Something mysterious is blocking vehicle key fobs from working in a small Alberta town

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: charlyv

Would a 5 ghz wifi signal be enough to cause the issue, if it was in close proximity?

No.

Key fobs work on 300 to 433 Mhz.

On top of frequency hopping.

What Project said or some dumb snip with an over powered ham radio set up.

NOT A MYSTERY. In my area many times an aircraft carrier sails into port in Bremerton the key fobs fail to work. The car dealers are inundated with complaints. Finally someone remembers the Navy is responsible and calls them on it. They say they have no idea. The FCC gets involved and does an "investigation" for "unauthorized frequency use." The Navy says they have no idea, sorry. Then the fobs start working again.

The reason this happens is because some screw-up Chief forgot to turn off the electronic countermeasures so they are still spewing out interference on the low voltage frequencies. Had this happen to me at work. Drive home and the fob worked fine. Around here we treat the whole thing as a bit of a joke. Obviously no aircraft carriers where you are, but somebody has their countermeasures on. That's the issue.

a reply to: schuyler

Seems the closest military base there is in Calgary around 30 km away. And Edmonton 240 km away. Those are the two areas with a military base nearby.

Must be something local, with the RCMP then.

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: schuyler

Seems the closest military base there is in Calgary around 30 km away. And Edmonton 240 km away. Those are the two areas with a military base nearby. Must be something local, with the RCMP then.

Secret base, maybe. Or testing in the field. My impression was the interference was within about a five mile radius. I worked about two miles away from the dock and I live about ten miles away as the crow flies, but behind some hills. Of course, for a land-based system they could boost the power significantly.

originally posted by: schuyler
NOT A MYSTERY. In my area many times an aircraft carrier sails into port in Bremerton the key fobs fail to work. The car dealers are inundated with complaints. Finally someone remembers the Navy is responsible and calls them on it. They say they have no idea. The FCC gets involved and does an "investigation" for "unauthorized frequency use." The Navy says they have no idea, sorry. Then the fobs start working again.

The reason this happens is because some screw-up Chief forgot to turn off the electronic countermeasures so they are still spewing out interference on the low voltage frequencies. Had this happen to me at work. Drive home and the fob worked fine. Around here we treat the whole thing as a bit of a joke. Obviously no aircraft carriers where you are, but somebody has their countermeasures on. That's the issue.

STILL A MYSTERY. It could be electronic countermeasures based on your experience with the aircraft carrier. Why are electronic countermeasures being used in this small Alberta town? There is no military base near. If it is electronic countermeasures why have they been turned on for many weeks, even after the problem became known throughout this small Alberta town? If this is true, it is just as big a mystery or maybe even bigger.

originally posted by: Pilgrum
a reply to: Macenroe82

A broadband RF scanner and some triangulation should sort this out fairly easily. Sounds the sort of bastardry hackers & phrackers used to get up to for jollies.

There are no phone phreakers anymore. Can't phreak phones in the modern era. Been decades.

Steve Wozniak is probably the last real, original, phreaker left.

Using Occam's razor, it must be hakkerz with one of

These

Or maybe a bunch of them. Or something more powerful.

The simplest explanation is the signal is being jammed. Maybe some kid who works at the co-op installed a "wireless router"-looking device alongside the existing wifi routers in the store. Who would even notice? Chances are, nobody. Because in-store employees and managers rarely have a clue when it comes to hardware in the store, and if nothing is wrong with the wi-fi, why would they even look there?

Or it could be an adjacent building, but that would increase the risk of detection. For some haqr kid working a sh** job at low wages, what could be more fun than watching all the clueless customers complain and discuss with clueless managers?

Key fobs work on 300 to 433 Mhz.

On top of frequency hopping.

What Project said or some dumb snip with an over powered ham radio set up.

Fobs use frequency hopping?

originally posted by: Namdru
Using Occam's razor, it must be hakkerz with one of

These

Or maybe a bunch of them. Or something more powerful.

