• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Key Fob Mysteries

Quake42

Warrior Princess
Joined
Feb 25, 2004
Messages
9,312
Electronic car key fobs fail on Southampton street

Residents of Dimond Road have been unable to open their cars with electronic key fobs

Electronic car key fobs have mysteriously stopped working along an entire Southampton street, according to residents.

On Saturday people living on Dimond Road in the Bitterne Park area found their fobs would not open their cars.

Madaline Wentworth said: "It's really annoying, I don't like not knowing what's causing it."

It is thought the problem is being caused by interference with the radio frequencies used by the fobs.

Brian Deadman described it as "baffling" and said his key fob worked perfectly well away from Dimond Road.

Pinpoint the cause

Neighbours have speculated about the interference being caused by a mobile phone mast or the nearby Southampton International Airport.

An airport spokesperson said it had not changed any of its frequencies.

Ofcom, the government agency with responsibility for radiocommunications, said residents could contact them and log a complaint which they would investigate to pinpoint the cause of the interference.

A spokesman said it was likely to be due to a signal from a malfunctioning electronic device "leaking" onto the spectrum of the key fobs.

AA technical specialist Steve Evans said the motoring organisation received about 40 call-outs over key fobs not working each month nationwide - usually caused by flat fob or car batteries, or radio interference.

Mr Evans said: "If it is a problem with radio interference, try getting closer to the car and then try walking around the car - the receivers are placed in different places on different cars."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-15278838
 
When this happened recently in Cumbria, it was caused by a nearby cafe's wireless system: Windermere Solved!

Edit: curiously, a similar thing happened to us. A couple of months ago my and Mr Snail's car key fobs started working erratically. Sometimes we couldn't lock our cars and sometimes they wouldn't unlock. We both replaced the batteries but still had no luck.

Eventually we realised that this was only happening at home. We thought there was a new wireless internet connection nearby so we'd just have to put up with it.

However, a couple of weeks ago when he 'imself was away on a golf holiday my fob started working perfectly again and when he came back, his did too.

Haven't got to the bottom of this but we're glad it's all back to normal!
 
About five years ago I worked for a software house that did military spyware.

We had transmitters that could broadcast at anhy frequency, but there were a list of reserved frequencies that we could not legally use. These ranged from TV signals, police radio, mobile phone etc....

But I could easily have removed these checks from the code deliberately or accidentally and broadcast at these frequencies with the kit I had on my desk.
 
Ever since seeing it demonstrated on television a good number of years back now, I've never missed the opportunity to demonstrate how you can amplify the signal of a key fob using your own head: hold it to your temple and open your mouth (not strictly necessary but it adds to the drama), and - hey presto- a satisfying flash of the lights despite being seemingly out of range. Conveniently, a friend's parking space is now within range of his kitchen window, which made me a hero for five minutes a few years back; take it when it comes and bask in it, I say. :)
 
theyithian said:
Ever since seeing it demonstrated on television a good number of years back now, I've never missed the opportunity to demonstrate how you can amplify the signal of a key fob using your own head: hold it to your temple and open your mouth (not strictly necessary but it adds to the drama), and - hey presto- a satisfying flash of the lights despite being seemingly out of range. Conveniently, a friend's parking space is now within range of his kitchen window, which made me a hero for five minutes a few years back; take it when it comes and bask in it, I say. :)

You're trying to fob us off.
 
Listen to him!

Escutcheon at straws.

(Worst. Pun. Ever.)
 
I read the headline as "Electronic car key fobs fall on Southampton street" and thought it made a nice change from fish.
 
I work in alarm business and i noticed more people claiming their panic key fob button went off for no reason. People have always said this because police give you big fines for false alarms. Recently there have been a few people who said their button went off when it was not being touched by anyone, in their pocket etc, and they seemed honest.
 
paranoid420 said:
I work in alarm business and i noticed more people claiming their panic key fob button went off for no reason. People have always said this because police give you big fines for false alarms.

What are you saying? The police did it?
Not sure I believe that.
 
I read that as meaning that because there is a financial penalty for setting off a panic alarm for no reason, i.e. either accidentally or maliciously, a person who has inadvertently activated one (like by sitting on it) may claim that it malfunctioned and went off by itself.
 
