What are you a bunch of liberal arts majors.
The remote signal comes out of the bottom of the remote. It doesn’t matter which way you point the end of it. What matters is that the bottom of the remote is pointing to the car. You can point it to your chin or your left big toe or the planet Uranus, just so long as the bottom of the remote points to car.
Here is a link to a video clip of the British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson on the TV show Top Gear testing the key fob range on his Mercedes SL by holding it against the side of his head and then just pointing it and it does show significantly more range when he is holding it against his head. He read a few emails on the following show of explantions people had emailed in but they didn’t present a definitive conclusion.
So you suggest that this rod is implanted in one’s body and you think you could make money off this idea?
Is there a general problem with poor range from remote keyless transmitters? How much range would you have to have to call it good?
Is this something like a car thats getting the advertised mpg but the owner wants more?
I would have liked it more if you had said you tested it outside the lab,like in a parking lot with all the interference your lab test was free from.
I’m not suggesting to implant that rod, it would be a separate device and I am not interested in making money of that.
The poor range of keyless transmitters is due to: 1.-the very low output power( the device has to work on a small battery for a long time) and 2.- the small antenna aperture causing a low antenna gain.
Testing in the lab is the only way so see what effect it has if you point that remote to your body. In the real outside world range is of course depending on all other effects as well. But these outside world effects apply to all conditions e.g. pointing the remote to your head or holding it in your hand away from your body.
To comment someone elses comment. I did the test pointing the device to my forehead or away from the body at the same height over ground.
As I said none of my customers have ever asked about this chin thing,what I have been told of is people that accidently press the remote start button on their aftermarket remote starting system and come out to find their car running (I would imagine someone outside came in and told them their car just started).I have been told of people sitting on the john and some coins or keys pushing the buttons. these people were not doing any odd things with the transmitter or even pointing it at the car and the signal still made it to the car. In short aftermarket keyless systems have better range,at least in my experience.
I have noticed that aftermarket remotes and recievers with a dedicated antenna outside the reciever case (like the VSS 350 from Code Alarm)have a much greater range.
This makes sense as I would think transmitter power is all the same with the difference being in reciever sensitivity. So I think the work should be on recievers that make better use of available transmitter power.
I had a similar experience when I was at work one day. I used to work for a company in Chicago. We worked on the 10th floor of an office building on the South Side.
A few of us were standing around admiring the downtown skyline and one of the programmers asked if we could spot his car across the street. He pointed it out and asked if anyone thought that if he pressed his remote control from where we were standing if we thought it would work. Naturally we all said there was no way, from the 10th floor, going across the street and down the block, about half a block, plus to the rear of the parking lot that it would work! And we were right, it did not work. BUT, when he placed the remote under his chin and pressed it we saw his
headlights flash because he just unlocked his doors! The only explanation I can come up with is maybe the metal fillings in your mouth somehow amplify the signal? I saw it with my own eyes so I know it works!
The key factors for communication from tx to rx: line-of-sight, height, and antenna orientation (even if it is a crappy PCB trace antenna). RF works the same way sound does by low frequencies being less affected by absorption (and soft tissue will absorb energy), so I can’t see how a mouth absorbing energy can help (though I wouldn’t necessarily consider the MHz range “low” compared to sound). Every time energy is absorbed, power is lost in the form of heat.
Not sure about the Yagi antenna, but sounds about as good as the canyon theory considering most modern fillings are the composite type and have no metal.
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this, but you always have to remember what “FM” REALLY stands for: “Flipping (<–polite word inserted here) Magic.”
Superhetrodyne,the sum,the difference and the original two frequencies. This always amazed me. And it was just sitting around to be discovered
Oldschool,is that the definition of superhetrodyne?-Kevin
It is the process that allows information to be put on a carrier wave,transmitted and then seperated,yes Superhetrodyning.
Or the aluminum hat…
I’ll bet Julia Roberts could unllock all the cars on the block!
No disrespect, just a comment on her generous smile.
Here is an explanation for the effect:
Should you not be able to duplicate this effect with a facsimile head and chin? The remote won’t know your faking it. When I see it done with a prop object that has the same properties of a head and a mouth then we are on to something.
Lets see it done with a purpose built range extender using all the best electronic parts,then make everything smaller and sell it,you will be rich.Remember you can’t increase transmitter power,just range.
