Welcome to the new Guardian Security blog! In case you missed our first post we are working on setting up this blog to help our customers navigate their security systems, and camera systems as well as keep you in touch with everything happening here at Guardian Security Systems.

Whether it is after a hurricane or a power surge, it is guaranteed that if the power went out, we are receiving calls from our customers with DSC security  systems.  Why is that? When a DSC keypad loses electricity, just like the clocks on your stove and microwave, it loses the time and date. Without the time and date the yellow service triangle will light up and the keypad will prevent you from arming your system.

Setting the time and date is a very simple process, either you can watch our handy video of how to do it or continue reading below.

Before we go ahead and set your time and date we want to assure that loss of time and date is what is truly wrong with your system and there are two indications of this. The first sign is on the display screen you will see this : – -:- – where the time used to be displayed. 

The second sign is the yellow triangle to the right side of the display screen. The yellow triangle by itself simply indicates service is required however if you press *2 a number will pop up which tells us what is wrong with the system. The number for loss of date and time is 8. If any other number pops up there may be something else wrong with your system and you should give us a call. We will cover what other numbers mean in a later post.

Now that we know it is your time and date  causing the issue we can go ahead and set it. Below I am going to give you the sequence for setting the time and date. Any writing featured in Blue are buttons pressed on the keypad anything featured in red helps clarify what the blue portions are and are not actual  buttons on the keypad.

*6 + Master Code + 1 + hh:mm + mm/dd/yy + ##

But Guardian, half of these things don’t exist on my keypad! We know, it looks kind of confusing so we are going to break each component down so you can better understand it.

First, we are going to hit  *6, this is nothing special you can find these buttons on your keypad.

Second, you need to enter your Master Code. If you are one of our residential customers your master code is most likely your only code, which you use to arm and disarm the system. If you are a commercial customer the master code is the first code programmed in the panel, which may or may not be your only code but, most commonly is the owner/managers code to arm and disarm the system.

Third, is the number 1, found on on your keypad, once again nothing special.

Fourth, is the time in military format. Which for those of you unfamiliar with military time from 1:00 PM until 12:00 AM you add 12 to the hour to make it military time. This makes 4:00 PM into 16:00 and 6:15 PM into  18:15 etc. So first we put in the two digit military hour symbolized by hh. Then we put in the two digit minute symbolized by mm. So if the current time were 6:04 PM we would press 1804 for the hh:mm.

Fifth, is the current date. We put in the two digit month, two digit day, and the two digit year which make up the mm/dd/yy. So if it was January 1st, 2018 we would enter 010118  for the mm/dd/yy.

Lastly, you hit the #, twice.

During this process you may see the word programming flash on the screen or hear some beeping all of that is normal. Also be aware if you take too long going through this sequence your session will time out and bring to the original screen. If for any reason this sequence doesn’t work wait for the screen to reset and try it again. If it still does not work the code you are using may not be the master code.

You are now a master of setting the time and date on your DSC security system. Please let us know in the comments if there is any topic you would like to see us cover in our blog. Also make sure to click on the links below to like us on facebook and twitter and subscribe to our YouTube channel.