Trapped in the drive by my TV: How set-top boxes are interfering with car key fobs
By Ray Massey
Last updated at 9:48 AM on 4th November 2011

The march of TV technology is being blamed for stopping motorists in their tracks… literally.
A popular device that allows viewers to transmit signals to televisions around their home can render remote car key fobs useless.
As a result car owners are left stranded on their driveways because they can’t get into their vehicles or, in some cases, start them up.

The problem can come from just one so-called ‘video sender’ but it has the potential to upset a whole street of motorists.
The revelation came from broadcast regulator Ofcom which was called in to investigate the issue in a road in Southampton.
Inspectors found a resident’s wireless sender attached to their satellite TV box was to blame. When it was switched off the neighbours’ fobs started working again.
Ofcom said ‘leakage’ from the sender emitted the same frequency as the fobs and blocked their signal.

Video senders can be bought from around £80. They take the signal from a cable or satellite TV set-top box and transmit it wirelessly to other TVs in the house.
But there can be momentary interference when viewers press to change channel. Sometimes the senders jam, continuing to transmit interference. The continued signal can hit cars in a whole street, says Ofcom.

Spokesman Rhys Hurd said: ‘Over the past 12 months we have responded to 140 of these cases and a lot of them relate to senders.
‘Our teams have to knock on doors to see how many people are affected. It can be a whole street. Sometimes people say the problem happens in the morning, and then again from tea-time – in line with someone’s work patterns. That’s a big clue.’

The Southampton street case caused chaos for residents. One, Madeleine Wentworth, said: ‘Everyone was baffled. We knew there was something wrong.’
The problem is most acute for those with the most sophisticated car that have ‘keyless entry’ where the fob is needed to start the car.
Sky said it did not endorse the use of senders with its products. It said its boxes did not interfere with any other wireless devices.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1cjzdWbOk
 
Village where nothing works after electrical signal failures
Villagers were left unable to use their showers, doorbells and even car key fobs for several days in the latest case of suspected wireless interference.
7:00AM GMT 05 Jan 2012

Families in Kingsclere on the Hampshire-Berkshire border, spent much of the festive season without heating after the failure of household systems which rely on digital technology.

One family, the Smiths, were baffled when their heating, shower, doorbell and even their car’s remote-control door locks refused to work.
They then discovered similar problems were being experienced by their neighbours.
Chris Smith, whose wife’s birthday on Christmas Eve was ruined by the systems failure, spent more than £250 trying to fix the heating and shower but neither worked until late on Dec 27.

A spokesman for Ofcom, which oversees radio communications, said: “Often these problems can be caused by a video sender that transmits a television signal to other sets in the house. They are not the source of all the problems but in a lot of cases interference is tracked down to those devices.”

Mr Smith, who had the heating system installed 18 months ago, said he did not know of anyone nearby with a video sender.

In October, people living in a street in Southampton reported that their remote car key fobs had stopped working. The problem was tracked down to a faulty video sender which was “leaking” a frequency which interfered with the fobs.
Residents in a street in Windermere, Cumbria, had similar problems in March 2010, which were eventually traced back to a wireless device used to take orders at a nearby restaurant.

Mr Smith has now concluded that the common link between the failed devices was that they all used radio-frequency identification (RFID).
But he said: “The question is: what caused the blocking of the RFID frequency in the village and how do you even begin to find out?
“Kingsclere is in the shadow of the Hannington television transmitter, so it could have been engineering work that went wrong and unnoticed over the holiday period.”

The Hannington transmitter serves the surrounding area. Arqiva, the company responsible for it, admitted that a strong signal could affect RFID devices, but said on this occasion it was not to blame.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... lures.html
 
Haven't we heard stories like that before?

Key fobs that suddenly won't unlock vehicles. Cars that won't start. Alarms that go off for no reason and can't be quieted. Something mysterious is thwarting drivers outside a grocery store in the small Alberta town of Carstairs — and it's sparking all kinds of theories.
The problems have been happening for weeks in the parking lot outside the Westview Co-op grocery store in Carstairs, a town of about 4,000 about 60 kilometres north of Calgary.

