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Something mysterious is blocking car key fobs from working in an Alberta town
- walrus01 8y agoPortable spectrum analyzers capable of up to 2500 MHz are not so expensive these days. I'd bring a horn antenna and spectrum analyzer and start hunting.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoWould a quality software defined radio (HackRF) and a directional antenna be sufficient?
- tomswartz07 8y agoGiven the leaps and bounds of development in this area recently, I wouldn't call HackRF a go-to device anymore (compared to the more recent devices) but yes- any of them totally would be able to pick this up.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoWhat's considered "go to" now?
- kweks 8y agoLimeSDR, BladeRF, AirSpy... The first two are capable of emulating base stations - quite incredible. AirSpy is RX only but has incredible bandwidth and a very clean signal
- samstave 8y agoWow this is pretty cool https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr
- lozaning 8y agoFYI they make a Mini Lime SDR for even cheaper! https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr-mini https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr-mini been lusting after one of the little guys for some time now.
- wolrah 8y agoYeah, but the Mini has half the sample rate AND half the channels. That's a quarter of the capability for half the price. I'm also kind of salty that they dropped the MicroUSB variant of the full-size model. The Mini makes sense to have it a "stick" format, the full one does not. The full one having an A connector on it has been nonsense from day one. I still will probably end up buying one because they're still the best bang for the buck.
- Jerry2 8y agoI've been planning on buying HackRF in the coming months so I'm wondering what better devices are there. Do you recommend another SDR device instead?
- rhinoceraptor 8y agoThe HackRF is a solid, if slightly dated SDR platform. There are plenty of better SDRs out there, but none of them are as ubiquitous and well documented/supported, particularly in the hobbyist space. And none of the better specs of other SDRs matter that much unless you need them, and you'd probably know if you do. If you're just getting into SDR, I would just get a $20 RTL-SDR, and then move on to something like the HackRF or BladeRF later.
- jdietrich 8y agoIf you don't need transmit capability, the SDRplay RSP1A has phenomenal receive performance for the price. If you do need to generate signals (and you understand your legal obligations), the Red Pitaya, LimeSDR and bladeRF are worthy alternatives to the HackRF. The Red Pitaya is a particularly compelling alternative from a hardware hacker's perspective, because it does double duty as an extremely versatile measurement and data acquisition device.
- Florin_Andrei 8y agoDirectional stuff can be tricky. Just use a rubberducky antenna (a stick - heck, just a piece of wire), and measure relative intensities in a few points on the map. That will give you an idea where the epicenter is. Then walk through that area while keeping an eye on the intensity. I betcha you will bump right into the culprit.
- quasse 8y agoNorth American cars generally use 315 MHz for the key fobs AFAIK, seems like a hobbyist with an SDR + directional antenna could help clear this one up.
- shittyadmin 8y agoAt 315Mhz you might even be able to do it with a $10 RTL-SDR.
- lozaning 8y agoI've captured my BMW's key fob signal with one of the cheapo RTL-SDR devices. The little noolectric I've got has worked great.
- walrus01 8y agoUSB interface SDRs and spectrum analyzers capable of up to only around 1000 MHz are really cheap now. https://www.nuand.com/ https://www.nuand.com/
- Scoundreller 8y agoIf it’s a harmonic of a lower frequency, one could try dialing in 105MHz into an analog-tuned FM radio and seeing if there’s anything odd coming through. I’ve used this for assessing some harmonics of 4-5 MHz clock lines causing issues.
- topspin 8y agoYes it seems like they haven't gone far enough afield to deal with this; electricians aren't really equipped to deal with RF problems and if the 'Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development' actually employ any token technicians among all their lawyers it will probably still be a long wait unless someone in Carstairs has pull. Carstairs is 60 km north of Calgary where you find the Calgary Amateur Radio Association (mission: "Have Fun and Serve our Community"), University of Calgary Amateur Radio Club and other organizations, all of whom would be thrilled to break out their spectrum analyzers and nail this to the wall for free.
