HELP !!!!!!Radio interference with my immobiliser

I’m wondering if anybody can shed any light on a problem I have,

I have a 53 plate discovery which I bought second hand 18 months ago, it has more ice in it then an Eskimos freezer (In Car Entertainment just in case I lost anyone) so I don’t know if the alarm or immobiliser was changed.

up until 4 or 5 weeks ago I never had any problems with the immobiliser, but while parked outside the house on our caravan park, the car suddenly refused to start, the car was parked next to a house with the main clubhouse and reception and opposite, we have a barrier next to the house with a loop in the ground to detect vehicles driving out of the park, there is also WIFI in the club house.

I called out the AA, and the man had a radio detector which showed a high reading, so I turned everything off the problem remained, the strange thing is when I tow the disco through the barrier about 100 yards from the house and the car will start, same if I tow out the gate and up the road, it will start fine.

Has anybody had this happen to them or does anybody know what I could be or even how to find the source of the interference.

If somebody could help me it would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks
Bailey

baileyfarr said:

I’m wondering if anybody can shed any light on a problem I have,

I have a 53 plate discovery which I bought second hand 18 months ago, it has more ice in it then an Eskimos freezer (In Car Entertainment just in case I lost anyone) so I don’t know if the alarm or immobiliser was changed.

up until 4 or 5 weeks ago I never had any problems with the immobiliser, but while parked outside the house on our caravan park, the car suddenly refused to start, the car was parked next to a house with the main clubhouse and reception and opposite, we have a barrier next to the house with a loop in the ground to detect vehicles driving out of the park, there is also WIFI in the club house.

I called out the AA, and the man had a radio detector which showed a high reading, so I turned everything off the problem remained, the strange thing is when I tow the disco through the barrier about 100 yards from the house and the car will start, same if I tow out the gate and up the road, it will start fine.

Has anybody had this happen to them or does anybody know what I could be or even how to find the source of the interference.

If somebody could help me it would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks
Bailey

Click to expand...

A tesco's supermarket near me has the same influence on Subaru Imprezza's. Move the car down the road and they too then start.

If the strength of the signal is as strong as you say then even if you changed the immobiliser frequency the chances are that it would do the same.

has anything changed recently that may cause the problem? You could try turning off the wifi, the loop, etc one at a time to narrow it down.

I know of a number of people reporting these issues and have even experienced this with the alarm on my car (non standard). Is there a telephone mast in your area? A nice trick is to hide the telephone masts inside the the big price boards at petrol garages keeping the local population from complaining about the eyesore they create, I have even seen one 'disguised' as a TREE!

I have seen cars with non functioning factory/aftermarket alarms being towed away from the forecourts of garages and other masts to allow them to start a few hundred yards up the road.

My alarm is affected by the local ambulance radio transmitter, if I park near enough then the alarm/central locking will not operate.

Hope this gives you an idea where to look.

regards

Dave

ok, i've got an update,

bt or openreach, which ever their called came out the other day after we reported a fault on our public telephone line, the engineer came out to have a look but never had the correct equipment, so he called out his mate.

i ask the 2 men about the immobiliser and the second man said i could be whats called REIN interference, (Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise) and that the most likely cause are step down transformers (info at http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/rein.htm) the engineer said that if you set a radio to 612hz MW, i done this and heard what sounded like a helicopter, and sure enough as i walked out of the park the noise went away, the engineer then told me to get a hand held radio and walk round touching the ariel on different things, when i walked under the telephone wire hanging from the masts the noise became really strong, and when i touched the mast i went mental, we called out bt and their engineer said point blank it wasn’t them, but after speaking to someone whos brother works for BT, they're told to point blank refuse it, i have since knocked of most of the electric in the park, and the noise remains.

i'm waiting on the council to come and have a look i'll post back when i know more, if anybody else knows anything about this please post, every little helps.

Thanks.

I have a 53 td5 disco 2, same thing happened to me in ASDA car park, couple of years ago, and also a nearby parked freelander had problems with its alarm system... Landrover Service had to recode using my key..said it was a common problem...possibly interference from a nearby taxi office using a radio frequency that interfered with my disco alarm system was the cause.

I now carry my access code, to reset using key if it happens again.

Hi,

Last year we had a similar problem in our car park where many cars would not start. the fault turned out to be a low energy light bulb in a sign outside a shop. - one of the neighbours narrowed it down using a radio recieved as you describe. strange thing is that the bulb was still working - changing the bulb cured the problem.

