Dakota Alert MURS-BS-KIT Motion Sensor Kit - MURS Alert Transmitter Box and M538-BS Wireless MURS Base Station - License-Free Multi Use Radio Service

Our driveway is 3/10 of a mile long and climbs 400 ft up the side of a mountain. It is very battery sensitive. When I first tried it in the house to make sure it worked, I got nothing. I had read something about low battery in another review and had suspected our batch of 9 volts for a while anyway and had a new pack in the drawer. Changed it out to one of the new batch and it worked just fine.Took the transmitter down to the bottom of the drive and was getting nothing. Moving up the drive I was still getting hit and miss on detection. Looking at the circuit board there is a jumper to make the LED flash when it detects so I changed it to that and found out how sensitive it is to the distance setting jumpers. There are three choices, each for different ranges of distance from the sensor to your target object (vehicle). It does matter..... Part of my problems were that in most places where I was trying to put it, the sensor was way off for the range it was set for. Using the LED on setting allowed me to zero in on distance from sensor to target so it tripped every time when it was supposed to. By changing the distance jumper setting and seeing when the LED went off without needing someone at the top to tell me it went off.Next I tried it in several locations I wanted to put it and still had some problems in that it would sense, but not announce on the base unit. Since it behaved the same way at different ranges up and down the road, I thought I might have some interference on the frequency range it was transmitting on. They give you a wide range of choices so I played with that and moving up two base frequencies and using the third sub-frequency, I got it to work every time at 3/10 of a mile.Bottom line, tricky but well worth it. Most people would likely not have as many issues to play with. In my case, once it was detecting the signal has to travel up hill, through the trees in a fairly hostile environment. Walking around with a walky talky up here gives you and idea of how much interference there is in my area. The ability to play with them on the unit is likely the only reason it works.Recommendation on setup if you buy one. MAKE SURE YOU USE A GOOD BATTERY AND IF IT DOES NOT WORK OUT OF THE BOX, GO GET ANOTHER ONE, PREFERABLY FROM A NEW PACK OR TESTED WITH A VOLT METER.1) Try it in the house with unit 10 ft or so apart2) Change the LED setting to ON3) Mount the transmitter where you want it and verify with the unit open that the LED goes off when it should. (Change the settings to match the distance from the road to the unit, the book is pretty close on what it says for what each setting means in distance. Don't guess, measure it and it will be right.)4) Once you know the LED goes off every time, change the jumper back to LED off and close up the unit. (No need to burn up the battery turning on the LED even if it does not take that much juice.)5. If you have problems after that with the base unit announcing, start looking for a different frequency. Move both units up one frequency at a time and see if you get more constant results. If you still have problems, I would go to the third frequency and then try adjusting the sub-frequency and see if you can't get it to work every time without fail.Bottom line, great unit for the price but can be tricky to get it to match your terrain unless you live on level ground without a forest between the two units with a lot of radio frequency interference. I plan to buy at least one more transmitter, I have the first one set to catch anything coming up the drive. The second one will be to tell me if they come to my house, or turn off at the rental lower down the road. Also looking at the mobile unit to use when we are outside working to get the announcement and talk back to the base at the house. Half of our property just will not work for cell phone coverage and there our times it would be nice to call back to the house.

I have a driveway that is about 400 feet from the street and have an electric gate half-way up. There are numerous pine trees that block the view to the street, thus causing me to want to know when someone was driving or walking up my driveway.I don't write many reviews of things I buy unless I am really impressed or really disappointed. I did extensive research on driveway alerts and finally decided on the Dakota alert ht-kit murs long range alert driveway system. I bought the system and I got the birdhouse also.I found the instructions and the visuals to be somewhat limited, so I called Dakota Alert customer service. I got an instant phone answer to a real live person and no recording. The customer service person was an American in America and had complete knowledge of the product. Within a matter of a couple of minutes my questions were answered and my setup was completed. It is so nice to call customer service on a product where you aren't routed to the Philippines or India.I had the whole system put together, including the bird house in about 20 minutes. About 10 minutes was spent putting together the bird house. Keep in mind that the bird house is a disguise and is not intended for birds... The holes were pre-drilled and came with high quality weather resistant screws(even one extra screw). All sides lettered inside so you put it together right. I am glad I purchased the bird house. It covers and disguises the transmitter and will probably protect it from the elements.I mounted the transmitter(don't take off the translucent covering of the lens--I didn't because I asked the support tech) about 300 feet from the receiver. Tested it with a car and a person and it worked perfect.I later had some false announcements and figured out that when the wind blew, the branches of the pine tree next to it caused it to announce. Also, make sure the transmitter is mounted at the right height and direction.I charged the portable radio, made sure it was defaulted to channel 01 and it also works perfect, giving me announcements about 1000 feet away in my back yard. This isn't one of those flimsy radios that say they will transmit 5 miles and then when you get them home you can't even use them from one side of the house to the other. This radio will transmit from anywhere on my property(only 3 acres) to the base station very well.So, in summary, I am very happy with the whole unit and am going to buy another transmitter for my back yard.Good job, Dakota; thank you very much.