BEFORE READING ANY FURTHER,

P L E A S E

W A T C H   T H E   V I D E O

(Supplied as part of your installation kit)

THEN, PLEASE READ THESE "NOTES FOR BRITISH USERS" AT THE SAME TIME AS YOU READ THROUGH

1.             THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS, including the sheet Please do this

2.             THE TRANSMITTER INSTALLATION and OPERATION MANUAL

including the sheet Grounding to a U.K. electrical outlet

3.             THE PUPPY AND DOG TRAINING MANUAL or THE CAT TRAINING MANUAL

 

The Installation Instructions need some additions and modifications for British use.

 

IMPORTANT SAFEGUARDS

 

 

If you employ persons to install this device, you should ensure that the appropriate U.K. safety legislation is adhered to.  If the installation is undertaken by a person at work the following legislation can be construed as applying

 

                The Health and Safety at Work, etc Act   1974

                Provision and use of Work Equipment Regulations   1998

                Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations   1999

 

                      And other subordinate regulations.

THE SYSTEM AND ITS COMPONENTS

 

The contents of the Invisible Fencing® Brand kit have been modified for British conditions.  Please check that your kit contains the items listed below and notify us immediately of any missing items.

GATE transmitter for 300 metre or smaller loops,

ICT 700 or 725 STANDARD transmitter for 300 to 800 metre loops,

Or

ICT 775 ESTATE transmitter for larger loops.

240v/12v three pin transformer, or a 220v/12v two pin and earth transformer for users in continental Europe or a 110v two pin American style transformer for our customers in the West Indies

The 725 and 775 transmitters can be supplied with a sealed lead/acid rechargeable battery and red and black wires to connect it to the transmitter.

R21 receivers and collars, as many as you ordered.

Wire (Either British Specification 6491x PVC-insulated 1.5 mm2 or 2.5 mm2 stranded PE insulated made to our specification) as you ordered in 100 metre or 500 metre reels.

The Temporary Visual Boundary.

This consists of wooden sticks and one or more balls of poly twine.  See page 14 of this booklet for instructions on their installation and use in pet training.  The training flags shown on the video are not supplied in the U.K.

The Operation and Installation Manual for your Transmitter and the R21 Receiver.

The Puppy and Dog Training Manual.

Or

The Cat Training Manual.

Also included in British Kits:

 

The Self-Installation Instructions. And a sheet - Please Do This

The battery replacement scheme sheet - U.K. and Eire version.

A VHS videocassette  " Installation and Dog Training "

A plastic bag containing all the booklets, the video and

Black plastic receiver post covers to use on the first day of dog training.

(775 and 725 transmitters only)  If a lead/acid battery has been included in your order, red and black wires are included to connect the lead/acid battery to the transmitter board.

NOTE: red to + terminals on battery and circuit board, black wire to - terminals.

Connect both wires to the board first, and then connect them to the battery, to avoid damaging fragile components on the board with a 12-volt current.

Black electrical insulating tape for covering above ground wire joins.

Power caps® for R21 receivers (one for each of your receivers).

The power cap® tester and instructions for its use

Three brochures.  Please keep these to give to interested friends.  If they eventually buy an Invisible Fencing® Brand system from us, you will get a years supply of free power caps®.

 

Items used in U.S.A that are omitted from British Kits:

The Masonry Cutting Blade has been omitted, as it is illegal in the U.K. to use such blades in circular saws or lawn edgers.  See comments below on Crossing Driveways.

Asphalt (Tarmac) Patching Compound has been omitted, as British driveways are not always made of asphalt.  Any builder’s merchant or DIY store will have a wide choice of suitable compounds in various colours to patch any slit you cut. (The black coloured one is sometimes called Gutter sealant.)

Scotchlok® Electrical Spring Connectors.   See page 8 Splicing the Wire.

EQUIPMENT REQUIRED FOR INSTALLATION

 

A half moon edger is a good tool to cut a slit in turf for the wire, provided you have only a short length of wire to bury.  It helps to first mow the turf very short.  For longer slits a "gas powered lawn edger", i.e., a petrol one (as shown on the video), speeds up the slit cutting somewhat, but is by no means essential.

Cable ties and cable clips, available at electrical wholesalers, are useful for fastening the wires neatly to walls and to fences.  You will need a hammer to fasten the clips to the wall.  Wear safety goggles when hammering the clips into masonry.