- xvf22 8y agoFor wireless debugging we use an older tool called the wi-spy dbx. We also have a USRP B200 and LimeSDR mini which have been helpful tracking down interference. Here's a plot from when we discovered LED motion sensing lights use a radar signal on the upper end of 5Ghz. Every vertical line is another light. You can imagine a hallway filled with 20+. https://i.imgur.com/4XKIaN2.png https://i.imgur.com/4XKIaN2.png
- xfitm3 8y agoYou probably need more than one analyzer to find the physical location of the signal within a reasonable amount of time. Make friends with local ham radio operators. Almost everyone loves a good fox hunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmitter_hunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmitter_hunting
- rbritton 8y agoFailing transformers can cause an incredible amount of RF noise. A couple years ago a failing fluorescent light ballast prevented my garage door opener remote from working until it finally gave out (this was when I discovered it as the cause), and it had enough residual power to maintain the interference for a while even after being turned off.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoA grocery store has a lot of florescent lights. More opportunities for failure.
- samstave 8y agoIS this why cell signal always seem to be horrible in grocery stores (aside from them being large concrete-block buildings?
- Pharmakon 8y agoThat, and the automatic door sensors can be quite noisy.
- Fjolsvith 8y agoSteel siding and roofing blocks cell signal, too? My home has aluminum siding and steel roof and until my wife and I got S9's we had horrible reception in the house. Had to install a cell booster with the antenna up on the roof.
- markdown 8y ago> Had to install a cell booster with the antenna up on the roof. Where can I find such a thing?
- fphhotchips 8y agoIn Australia the carriers sell them. I'd start there.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kilbuz 8y agoMy car fob has never worked in the parking lot near the top of San Bruno Mountain just south of SF. I've assumed the proximity to Radio Peak is the culprit.
- autocracy 8y agoYup, also Twin Peaks near Sutro Tower. "Dead battery," mode doesn't work for me either. So much fun.
- myself248 8y agoDaaaang, that's got to be some power. I've looked at Sutro's architecture from across the bay, but never got up close to see what's on it. I have a keyless-only car now, and this sort of stuff worries me. "Dead battery" mode has always saved me thus far, but in that situation? I'd be hosed. Can't even put it in neutral and coast down the mountain. (Electronic transmission, there's no shift-interlock bypass...)
- calebio 8y agoIt might not be the same, but this sounds similar to what happened in Eden, North Carolina recently. The gambling parlor next door were using jammers to keep "fish table" players from cheating. This was affecting key fobs, car starts, etc. in a pretty big radius around the location. https://www.greensboro.com/rockingham_now/business/customers-cars-were-going-haywire-while-parked-at-an-eden/article_f7f76a60-129d-11e9-ac55-370054ab3f40.html https://www.greensboro.com/rockingham_now/business/customers... https://www.greensboro.com/news/local_news/after-complaints-eden-police-remove-jammers-from-sweepstakes-parlor/article_0f679939-e928-593a-a1a9-0d97685202ec.html https://www.greensboro.com/news/local_news/after-complaints-...
- duxup 8y agoWould be interesting to know how they were cheating.
- throwawayForMe2 8y agoLooks like maybe they were using some kind of overload device to confuse the machine when it pays out? http://empjammer.com/product/iphone-type-emp-jammer-slot-machine-for-sale-s6 http://empjammer.com/product/iphone-type-emp-jammer-slot-mac...
- duxup 8y agoAh TY
- dfxm12 8y agoProbably by creating current in places there shouldn't supposed to be, fooling the credit counter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LfluP0Ygcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LfluP0Ygcg
- duxup 8y agoElectronics are such a hassle.
- 8y ago
- standardUser 8y agoMaybe someone can bring this same technology to San Francisco and other crowded urban areas. It's endlessly annoying that every car lock/unlock these days has to be accompanied by a HONK.
- cududa 8y agoCars have been locking with honks when you double press the lock button ...forever
- close04 8y agoThe honk is not the car locking, it's the alarm engaging as it usually comes from the alarm horn. Most cars with no alarm system don't make more than the mechanical sound of locking the car and the visual aid of the signal lights blinking. There are some cars that use the car (not alarm) horn when locking so maybe their central locking system is connected to it, although it never looked like a factory option, rather an OEM alarm or something similar.
- shawnz 8y agoI have never seen a car that doesn't honk when you lock it, alarm system or not (and I rarely see cars with alarm systems around here). Maybe this is a regional difference. Do you live in North America?
- bloak 8y agoIn the UK it's illegal to sound the horn when the vehicle is stationary, or between 23:30 and 07:00 in a built-up area, so someone who brought one of these auto-honking US vehicles to the UK would have to lock it by some other means?
