379/37, 379/33, 379/32, 379/1
• US Class Current: 379/39
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems

Abstract

An emergency alarming apparatus for detecting a resistive short-circuit between a pair of telephone lines. When the continuation of a dial tone more than a predetermined time period or the generation of a busy tone is recognized but a line current is not detected, the apparatus stops the transmission of a monitor signal to the telephone lines.

Claims

1. An emergency alarming apparatus having a telephone to be connected to a pair of telephone lines extended from a telephone exchanger, a sensor for detecting the occurrence of an abnormal state and generating an abnormality detection signal, and alarming means for transferring abnormality detection signal generation information to a monitor center through the telephone lines when the abnormality detection signal is received from said sensor, comprising:

monitor signal transmitting means for transmitting a monitor signal representing whether the telephone lines are normal or not;

line current detecting means for detecting that a magnitude of a line current flowing through the telephone lines is equal to or larger than a predetermined value;

tone detecting means for generating a tone detection signal when said tone detecting means detects that a tone component which is transmitted from the telephone exchanger exists on the telephone lines; and

monitor signal control means for stopping the transmission of the monitor signal if the line current is not detected by said line current detecting means but the tone component is detected by said tone detecting means.

2. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said tone detecting means generates the tone detection signal when said tone detecting means detects that the tone component continuously exists during a predetermined time period.

3. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said tone detecting means generates the tone detection signal when said tone detecting means repeatedly detects the tone component more than a predetermined number of times.