To cut the driveway, you will need a masonry cutter NOT an electric rotary saw. (See page 8 - Crossing Driveways.)

 

PLANNING THE INSTALLATION

British gardens are generally already fenced or hedged and so very little of the wire needs to be buried except when crossing paths or driveways.  Unburied wires seem no more prone to breaks than buried systems and the breaks are much easier to find.  The loop wire can often just be dropped at the bottom of the existing fence or thrown under the hedge.  Do not basket weave the wire successively in front and behind a row of hedge plant stems; doing so makes it impossible to flick the wire back out of the way if you ever want to mow close to the hedge.

Ideally the radio field width should be set as wide as possible.  To stop a large dog running through an open gateway after a rabbit or cat the collar should buzz when held at dog neck height at least two to three metres from the wire.  It is possible to widen the radio field at danger points such as open gateways by laying the wire in an S shape across the driveway three times, keeping the three parallel wires across the driveway at least two metres apart.

In a small garden, provided it is entirely fenced or hedged, the radio field can be turned down to one metre.  This will still be enough to stop the pet scrambling over the top of the fence and yet will give the pet as much room as possible.

If you have room, consider laying the loop to keep the pet back out of view from open gateways.  This keeps your dog as an unpleasant surprise for burglars, and also reduces the risk of your pet being stolen.

Keep wiring entering the house as neat and concealed as possible.   Burglars have been known to cut obvious wires that they think might be part of an alarm system.

If you have cattle grids, DO NOT DROP THE WIRE DOWN INTO THEM: they will absorb most of the signal around the grid.    Lay the wire at least one metre away from the grid, preferably on the house side of the grid.

The Americans report that wire run close to chain link fencing sometimes results in a weakened signal.  We have no reported cases of this in the British Isles, but please bear the possibility in mind.   If the signal is so weakened, simply move the wire further away from the fencing.

If the loop wire or twisted pair runs parallel to buried water, oil, or gas pipes, or phone or electricity wires these may pick up the radio signal.  If these pipes are connected to radiators, boilers, etc, within your house, the receiver may buzz near these, and it could give the pet a shock, if it is wearing the collar.  The solutions to this problem are either (1) try to lay the loop wires away from where these pipes and wires run or (2) Add an Invisible MASK™ transmitter to your system; this will jam the signal inside the house.  .   (This is more of a problem in the U.K. where old pipes and wires are buried nearer the surface than in the U.S.A. where they are buried deep below the frost-line.)

 

THE TWISTED PAIR CANCELLATION EFFECT

 

This effect can only be used as discussed in the installation instruction sheet: it cannot be used to create a gap at a point on the perimeter.  It is sometimes possible to make a perimeter gap using an additional signal masking transmitter; contact Invisible Fence (Wessex) for details.   Long runs of twisted pairs reduce the size of loop the transmitter can power.

Bear in mind that the signal passes easily through brick and stone walls.

STEP 1: LOCATING THE TRANSMITTER

Put the transmitter in a DRY place where you can conveniently make a daily check that the green light is on and blinking.   The circuit boards MUST be kept dry; corroded boards are not covered under warranty.

 

STEP 2: GROUNDING YOUR SYSTEM

Grounding is generally called Earthing in England.  The 775 transmitter contains the lightning protection circuits within the transmitter circuit board — The 725 and 700 models have a separate lightning protection unit, the LP3000.  For lightning protection to work YOUR TRANSMITTER BOARD OR THE LIGHTNING PROTECTION UNIT MUST BE EARTHED.   See your transmitter installation leaflet.

 

STEP 3: INSTALLING THE LOOP WIRE

There is a trick to unwinding the wire from the roll.  Get a helper to hold the free end, while you walk away along the desired wire route with the wire reel spinning on one of the sticks in the kit.  Hold the stick horizontally, with one hand at each end.   Simply rolling the reel along the ground does not work well.  The wire keeps getting too tight, and if the ground is wet, the cardboard sides of the reel disintegrate and the wire gets tangled.

Because the radio signal is sometimes found to be not quite where you expect it, it is usually best to get the entire loop laid out approximately along the desired route with some slack in it and connected to the transmitter.  You can then check with a receiver held at pet neck height with the posts vertical that the receiver buzzes where you want it to, BEFORE you do any wire burial.   This way, if you do then decide that you have to re-route the wire, you have not wasted time cutting slits and burying wire in the wrong place.