- shawnz 8y agoA quick reading of the rule seems to imply that it only applies on roads, not for example in your driveway or a parking lot. See: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1986/1078/regulation/99/made http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1986/1078/regulation/99/m... , https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/20/section/196/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/20/section/196/ena...
- bb88 8y agoI have heard of loose electric pole hardware vibrating in the wind and causing interference in the 400mhz range. Basically they were looking to see if it was the source, and the guy banged the pole with a hammer, and the banging showed up on the listening station some 20 miles away.
- kazinator 8y agoThe movement must have been diddling a flaky contact, causing sparking.
- bb88 8y agoMost of the hardware on an electric pole should be grounded and the only attachment from the primary wire(s) to the pole is through an insulator or series of insulators. That said, if there's a bolt on or near the primary, it's possible it worked it's way out and started mechanically vibrating making contact between some induced voltage and ground say.
- apcragg 8y agoI've had a similar experience making an FM transmitter. I used a small air coil inductor that wasn't well secured to the PCB as part of the resonating circuit. My FM tuner would pick up ambient noise since the small sound vibrations would ever so slightly change the size of the inductor, modulating the frequency. Ceramic capacitors also have this problem. The small metal 'fingers' are susceptible to vibrations which change the plate distances, and thus the capacitance. Use your imagination to think about cases when this might be of interest for certain groups!
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y agoaka Microphonics.
- andyidsinga 8y agospeaking about interference : moved my home office to a new spot in the house the other day ago - which has 3 LED light bulbs for light in the space. Turned on the ham radio - in scan mode - picked up someone talking, but noticed a bunch of static also being picked up. Didn't think much of it until I turned off the lights and the static went away. radio antenna was about 4 feet away from 2 diff bulbs (!). These things are noisy ..thinking about trying a few diff brands to see if there is a difference. also thinking about borrowing a buddy's spectrum analyzer to see if I can isolate the frequencies of the noise, might be able to put a a filter on the antenna.
- Scoundreller 8y agoI recall seeing a garage door manufacturer selling LED bulbs for $15 or $20 that don’t interfere with openers. Personally, I’d just cover the bulb in a few layers of grounded chicken wire. But I’m cheap like that.
- topspin 8y ago"Personally, I’d just cover the bulb in a few layers of grounded chicken wire. But I’m cheap like that." Shielding the bulb won't help when the switching PS in the bulb is making the house wiring resonate. RFI problems frequently fail to yield to silver bullet solutions.
- Florin_Andrei 8y agoYou may try to wind a few rounds of the AC wires to the LED bulb on a ferrite core. That may (or may not) reduce RF bleed through AC. (shrug) RF is hard.
- robdachshund 8y agoPretty sure LED bulbs have a little rectifier and a switching regulator to get 5v dc. Most of the noise would be from the switching regulator, so I doubt there will be a difference between brands.
- topspin 8y ago
- tlrobinson 8y agoIt sounds like all they've done to try to isolate the source of interference is shut off the power to the nearest store. This probably shouldn't be a national story until they look a little harder and can't figure it out...
- bonestamp2 8y agoIt sounds like they've brought in IC (Canadian version of FCC) to investigate the interference. As for the news story, I guess they think they'll know the answer soon so this is just a teaser so they can get everyone's clicks again with a second story that answers it.
- Aloha 8y agoIt's very likely one of two things - either the RFID Anti-Theft device the store has, or an automatic door opener, both can cause spurious emissions in the band that keyfobs use.
- karambahh 8y agoIn Lille, France, the automated guided «metro» public transport VAL206[0] is known to block openning of some cars brands. As it's aerial, in some places it's above ground with, you guessed it, car parks below it. The tow trucks make a killing with it because you (or your insurance...) pay a full towing charge but your car only need to be towed like 5m for it to open again. Funnily enough, the RF interference does not prevent closing of the cars, only opening :) [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAL_206?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAL_206?wprov=sfla1
- vkou 8y agoDo people not understand how to use the dead-battery mode of their fob?
- matt4077 8y agoI once had to be towed because the key stopped working. This was a Smart Roadster (still the greatest car I ever had, nonewithstanding). A battery change didn’t work and the mechanics sent me 100km to get the spare key. So there are definitely circumstances where the phi’s always artifact alone just isn’t enough to start the car, only to get in.
