Cross Frame Javascript Communication

I have set of frames... one contains a menu and the other a status frame. I am calling a function from the menu which sets the variables however I need some help passing those variables to the status frame. How would I go about doing such a thing?

This is called from the menu in frame 1 but doesn't work:

Code:
function jumpsec(cat, prod) {
parent.statusbar.category=cat;
parent.statusbar.product=prod;
}

// then my status frame bar has:
document.write(parent.statusbar.category);
document.write(parent.statusbar.product);

The 2 variables are blank on statusbar onload but get populated with each click.