Yes it does. Period. I have been doing this for five years now. I had a remote start system installed by “Jose” for my 2003 Toyota Camry. He demonstrated with the normal remote lock/unlock fob how to increase the range of its use. He cautioned me: “it may cause you brain cancer so I’m not responsible.” He demonstrated thusly: he placed the narrow end of the fob on his chin and opened his mouth and pushed the button. The car unlocked.
I have tested this numerous times and probably due to the combination of gold and metal fillings in my mouth, there is signal enhancement to increase the distance the unlock function works from about 50 feet to 150 feet. Even today, six years later, it worked from my second floor office window to my car in the parking lot below. Without the chin maneuver, it won’t do it until I’m fairly close by.
My explanation (I am an MD with background in chemistry and physics): signal is enhanced by the natural convexity of the teeth and fillings therein. That is the important variable. No fillings=no success. Non-metallic composites won’t work. It’s gotta be conductive metal.
Maybe I’ll post on youtube.
Diagnosis: NOT bogus!
Hi,
this the same thing that I described in my comment. In a Yagi array currents in other radiators (here the human body) are exited by a feed antenna (here the remote). The effect is a higher field strength at the receiver resulting in more range.
The metal fillings, I think; are not contributing significantly because they are very small compared to the wavelength of the signal.
Harald_B also ham radio operator DL1GBH
Is it still popular to put down liberal arts majors,much to be learned about ouselves within these programs. Its not all 'underwater basket weaving".
In my WRT 102 class not one student knew about the most famous poem from World War 1, “In Flanders Fields”,take a look at what happened in Flanders(or Ypres),perhaps a little more humanity would have helped.
This does not pertain to the op question, but it’s on the same lines and after reading a few posts I see I have the right professionals here for a good conversation. Alright, the problem I have is ridiculous to be sure but it is NO BS, it is for real. I own a used car dealership, about 20-30 cars usually on the lot. For the last three years or so cars on my lot have had keyless entry functions triggering and going off for no reason. I don’t mean the trunk opens once, I mean the trunk opens constantly even when it’s open the solenoid to operate the latch is clicking like crazy. The panic alarms go off, that’s always fun, sometimes it’s one car sometimes it’s three cars. The locks lock and unlock in rapid succession. I’ve had GM’s with factory remote start, the damn cars start themselves. I’ve had cars with remote doors and rear liftgates again, they open themselves.
I have removed all power from my building at times and the problem persists, I have looked around the neighborhood for possible rf sources and have asked for help from neighbors narrowing the problem down to no avail. I have brought in a professional who had meters and a scope, he was able to tell me we had a problem but not one clear guess as to where the problem comes from.
Here’s some weird stuff about this problem. I’ve yet to hear of it happening when we are closed, neighbors don’t complain about the horns at night, and in the morning the trunks are not open on any cars. Seemingly this would indicate it is something we use in the building, however we have already killed all the mains in our breaker boxes, pulled batteries from cell phones, wireless mice, etc. and still watched in horror as trunks opened and alarms went off.
Next weird thing, I’ve watched two Ford Tauruses open their own trunks at the exact same time, based on the operation of rke systems this would be more difficult to produce than winning two lotteries on the same day. There are 2.4 billion possible codes to operate most car’s rke systems.
Next weird thing, two weeks ago we had an 02 F150 that was going crazy, to fix the problem at the time we unhooked the battery, 20 minutes later a 2006 stratus went nuts again we unhooked the battery on that one, 10 mintues later a 2001 focus goes crazy, unhook the battery on THAT one, finally silence for like two hours when an 07 Mustang goes off. Why the heck would the cars not have gone off altogether, HOW can it be possible that this radio signal picks cars out individually and then makes them go crazy by triggering at least 10 different signals within 60 seconds??
Next weird thing, this problem goes away when it gets cold out, through the winter it’s usually quiet, in the spring it rears it’s ugly head for a bit, as the summer goes on it gets worse, than fall hits and well…that’s why I’m back on the internet trying to research a real fix, it’s like a frikin war zone somedays latley. People tell me just unhook the batteries but, you have to realize that cars these days don’t like to sit with batts unhooked the PCM’s need to relearn after a week of no batt and customers don’t understand why the battery is unhooked on the car they are looking at, worse yet, sometimes we hook the battery up for a customer and the car goes crazy, yeah, try selling a car that won’t shut up, sometimes won’t leave the doors unlocked long enough to even open them.