- peeters 8y agoDon't know how universal it is, but my keyless car has separate failsafe for entry and start. To get into the car, you can slide the physical key out. To start the car, you use the fob to push the start button which I understand to use a passive circuit similar to credit card tap.
- garyfirestorm 8y agoI don't think people know that their fob has metal key and the car has a metal lock generally behind the door handle that you can slide in and open normally.
- peteey 8y ago
- fuzzywalrus 8y agoI could see in a future where most cars are FOBs using a weaponized interference to prevent people from accessing their cars. An authoritarian regime might really enjoy that capability.
- blancheneige 8y agowith just about every car component now being computerized and thus prone to being backdoor'd I don't even think they would need to go that far
- roywiggins 8y agoOnStar provides this as a service. http://www.gadgetreview.com/gm-adds-remote-kill-switch-to-onstar-vehicles http://www.gadgetreview.com/gm-adds-remote-kill-switch-to-on...
- myself248 8y agoOr enemies who've spent the last decade systematically building a library of vulnerabilities and footholds in tons of (government and consumer) infrastructure. Did you read the Valasek/Miller paper on the Jeep hack? For me, the technical details were all well and good, but the most interesting bit was right in the intrioduction -- Their research was funded by DARPA. Wait, what? Consider this: Everyone knows that water supplies and power grids are critical infrastructure. Bridges and tunnels, too. Transit, obviously -- an attack on the NYC subways would cripple the city. That's all understood and appropriately protected. But imagine an attack that caused 10% of the cars on the road right now to simply turn off, and not turn on again. Some folks would pull to the side, but a lot wouldn't, and the roads would be an obstacle course for quite some time, while every tow truck scrambled to clear them. In my mind, that's just as crippling as shutting down a subway or an airport. Individual vehicles haven't been thought of as critical infrastructure in the past, because they weren't vulnerable to that sort of attack. But they're becoming so, and in the most haphazard, security-what-security, if-it-compiles-ship-it, sort of way. And I think DARPA's goal in sponsoring this sort of research is to force people to realize that. Because you bet the bad guys already know it.
- wolrah 8y agoCall in a couple of ham radio operators who like to foxhunt and they should be able to point you in the general direction of the problem within minutes. If the effects are as localized as they say it should be able to be pinpointed within an hour.
- Florin_Andrei 8y agoI'm a licensed HAM operator. I would start with just listening broadband with an SDR for a while, just to see what's really going on. Something ought to become visible in the spectrum, at least intermittently. Once you get the pattern, you could simply move around and measure the relative intensities, map the numbers, and the epicenter ought to become more or less obvious. Then close in with the SDR, watching the levels on the screen, and hopefully you will walk right into the culprit. An RTL-SDR is a few bucks on Amazon. The software is free. The only other thing you need is a laptop.
- vvanders 8y agoYeah, RTL-SDR is surprisingly broadband for it's cost. They're truly a marvel of cost/features.
- mrguyorama 8y ago>RTL-SDR Specifically, $27ish dollars shipped, and basically the cheapest still reasonable way to get into SDRs. Receive only though, so while you can explore the spectrum below about 1.9ish GHz, you can't play with it
- xnyan 8y agoAbout 10 bucks shipped: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-2-0-Software-Radio-DVB-T-RTL2832U-R820T2-SDR-Digital-TV-Receiver-Stick/32506410349.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-2-0-Software-Radio-DVB-T...
- voltagex_ 8y agoHaving just switched to an RTL-SDR.com from a myriad of cheap ones, I'll say that yours will get you started but picks up a stack more noise. You'll also want a better antenna.
- keyfobfail 8y agoThis happens to my car in the morning only. Not at night. Its flappin weird.
- segfaultbuserr 8y agoIt's coming from some equipment that get turned off at night.
- heyjudy 8y agoGeez, that would suggest a massive amount of noise or deliberate jamming on either or both 315 and 433.92 MHz, a mass delusion or something like helium wrecking the clock circuit. We should send Dave from EEVblog and Thunderf00t to investigate. ;)
- 3flp 8y agoI think their problem is in calling electricians. Wrong specialty..
- Stratoscope 8y agoInterference can be a funny thing. We have several of these outdoor LEDs at home: https://www.lampsplus.com/products/midland-9-inch-high-dusk-to-dawn-led-motion-sensor-light__8m841.html https://www.lampsplus.com/products/midland-9-inch-high-dusk-... If I transmit with a two meter ham radio handheld near any of them at night, the light turns off! When I stop transmitting, the light comes back on. I haven't taken any time to troubleshoot this, but it would be interesting to learn just why a two meter signal makes the light turn off.