The simplest explanation is the signal is being jammed. Maybe some kid who works at the co-op installed a "wireless router"-looking device alongside the existing wifi routers in the store. Who would even notice? Chances are, nobody. Because in-store employees and managers rarely have a clue when it comes to hardware in the store, and if nothing is wrong with the wi-fi, why would they even look there?

Or it could be an adjacent building, but that would increase the risk of detection. For some haqr kid working a sh** job at low wages, what could be more fun than watching all the clueless customers complain and discuss with clueless managers?

If it is one of These then it is not in the store or has a UPS, because they shut the power off to the store and the problems did not go away.

Intresting post S & F. Clearly it was either the Democrats or Russia. The Canucks should build a wall too keep the crazy Yanks out and it may solve the RF issue. Could a £7.oo transmitter cause that much of an issue?

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: LookingAtMars

I wonder if they have a high level of magnetics in the ground.
There was some seismic activity in the west coast not long ago.
Perhaps that could of shifted something just enough to allow the magnetic field in the ground interfere with the electronics.
But I’m not an electrical engineer so I don’t know the amount of magnetics it would take to cause such an issue.

I do remember when I was a teenager that I had my Marshall guitar amp close to my tv, and the screen changed colours on the side next to the speakers, when it got to close to the tv.

It’s odd that it hasn’t been noticed before

That Marshall amp has a big magnet in it and that will make the tv act funny

This could be easily solved by calling up some local ham operators.

a reply to: projectvxn

That's the reason I said 'used to'
There are plenty of them and their disciples about still though - the types who enjoy causing chaos so they can sit back and watch it.

If this is what's going on, they could probably be flushed out by driving around slowly in a van with a rotating antenna on the roof to see if the jamming stops. But then again they probably read ATS as well so they'll be onto that ruse now I've let the cat out of the bag.

Did anyone construct or update a new cell tower in the area? Comm relay station?

Or it could be a simple spark gap that formed from some loose electrical wire connections. I could see it being something like the wire in a light post in the parking lot causing it. Enough energy to block the low range of keyfobs, not enough energy to block out cellphones.

in my opinion something as simple as that seems more likely than malicious intent, as a "spark gap" sends out signals at all frequencies, but is of a low enough power that it isn't noticeable to higher power devices.

and a link to wikipedia on what a spark gap is when relating to RF
en.wikipedia.org...

sometimes it is the simplest things that are the root cause of problems due to unforeseen failure modes. Im wracking my brain for the name of the theory's name. Something about complex mechanical actions only being able to undo themselves but not re-do the process.

I predict that this is somebody trying to record and spoof codes with the intention of stealing a car. This sounds exactly like somebody phreaking fob transmissions and local police not having the gear to detect such an attempt. Crafty Canucks. Probably skids.

If you zoom in on the photo the op provided in the link you will see a 100 foot radio tower behind the store next to the tree on the left . it's hard to see but it's there. My guess is that is the source of the problem. Some one tell these guys to stop transmitting for a while and find out.

Found another likely culprit. Florescent light ballast is quite noisy in RF, especially if it is near failure. Same with failing transformers. Both of which could or should be in use in a parking lot.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

The same thing happened near me back in 2009;

In 2009 residents in an area of St Ouen [Jersey, Channel Islands] dubbed ‘The Millais Triangle’ were driven to distraction by a low-frequency humming noise. During the same year, they suddenly discovered that their car key fobs had stopped working. Neither mystery has ever been solved.

Source

The low rumbling noise is often heard over here in the early hours, it can be so loud it'll wake you up and persist sometimes for hours, but the above mention of key fobs failing is the only instance that I know of locally where this has occurred.

S&F

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: schuyler

Seems the closest military base there is in Calgary around 30 km away. And Edmonton 240 km away. Those are the two areas with a military base nearby.

Must be something local, with the RCMP then.

Calgary does not have a military base