Dan

ok i have an update, i know its very late but i forgot about it, after bt refuded the problem was thier's, we called ofcom and the council, we was due a visit by ofcom, 3 days before ofcom were due to turn up, we noticed a fleet of bt vans outside the park and in the hut they use, there was there most of the day, by tjhe end of the day the problem was gone.

i have come to the conclusion that it was rein interference, since looking into it, i have found out it can be created when either a light transformer is faulty, like the kinds used in industrial tube lighting (balasts) and can be causes by telephone cables and power cables, so if anybody does find they have problems, try tuning the radio to 612hz MW and see if you can hear anything, if you are in a carperk or on a street, the best thing to do is pull your car away, should do the trick.

Dave 2000 said:

I know of a number of people reporting these issues and have even experienced this with the alarm on my car (non standard). Is there a telephone mast in your area? A nice trick is to hide the telephone masts inside the the big price boards at petrol garages keeping the local population from complaining about the eyesore they create, I have even seen one 'disguised' as a TREE!

I have seen cars with non functioning factory/aftermarket alarms being towed away from the forecourts of garages and other masts to allow them to start a few hundred yards up the road.

My alarm is affected by the local ambulance radio transmitter, if I park near enough then the alarm/central locking will not operate.

Hope this gives you an idea where to look.

regards

Dave

Click to expand...

Mobile masts will not interfer as the frequency they transmit is quite high.

yes, you can find "mobile masts" disguised as trees, lamp posts, telegraph poles, falg poles and even smaller things on walls when coverage is needed on a busy street, or big cities.... some of the antennas you can even be looking at a building and you won't be able to see them.

The trick you mention is used so the masts dont disturb the local topography, but by no means is done so people don't know they are there.. any mast (telegraph pole, lamp post, etc) has to have full planning permission submitted with the local council and the population told about it through the council.

believe me.. I do the network planning for one of the operators.

EDIT: just noticed...this is quite old!!

[JP];777649 said:

Mobile masts will not interfer as the frequency they transmit is quite high.

yes, you can find "mobile masts" disguised as trees, lamp posts, telegraph poles, falg poles and even smaller things on walls when coverage is needed on a busy street, or big cities.... some of the antennas you can even be looking at a building and you won't be able to see them.

The trick you mention is used so the masts dont disturb the local topography, but by no means is done so people don't know they are there.. any mast (telegraph pole, lamp post, etc) has to have full planning permission submitted with the local council and the population told about it through the council.

believe me.. I do the network planning for one of the operators.

EDIT: just noticed...this is quite old!!

Click to expand...

At the end of the day if they are not working correctly i.e. frequency being off or whatever they do interefere with car alarms, run back through the thread and look at what the AA has come up with. Or BT spending all day sorting a problem which was causing intereference.

regards

Dave

[JP];777649 said:

Mobile masts will not interfer as the frequency they transmit is quite high.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but that's not necessarily true. Yes the frequency they transmit on is quite high but if the signal strength is high enough it will overload any receiver that is close by, even if that receiver is designed to pick up a much lower frequency.

This happens a lot at Dover docks, AA man said that the ships, lorries and all ground staff use CB's and walkie talkies, add to this the ships radars etc and the air waves are full so car remotes just have no chance, this we found out at 04.30am one day a few years ago when the brand new Landrover we had (brother worked at Gaydon so had it on a trial) just decided to shut itself down totally immobilised, we were towed outside the docks for a restart but car had done one, we were then towed to canterbury landrover main dealer where they sorted us out and reprogrammed the keys and reset the car.

Dave, BT masts have nothing to do with mobile phone masts as the ones you described as desguised as trees.

Sparks, the output power is regulated by Ofcom, and the signal strength can't go over a certain limit, one of the reasons is that if too much power you won't even be able to make a phone call.

I can understand a faulty generator creating a random frequency and interfering, but a mobile mast transmits at a certain frequency and won't change.

Same thing happened to my friends Range Rover. It took him 5 / 6 months to get it sorted out. Eventually after several trips to the dealership they decided to change the frequency of his immobiliser. Problem solved ........

[JP];777865 said:

Sparks, the output power is regulated by Ofcom, and the signal strength can't go over a certain limit, one of the reasons is that if too much power you won't even be able to make a phone call.

Click to expand...

Aye I'll grant you that, what I should've said was.....

"...if the signal strength is high enough it will overload any crappy receiver that is close by, even if that receiver is designed to pick up a much lower frequency. "

The receivers in immobilisers aren't exactly at the peak of radio technology.

yeh, i suppose... a crappy receiver would work almost like a spectrum analyzer and pick up all the frequencies available..lol