Vehicle locks mysteriously stop working in parking lot

Administrator | May 11, 2012 | Comments 45

UPDATE (May 16) from Kevin Simmons at The Source: We are getting close to figuring out this problem. Industry Canada has been contacted and one of the local HAM operators may have found the origin of the signal. Once we have a definite answer we certainly will act on it. Thanks again for the continued patience. I’m starting to think I should change my title to “Picton Signal Anomaly Investigator”

UPDATE (May 11) from Kevin Simmons at The Source: “I did a bit of further investigation last night. Using a scanner and locating antenna borrowed from local HAM operator Doug Monk, I did a “radio sweep” of the Sobey’s parking lot. I would like to point out that I am not a professional in this area and my test was highly unscientific. The only “chirps” (the sound made by the scanner when detecting sounds on the same frequency as key fobs) I detected were found along the tree line on the Walton street of the parking lot. No signals were found by Marvin Flowers, The Source, BMO, McDonalds or in front of Sobeys or PharmaPlus. We are contacting all local residents and businesses to see if they have installed any new equipment or changed anything. We are also contacting Industry Canada as well as looking into finding a professional “signal sniffer”. As strange as this situation is, there is an explanation and a solution. Once again I hope our customers are not too badly inconvenienced.”

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County residents shopping at the Sobey’s Plaza in Picton say the parking lot became a mysterious ‘Bermuda Triangle’ when their remote-control car door locks jammed.
Motorists are reporting that the remote locks on their cars refused to work when they parked, and in some cases, refused to unlock.

“I thought it was my (key remote) battery,” said Lori Kileeg, who first experienced the problem last Saturday. “Luckily I can lock the driver’s side manually. I drove home and was telling everyone I needed batteries, then poof, the door worked.”
However, when she went back to the Sobey’s parking lot that evening, “poof” the door locks were unresponsive again.
“The lady beside me said hers didn’t work and I went into the store and asked about it. The people all piped up saying theirs didn’t work either. They all thought it was their batteries, too.”
Kileeg asked questions at Sobeys and Pharma Plus and learned there has been some investigation going on into the possibility of high frequency interference but the source of the problem is yet unknown.

Kileeg was back at the Sobey’s lot to do some shopping Tuesday and the locks again refused to work. I’m watching other people in the lot and see the confused looks on their faces. Does it have something to do with the renovations at Pharma Plus? Nobody knows.”

Two visitors to the countylive.ca office today reported they were unable to lock and unlock their cars and had to use the key manually, Countylive’s own vehicle wouldn’t unlock Saturday, but finally opened after a few clicks of the remote.

A quick check on the internet reveals a similar problem over the pond reported by the UK Daily Mail in Cambridgeshire. That report states modern push-button ignitions were also scuppered by the unknown interference.

TheIntelHub.com on February 6, 2012 reported on the Cambridge story and also shared a report from Missouri in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which stated garage door openers at five homes on one street went haywire shortly after Christmas.

High frequency radio waves were named to be the culprit. It was also reported cases of interference can be caused by a video sender that transmits a television signal to other sets in the house.

countylive.ca will continue investigating, but for now, would love to hear any comments from people who have experienced this trouble – and at the same time, let everybody know that their car remote may not need new batteries after all!

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Vehicle locks mysteriously stop working in parking lot

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