SPLICING THE WIRE

 

For on or above ground joins we have found that stripping the insulation from about 5 cm of each wire end and twisting the wire ends together with plenty of metal to metal overlap is perfectly adequate.  Carefully wrap the completed join in black electrical tape, ensuring the tape wrapping extends at least 5 cm back over the uncut insulation.

If you have to make a join in a wire that is to be buried, the Scotchlok® DBY connectors described in the instruction sheet are available in the U.K   3M will be happy to advise you of your nearest stockist; telephone them on 01234 229442.   We sometimes have small numbers of them for sale.

 

CROSSING DRIVEWAYS, etc

If you want to run the wire across a lawn or across a driveway, the wire should be buried to prevent people tripping over it.  To cut a slit across a surfaced driveway, use a suitable masonry cutting tool.  These can be hired at very reasonable rates from builders’ equipment rental stores.  Check maximum permissible speed marked on disc is ABOVE indicated speed marked on Manufacturers Data Plate on the masonry cutting tool.  Please wear industrial eye protection or a face shield, which conforms to the current British Standard.  It is also advisable to wear industrial gloves, and to use an appropriate face mask when undertaking any work where dust may be a hazard.

The Abrasive wheel regulation 1970 (S1 1970 No. 535) stated

                "The fitting of abrasive wheels can only be carried out by a person authorized in accordance with the above Act."

This regulation has been repealed to match European legislation but training is still required.

STEP 4: CONNECTING THE INVISIBLE FENCING® BRAND SYSTEM

Connecting the Transmitter

About 1% of our customers, those living in fringe reception areas, have experienced interference from the transmitter on their home radios when listening to Radio 4 on LONG WAVE (1515 metres or 198 Kilohertz).  Please contact us if you - or your neighbours - suffer from this problem.  We can fit your transmitter with a 0.33 micro farad capacitor that eliminates the interference.

Dogs can sometimes get a shock from the collar if they get close to an operating TV set.  They soon learn to avoid it.

 

CHANGING THE POWER CAP®

Whenever you remove the power cap® from the receiver, follow the instructions, about waiting five minutes before replacing it, as printed on the blister pack.   The receiver takes its time to power down and it will not work if you do not wait.

Unused power caps® last five years or more.   So it is sensible to keep a few spare ones on hand.   Use the power cap® tester supplied with your system every month or so to test the power cap®.   For 85% of pets, the power cap needs to be changed every five or six months.  For the remaining 15% that frequently test whether the system is working, you may find it needs to be changed every three or four months.   Consider joining the Battery Replacement Scheme; see the form supplied with your system.

 

TESTING THE RECEIVER

The receiver will buzz and shock for ten seconds, then shut down for ten seconds.  It goes through this cycle two or three times and then shuts down until removed from the radio field.   This is intended to protect a pet that somehow gets trapped in the radio field.

Do not use any thread locking compound on the receiver post threads.   It is unnecessary and it can seriously damage the plastic case of the receiver.

FITTING THE RECEIVER-COLLAR

Tan leather collars are available in 14", 16", 18", 20", 22", 24", 26", 28" and 30" overall lengths.  Generally the collar supplied is 3 to 5 inches longer than the pets neck circumference.  Cats with necks down to about 6" can wear shortened 14" collars.

Blue Nylon collars are available in sizes                XS  ( 8.5"-11.0")

                                                                                  S  (10.5"-16.5")

                                                                                 M  (15.0"-24.0").

Red or Blue collars with a fail-safe buckle are available for cats.

Short space posts are available for cats and very small dogs.

Keep these booklets and a plan of your wire layout in your files, with the position of all wire joins marked on it.  The plan may come in useful to you some years in the future when you are looking for a wire break.  After four or five years, especially in acid soils, the joins can get corroded and the transmitter will then start to beep faintly.   Taking the joins apart, cleaning the wire-ends and re-making the joins solves this problem.

Keep any surplus wire.  It can come in useful for repairing breaks.

PLEASE KEEP THE BOX, THE WIRE REELS, AND THE FOAM PACKING FOR THE 90 DAY GUARANTEE PERIOD IN CASE YOU DECIDE TO RETURN THE SYSTEM TO US.

FULL REFUNDS CAN BE MADE ONLY IF ALL EQUIPMENT, BOOKLETS AND WIRE (RE-WOUND ONTO THE REELS SUPPLIED), ARE RETURNED TO US IN REASONABLY CLEAN CONDITION!!

The Operation Manual needs some modifications for British use.

