Alarms

Wierd. Stopped for fuel at the petrol station opposite the TV aerial
transmitter mast in Crystal Palace this morning and then I couldn't
get the alarm to respond. Fecking thing automatically arms itself 45
seconds after the ignition has been switched off so you can't not
reset it. This happened a while back at the same place but I put it
down to a dodgy battery in the alarm fob and that time I eventually
managed to get it to disarm. This time though I just couldn't get it
to reset so eventually had to ring up the other half and get her to
look up the manual disarm instructions.

Got to work and it all arms and disarms itself happy as anything.
Gah.

Could it have been the radiation from the TV Tower somehow interfering
or swamping the alarm? I found this statement on Wiki regarding the
CP transmitter.

"It is possible to also get a bad picture if the signal strength of
the TV transmitter is too high, for instance in the Bromley area of
south east London the signal from the TV mast is so strong that it may
cause the TV's front end to be overloaded. Check for this by inserting
an attenuator inside with the TV aerial connection. If you start by
trying with 10 dB, and then move to 20 dB then this might provide a
cure.

In that part of London the TV transmitter (Crystal Palace Transmitter)
and the Croydon Transmitter tower which has VHF pager transmitters are
both such strong sources of radiowaves that FM only UHF (432 MHz) and
VHF (144 MHz) radiosets can become overwhelmed when they are attached
to a beam aerial which is pointed at the Crystal Palace and Croydon
towers respectively. The receiver of the FT-290R2 which is a 144 MHz
multimode (FM/CW/SSB) radio is more able to cope with such strong out
of band signals".

 

ISTR some documented car ignition failures near some transmitting
station close to the M1....

 

50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com:

I was on a training course at Crystal Palace. We were accommodated in the
hideous tower block close to the transmitter. TV reception was crap on the
14" portable in my room.

I've heard anecdotal evidence to suggest that noise from various sources
can interfere with car/bike alarm remote controls.

 

Fairly well known for bike alarms to be affected by TV transmitters, mobile
phone masts.

Happened to Judge on a trip to Italy once. Unfortunately, he managed to get
the bike going again.

 

Just a bit odd as I stop at that petrol station fairly regularly and
it's only happened the once before.

 

Reception is fairly rubbish close to the Upper Norwood transmitter as
well, particularly on C5. No loss though.

 

The Older Gentleman was seen penning the following ode to ... whatever:

Remember the car alarm in my Nissan Skyline that wouldn't disarm
outside your gaff? This is far from unusual.

 

Makes you wonder what it's all doing to your head, doesn't it!

 

AW says...

Same thing happened to me the one and only time I borrowed Pip's RF900,
at Ally Pally. It didn't help that snow was falling as I was furiously
trying to get the bike started.

--
Lozzo
Triumph Daytona 955i SE
Suzuki SV650 K3
Honda CBR600 F-W
Suzuki GSX-R750L
Yamaha SR250 SpazzTrakka

 

I hate alarms anyway. It was fitted when I bought the bike as I
certainly wouldn't bother spending my own cash on one. The efficacy
of alarms was amply demonstrated as I pushed the bike out of the
petrol station to take it round the corner to see if I could get it to
disarm away from the transmitter and then freewheeled down the hill
to Dulwich College, all with the alarm blaring and the indicators
flashing and no-one paying a blind bit of attention.

 

Not really. Then again I've an understanding of how a radio works.

 

Irony isn't your thing, is it?

 

Depends. What do you think irony means?

 

Oh ferfuxsakes. Is this take everything literally night? Note the
exclamation mark. It was not a serious comment but a quip. Jeez.

 

Do you know what humour means?

 

http://blatherreview.mu.nu/archives/TinFoilHatArea.jpg

 

Quote from <http://www.thumperpage.com/articles/Elefant.html>:

" . . At a petrol stop Jethro found that he couldn't disable his alarm,
meaning his bike wouldn't start. . . . After we returned to Wales the
incident was mentioned to the Datatool alarm distributor who immediately
asked "was it a German petrol station?". It turns out that German petrol
stations have some feature that disables Datatool alarms, if Jethro had
pushed his bike 200 yards it would have started. "

For what it might be worth.

 

Sigh. Yes, whatever.

Hardly.

 

At 2450 Mhz, it'll heat up your frozen pizza.

 

Not mine it wont. I always use a proper over otherwise the pizza turns soggy
and generally shit.


Geo