- op00to 8y agoYou're overloading some "fused" or protected circuit in the little lights with voltage where there's not expected to be voltage. After you stop transmitting, it stops protecting itself.
- bluedino 8y agoI guess having only 1% of the e-commerce market in China has a bright side.
- sakopov 8y agoI had an interesting experience a couple of weeks ago. I woke up in the morning and found that my phone is almost completely drained while it was plugged into the outlet all night. I then tried another outlet and after another no-go I checked to make sure I have electricity, which I did. I ended up restarting the phone and it magically started charging again. I thought nothing of it until that same morning I got to my car and was unable to unlock it via key fob. However, it started working again when I tried it at my work's parking lot. Maybe just a coincidence.
- simonblack 8y agoWireless-controlled shopping trolleys (that put the brakes on if they're taken outside the supermarket's property) causing radio interference?
- blattimwind 8y agoThose are actually controlled by magnet strips in the floor.
- collsni 8y agoWe had problems with Ford / lincoln in our parking lots. Idiots (car manufacturers) are using a bands in the 800mhz to 900mhz range. We paid about 60,000 in towning fees before we swapped our digital sign board systems out.
- myself248 8y agoIf the signal is relatively constant, triangulation is fairly straightforward. Hold the receiver against your chest and slowly turn in a circle. When you find the minimum, the source is behind you and your body is blocking the signal. Draw a line on a map, move to another location, and repeat. You can do this with a $26 antenna on a $25 RTLSDR on a $5 OTG cable plugged into any random Android phone. It takes a minute to install the spectrum analyzer app, probably two minutes to plug everything together, and about a minute per "reading". The rest of your time is spent driving. This is a massively fun hobby I would encourage anyone reading this to consider. Start at the rtl-sdr.com blog and read some archives, there's a ludicrous amount of stuff within the reach of this incredibly cheap receiver.
- KiDD 8y agoThey should have called a HAM
- gordaco 8y agoI wonder whether the atmospheric conditions have some unknown effect on certain types of electronics, especially detectors of photons of any kind, preventing them from working as intended. Story time: a few years ago I used to work in a building which was intended for many more workers than we actually were there (some floors were completely empty). The garage was big and had parking places for a lot of us, but we were only given a few electrionic keys for the garage door. A lot of us, including me, came to work by bus, so basically there were parking places for all of those who came by car, yet we only had like 10 keys for 20-25 people. We knew that the keys were easy to disassemble and reassemble, so we devised a solution: using arduino, we created a device that (via a cheap prepaid SIM card) was capable of receiving phone calls, and when any of our numbers called the device, an actuator pressed the internal components of the electronic key. Pointing this device to a window near the garage door was good enough. So, every morning, people called the number of the device, and just by doing that, the door would open automatically. The thing is: it always worked at the evening, between 16 and 18h. But in the mornings, and especially in cloudy or misty mornings, sometimes it wouldn't work. We tried to investigate but we never knew why this was. I wonder if a similar phenomenon is happening here.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I wonder whether the atmospheric conditions have some unknown effect on certain types of electronics, especially detectors of photons of any kind, preventing them from working as intended. Well, atmospheric conditions have pretty well known effects on electromagnetic transmissions; the presence of water, particularly, interferes with (both scaterring and attenuating) signals that would transmit well through dry air.
- rkagerer 8y agoI'm confused - I submitted this story and identical link a day earlier but got no traction. Not complaining, just wondering how Hacker News works. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043315
- sametmax 8y agoIt's like when you tell a joke: who posts a link and when is as important as the content of the link itself. It's unfair, but any human system is influenced that way.
- kiallmacinnes 8y agoProbably just timing & competition from other articles... Often an article is submitted twice, and the second attempt gains traction.
- vstuart 8y agoSolved https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/carstairs-key-fob-mystery-solved-grocery-store-1.5003043?cmp=rss https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/carstairs-key-fob-mys... "After investigation it was determined that there was faulty consumer electronic equipment stuck in transmit mode in the area, which was causing the interference. ... In this case, it was determined that it was a remote car starter. It has since been deactivated and the interference has stopped ..."