 

FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS

The transformer provided to British and Irish customers steps down the 240 volt mains voltage to the 12 volts a.c. required by the transmitter.

Continental customers are supplied with a 220v/12v round pin transformer.  American 110v transformers are also stocked.

 

CHECKING THE SIGNAL FIELD

MANY PEOPLE MIS-UNDERSTAND HOW THE WARNING WORKS!

A timer inside the receiver starts the shock about 0.8 seconds (eight tenths of one second) after the buzzing starts.  It is NOT that the buzzing starts at a certain distance from the wire and the pet gets shocked only if it goes nearer the wire.  If the pet stays still with the collar buzzing it will still get shocked a fraction of a second later.

The numbers on the transmitter adjustment dials DO NOT represent feet or metres.  They are arbitrary.

 

WIRE SPECIFICATIONS

American wire gauge (AWG) sizes are not directly comparable with British metric ones.  We use 2.5 sq mm thick wire, type BS6491x stranded, for all sizes of loop.

In general

With the GATE transmitter loops of up to 300 metres can be run.

With the ICT 700 and 725 transmitters loops of up to 800 metres can be run.

With the ICT 775 transmitter loops of up to 1500 metres can be run.

 

SERVICE DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONS

A.  System working but pet going through.

1. Widen the radio field by turning the range knob up.  Check that the posts are touching the pets skin and that the receiver is buzzing when brought to within 2 to 3 metres of the boundary wire.  Use the power cap® tester.   A weak power cap® will still buzz but not shock.   Re-train the pet if you think it is confused.

2. If the pet goes through again after you have widened the radio field, telephone Invisible Fence (Wessex).   The microchip inside the R21 can be re-programmed to increase the shock and decrease the warning time.   There is no charge for these adjustments and they will probably solve the problem.  For very nervous pets the shock can be reduced by fitting "Shunts”; these are little flat strips of plastic fitted underneath the posts that drain away some of the shock.  We can send you these free of charge.

B.  System not working.

Have you tested the power cap® recently?   Did you wait five minutes before replacing the power cap®?

If you think the problem is in the receiver, return it to us.  However, if you suspect the problem has been caused by water getting into the receiver, three days drying out on top of an Aga with the power cap® removed often works wonders.

If you have more than one receiver-collar and both are not working the problem is almost certainly in either the loop or the transmitter.

IF TRANSMITTER GREEN LIGHT IS ON ALL THE TIME (and THE WARNING IS SOUNDING on the ICT 700,725, or 775 Transmitters).

Take a short piece of wire (a paper-clip will do) and connect it across the two output terminals on the transmitter.  If the green light begins winking normally and the warning stops, you probably have a break in the loop wire.   Spend about twenty minutes looking around the loop for the break, concentrating on areas where you have been gardening recently.  If you cannot find it, telephone us, and we can sell you a break finding kit that will rapidly find breaks if they are above ground.    Below ground breaks can be found using radio location equipment, which may also be available on loan from us. (There is a postage charge for this).

IF THE GREEN LIGHT IS WINKING but you have no signal.

The transmitter may have either a component failure or been damaged by lightning. 

If you are not sure whether the problem is in the receiver or the transmitter, it is probably best to return both items together to us.

IF THE GREEN LIGHT IS OFF.

Check the wall socket is still working by plugging in some other piece of electrical equipment, such as a portable lamp.   If the socket is O.K., return both the transformer and the transmitter to us.  NOTE: there is no plug fuse inside the transformer.

Do not break the seals and open up the transformer case.   The manufacturer will not replace it under warranty if you do so!

 

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

 

TO RETURN SUSPECT EQUIPMENT

SEND the receiver and / or transmitter (and transformer if appropriate) back to your local dealer or directly to Invisible Fence (Wessex).  A padded (Jiffy or Mailmiser type) envelope with some extra bubble pack is generally adequate protection.  To protect yourself against financial loss we recommend you register the package, as you are responsible for the loss in the post of any item that you send to us.

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR OWN NAME AND ADDRESS.  (We have had a number of anonymous pieces of equipment arrive back here for repair!)

The Puppy and Dog or Cat Training Manuals need some modifications for British use.

Before you begin training your pet...

PLEASE GET ANYONE WHO WILL BE HELPING YOU WITH THE TRAINING TO WATCH THE VIDEOCASSETTE PROVIDED IN YOUR KIT!!!

It will give you confidence, and your pet will sense this.

Sticks and string are supplied in the kit to make the temporary visual boundary.

