Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

There is a bike bay near here and if i park at one end of it i cant disable my alarm without pushing the bike to the other end. Another location has the same issue too, so what is it? Earths magnetic fields interfering with my signal?

Elec-trickery baffles me when things like this happen as i know we are surrounded by unseen microwaves, radio waves etc and i wonder just how much of an effect that has on the signal from my key fob.

Fob circuit board is ok with no hairline craks on it btw, checked that already as ive had that problem before on a car.

Any ideas, anyone?????

Anyone else have this problem?????

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

dunno about that.

but i do know that if you touch your head with one hand while pressing the fob with the other, you can activate/deactivate your alarm from further away than if you just do it normally

clever eh?

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

I thought you had to place the key/fob on your chin to get it to work from further away..... works like that for the car.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

What frequency does the alarm fob kick out? (manual should tell you).

Check the batteries in the fob, when they get low it can play silly beggars (like slightly changing the frequency etc).

Think yourself lucky though, I know a car park where if you park at one side, Landrover's factory alarms refuse to work, and there's bollards preventing you pushing it in a straight line.

Generally it's a battery issue rather than radio interference, but you might be unlucky. Might also be worth getting in touch with the alarm manufacturer & finding out if they do fobs with a different frequency & asking if you can teach your alarm to listen on a different frequency. However, that might not solve the problem, or it might just move it to somewhere else.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

heard lots of problems with alarms around mobile phone masts. even a case of someones not working at point blank range, wheeling it down the street - and then working properly.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

Advise whoever you know of this happening to that they should get in touch with their local Trading Standards office.

There's pretty strict legislation regarding telecommunications equipment and the interference of other devices (mainly due to all the hype surrounding mobile phones). I've had to deal with a lot of this when spec'ing out WiMax-like systems.

Technically, you know when you leave your mobile near a speaker & you get a message, it makes a noise on the speakers? That's illegal, and the mobile phone manufacturer could be taken to court over it. However, the problem is proving who's at fault. The mobile phone manufacturer, or the speaker manufacturer for not shielding properly?

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

Sounds like Radio interferance to me. Same problem at Alexandra Palace after the show. The Radio mast causes havoc with peoples alarms. I had to bend over the bike with the alarm fob in my pocket to dissarm the bike and that took ages!

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

it is a little disconcerting! i was amazed to find out that microwaves, mobiles and wifi use similar frequencies. It can be a bugger if they're in close proximity.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

I would have to say the mobile phone is at fault, if my phone is near the car stereo it has the same effects weather the speakers are shielded or not.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

That's another good one. Radio mics used in stage performances.

Ever got one of those near a high speed data radio setup? Bleeding nightmare! Mind you, the data is unaffected, but the artists on stage get mighty p*d off when they can't use the mics ;)

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

Speakers should always be sheilded, and car speakers generally are. Granted they have minimal protection.

I agree though, I reckon it's the mobile at fault, the same happens to professional radio DJ's in a professional studio. Think of the sheilding quality they get!

But then, you need to be able to prove legal liability, not just have a hunch.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

oh yeah that's it! :lol:

i also heard that alarm fobs will work via a telephone - so if yours won't work you can call someone at home and get them to press the spare while you hold the phone near to the car/bike. but i might have got that one wrong as well...

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

In most cases, that's an urban myth, because the telephone doesn't have a speaker in the handset that will output the right frequency. Same goes for recording & playback.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

Well thanks for all the answers guys, its helped me a bit. I think. Or has it?

Well at least i know i'm not completely nuts, so thats a bonus.

Also after i posted this i went out to meet up with the Squid and head down to see Grinch for tea n cakes. I got to our meet point before the Squid and when we were ready to set off, guess what. Yup, it happened again. Even our talented Squid was baffled by it.

So i wheeled it down the road a bit, tried again and nothing. Along the road a bit more and still nuthin. :(

Stood about looking a bit blank for a bit, as i'm good at doing, tried again and BINGO! Well bleep-bleep at least and off we went. No issues when doing it again getting fuel, or again leaving dans, or getting fuel again.
So it makes me think its not the batteries in the fob cos the last time it messed about this much was on the way to AR06 last year!

hmmm :scratch:

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

What make of alarum is it? My datatool plays similar tricks. Sometimes it won't work unless the fob is within inches of the alarm, sometimes it works 6 feet away, sometimes it won't work at all unless I first set the alarm off.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

Buy an S4 you can overide the fob with the pin code :)

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

Mines a Meta alarm and since that post its worked fine as usual. Guess i'd better get some new batteries in case anyway as i'd imagine the ones in the fob must be waht came with the bike and that would make them nearly 7yrs old. Even at best, lets say the guy changed them for fresh ones the day he sold me his bike, the'd be 3yrs old.
Worth a try i guess, unless anyone has any better suggestions?

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

That's 'The Power Of The Org' at work again... ;)

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

girl i work with cant lock her car via remote central locking on her driveway? it works everywhere else tho? other ppl who visit have trouble aswell.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

Do you know which Meta it is? The 357's (esp the 357T IIRC) are pretty suceptable to GSM interference.

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

See i think this is the same problem as mine but how can i find out/prove it?

Not sure but i'll look tonight. And whats monosodium glutamate got to do with alarm probs then? Oh wait no, thats MSG and you said GSM.
So whats glutamate sodium mono got to do with it.

Ermmm, whats GSM stand for again??

On another note i spotted on a news report that some scientists had criticised the "electronic smog" that is now engulfing our city centres and they say it will only get much worse and affect health adversely when all thes "free" wifi zones start popping up all over the place too.
Wish there was a special pair of glasses or something that would alow you to se all the invisible electromagnetc fields along with radio waves. I think it'd be fascinating to actualy be able to see this "smog".

Re: Alarm fob works intermitently in certain places..
 

GSM - Global System for Mobile telecomunications - based on TDMA (not that you really wanted to know ;) ). Furthermore, America uses CDMA, not TDMA. Hence why you generally need a "quadband phone" to work in the US.

I'd agree that the short distance WiFi "hotspots" could cause problems. I wouldn't be supprised if the law was amended for those too, originally intended for pirate radio stations, might mean that running a WiFi hotspot in your home would be an offence. A pretty major deal for a vast majority of broadband users.

The longer range (originally named WiMax) services shouldn't be a problem. To my knowledge, it's still pencilled in to use UHF frequencies for these once terrestrial analog TV dies.