A longtime employee at the dollar store right across the street from the Co-op says it's all she hears some folks talk about when they come into her store to buy a battery for their fobs — and then discover that doesn't solve the problem.
"I've been at the dollar store almost four years," Laura Strate said, with a laugh.
"It's just bizarre. People are actually scared to go to the Co-op now because they don't know if their cars are going to start."

Electricians from J. Williams Electric in Carstairs rode to the rescue — but the mystery endured.

"We have shut down the power source in our store this past Monday night to determine that the source of the interference isn't emanating from our location," Kennedy said. "The location is unknown so we're just waiting for followup from the ministry."

He said they're working with a team to try and figure out what's going on, including a federal government agency.

"We have partnered with neighbours, stakeholders and the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development."
The Didsbury RCMP say they've heard the rumours and had reports so are looking into it — but it's not a priority for them.

There's some interesting stuff in the "Comments" section too.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/carstairs-westview-co-op-grocery-car-key-fob-1.4999558
 
Two possible interference sources - the grocery store's power supply and wifi - seem to have been ruled out, according to this Gizmodo article:

https://gizmodo.com/a-mysterious-force-is-blocking-car-key-fobs-in-this-sma-1832232272

Edit to Add:

This Calgary CTV news item:

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/mysterious-glitch-affects-vehicles-in-carstairs-parking-lot-1.4277715

... provides two other factoids. A nearby auto repair shop claims the vehicles affected are primarily Dodges. Tonight businesses in the vicinity will run (or have run) a test in which they each shut off their power to see if they can identify a definite source for the problem.
 
Last edited:
North American automobile remote keyfobs operate in the 315MHz ISM sub-band.

I predict the interference is due to second-harmonic radiofrequency breakthrough from Canadian Pacific trains and base-stations, operating at around 157/158MHz, but (importantly) now increasingly using digital transmission standards rather than traditional analogue FM. This may also include elements of rail-road signalling / telemetry & telecontrol in addition to speech channels.

The cure is to improve the car remote locking system cable screening, or to make the under-hood receiver antennas less-sensitive (by partly-wrapping them in tinfoil).

TLDR: boring tech solution. No supernatural aspect. Also lacking in pancakes and maple syrup
 
My car's fob suddenly won't unlock it when it's parked at work. Well, Techy reckons he can't do it, anyway. Might be a bloke thing, heh.
 
Years ago, I had a problem with unlocking and locking my car one day. It turned out that the extremely hot weather and the strong sunlight had drowned out the infra-red from the remote.
 
I had a One Series BMW and if parked in Heathrow 'Park On'e car park, would wind down it's own windows, unfortunately, after I'd flown away. The staff there were used to putting a sheet over that model of car, it was a regular thing they told me. I tackled BMW, they could neither confirm or deny, but did 'turn that feature off'. Or summat.
 
I had a One Series BMW and if parked in Heathrow 'Park On'e car park, would wind down it's own windows, unfortunately, after I'd flown away. The staff there were used to putting a sheet over that model of car, it was a regular thing they told me. I tackled BMW, they could neither confirm or deny, but did 'turn that feature off'. Or summat.
And here I was raised to think that BMW stands for Break My Windows. Apparently they thought of everything. Now you can steal a BMW AND not break the windows.
 
Carstairs Canada Case Closed ...
The curious case of the Carstairs key fobs has been cracked
Stephen Kennedy, asset protection manager for the grocery store, told CBC News on Friday that the source was not on the store's property, as many had thought. ...

"Innovation, Science and Economic Development advised they had located the source, and it had been rectified," Kennedy said, of the federal department formerly known as Industry Canada.

"They didn't identify what is was or where it was, other than to say it was 'consumer.' They advised it was not in relation to Co-op property. It was not on our property, but it was in the vicinity or the area. ...

"After investigation it was determined that there was faulty consumer electronic equipment stuck in transmit mode in the area, which was causing the interference." ...

A spokesperson with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada had more details.

"In this case, it was determined that it was a remote car starter. It has since been deactivated and the interference has stopped," Hans Parmar said, in an emailed response to CBC News late Friday. ...

SOURCE: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/carstairs-key-fob-mystery-solved-grocery-store-1.5003043
 
Back
Top