(The training flags shown in the video are more appropriate for open plan American gardens)   The string fence should be erected about half a metre nearer the wire than the point at which the receiver begins to buzz as you approach the wire with the posts held vertically at pet neck height.

If you are crossing a courtyard or if you find that the ground is very hard the stick can be placed in an earth filled flower pot.

It is NOT necessary for your pet to feel the shock, i.e., the correction, again, or even hear the buzz again, if he has obviously learnt to avoid the boundary."    For many pets one shock is all they need.

Some pets can become difficult about putting on the collar.  To avoid them associating the collar with the shock let them wear their collars in the house for an hour or so before you take them out for their twice daily training sessions.

AFTER INITIAL TRAINING

If your pet runs through the radio field once during or just after the training period DO NOT PANIC.  The pet generally finds it a traumatic experience, which it decides not to repeat.

However, a few pets persist in running through.  If your pet does start doing this, first check that you have the field width set as wide as possible.  If that does not solve the problem, CONTACT US.  We can re-program your R21 receiver and fit extra posts on a leather collar.  This will almost certainly solve your problem.  There is no charge for this modification.

 

THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING IN THE YEARS TO COME

If you find that one dog chews at another dogs collar, paint the collar daily with BITTER APPLE, available at some branches of Boots, pet shops, and distributed by Petcetera, Bradeley Green Farm, Tarporley Road, WHITCHURCH, SY13 4HD, tel: (01948) 668100   FAX 668101.   (They take telephone orders with credit card.) .  The bitter flavour really discourages dogs chewing things, including their coats, sore places, bandages, etc.  Their web site is www.petcetera.co.uk.

Also, give the dogs other more interesting things to chew, such as raw hide pieces or the very large bones that pet shops and friendly butchers sell.   NEVER GIVE YOUR DOGS SMALL, EASILY SPLINTERED BONES, such as CHICKEN BONES.    THEY CAN CHOKE TO DEATH ON THEM!!   Keep the dogs confined and keep an eye on them while they chew their bones, as their first instinct is to bury them in the garden and then ask you for another one; that can rapidly become expensive!

A receiver can be damaged beyond repair by another dog chewing it.   If you think this is going to be a problem with your dogs, we can supply at no charge a piece of plastic pipe to protect the receiver. (Or, you can use car radiator hose yourself with jubilee clips.   You will need to get LONGER POSTS from us though.)

If in spite of this, your receiver gets chewed, non-functioning receivers and collars will be exchanged free of charge.

DO NOT OVER-TIGHTEN the posts on the receiver.  It is all too easy to crack the plastic receiver case or find the post sockets start to rotate.    Use the blue post tightening tool available FREE OF CHARGE FROM US.    We cannot replace receivers with cases cracked in this way, or with spun posts, under warranty.

If your pets collar should break and the receiver box is lost somewhere in the garden, there is a way to find it.   First confine all your pets and take their collars off.  Take your transmitter, and disconnect it from the transformer so the backup battery powers it.  If there is no back-up battery on your transmitter, cut the wire running from the transformer to the transformer and use two - or better, three - lantern batteries connected in series to power the transmitter.  Dangle a 2 metre diameter loop of wire from the transmitter, turn the signal adjustment up to 10 (maximum power) and walk around the garden with the transmitter until you hear the receiver buzzing.  It is best to do this on a still day accompanied by a young person with acute hearing.  Many people have succeeded in finding lost receivers this way.

IF A THUNDERSTORM THREATENS - DISCONNECT THE LOOP WIRES FROM THE TRANSMITTER!!!  ...And bring your pets indoors until the storm passes.   It is also a sensible precaution to disconnect any other domestic equipment that is connected both to the mains electricity supply and any other long runs of wire such as telephone lines, for example cordless phones, answering machines, and fax machines.   All these - and TVs and videos - are vulnerable to lightning damage.  Unplug the three pin plugs AND the little telephone plugs and the aerials until the storm passes.

Please telephone, fax, email or write to your local dealer or us if you have any uncertainties or questions.  We are here to help and we want you to find it straightforward to install and maintain your Invisible Fencing Brand System® and train your pet.

 

 

Invisible Fence (Wessex) LLP

Westwood House, Bradford Peverell

DORCHESTER, Dorset, DT2 9SE

Tel: (01305) 889716    Fax: (01305) 889718

Email: ifwessex@saqnet.co.uk

Last revised March 8, 2006