The last weird thing and the most weirdest of them all. Sometimes a trunk will open on a car when the car is in Drive, this folks is impossible to reproduce even if you hit the button on the remote itself. Cars are programmed to keep the trunk closed when the car is in drive no matter how many times or what button you hit, yet our little ghost is capable of opening trunks even with the car in drive and that is NO BS. We had a silhouette with power doors, again they are meant to disable the power doors when the car is in gear, yet this silhouette would open the door while in reverse. This to me makes zero sense, the cars will simply not allow this to happen by hitting buttons. I can’t believe that the rf signal we have is triggering actual solenoids to function but it would have to for this to happen. It can’t be a matter of the car’s reciever getting the signal and acting accordingly, it has to be triggering functions beyond the reciever in the loop.
So pros I ask you, beg of you for some help here.
Questions I have, if it is say the flourescent lights in my building, is it possible to shut the lights off and still get rf signals from them for a time after the lights are off? Same for wireless routers/mice/keyboards/cell phones, if we disable the power to them is it still possible that signals from them are still bouncing around in the air, even for like 20 minutes??
We have a twenty foot flagpole that no longer has a flag, it is aluminum, we have a steel roof on our building, and our building is old and has had many tenants with wires running to and fro in an endless knot. Is it possible one of these things is somehow amplifying signals and meshing them together in such a way to make my cars go crazy? I have spoken to many many car dealers, this is not a common problem among them and many have flag poles/metal buildings/and a knot of wires around their building as well. However they all look at me dumbfounded when I tell them about this problem.
Is it possible the sun is involved in anyway? I only ask this because of the seasonality of the problem, and the fact that it has never happend at night to my knowledge. Yet the problem does not happen on the weekend when we are closed, so I know it can’t just be the sun but is it possible the sun is somehow involved. My salesman says no way, but I just can’t rule it out in my head.
We are on a highway with stoplights at our corner. The stoplights have always been one of my scapegoats for causing this problem, but no other dealer I’ve talked to has this problem and tons of them are located on similar intersections with stoplights.
If you would like to ask me questions or have any suggestions please email me at mfautosports@hotmail.com. We’ve asked around and all the suggestions we’ve recieved have yet to fix our problem.
Note: This problem has been going on for 3 years, there are other weird things that have happend with this problem that I’m sure I’m forgetting about at the moment and have left out. If I think of anything else that might give a clue to help you help me I will come back here and fill it in. Please don’t think I’m screwing around trying to gain publicity or ‘make sales’, I’ve been accused of that already and it is depressing, I wouldn’t spend this much time writing in a forum I’ve never been to for nothing, this problem is very real, and a huge pain in the butt.
Not to discount electrical engineering, but how about a control group based on experimental design. The range of my remote was also extended by pointing it into my mouth. BUT… it was also extended by holding it at arm’s length to my side and simply pointing it in the “wrong” direction. I don’t think the fillings in my teeth have anything to do with it.
i have heard about the point-at-the-chin method of using your remote control and without doing a true side-by-side comparison it does seem to work… the question as to why and how, however, is something that not an electrical engineer might answer but rather, like Dr. Science, someone with a degree in Zoology, having sat with all the nursing students and pre-meds doing their comparative anatomy prerequisites, and later doing the mammology thing with the formaldehyde-soaked cat, etc. I am this man. Although I would like to invoke the immense power of a black hole as per your recent newspaper column, the answer is much more mundane, having to do with what I like to call the “double T” phenomenon. Tachyons and turbinates, of course. Without beating around the bush any further, here’s how it works (please understand that at the moment I am merely channeling knowledge from a higher dimension and probably won’t remember this after I click on Submit). When you aim the remote at your chin, you are directing the signal into your skull, obviously, and whereas Tommy may indeed have a black hole contained therein, for the rest of us the signal enters the swirling tachyon field spinning infinitely fast within our crania, attempting to attach itself to the veritable merry-go-round taking place there. However, as most of us have little capacity for new information of any sort, let alone being able to hold on to what little we’ve managed to gather over the years, the signal from the remote gets spun off within a few nanoseconds and where does it go, you might ask? Well, here’s where the anatomy lessons come into play. Those delicate little turbinate bones inside your sinuses act like a conch shell blown by a trained trumpeteer and go spiraling at a now accelerated and greatly amplified (thing Large Hadron Supercollider) degree back out through your nose which just happens to be pointing at your car, n’est pas? So there your have it, and i’m sure the dudes you still know at MIT will verify this once they run the numbers.
I am thinking (danger Will Robinson)if there was a “good” and a “bad” way to point your remote, why is there not an arrow with a “point this way” lable on the remote?
I pay no attention what so ever which way the remote is pointed, it all works the same.