Bremerton WA - Radio Signal Mystery

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Bremerton WA - Radio Signal Mystery

Sat, 24 Mar 2001 16:58:18 -0600

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MYSTERY IN BREMERTON

>From Aerielle Louise ;-)

Mn.Talk Radio Network

3/24/01

http://www.bremertonsun.com/news/2001/march/0324keylessremot.html

MYSTERY IN BREMERTON

Why don't keyless remotes

work?

By Lloyd A. Pritchett Sun Staff

Something has caused almost

all the devices to stop working

in Bremerton

Joel Maimon of Port Ludlow first

noticed the problem when he arrived

in Bremerton for work Thursday

morning. No matter how many times

he clicked the remote keyless entry

device for his car, it wouldn't work.

He wasn't alone.

Art DeCamp, service manager for

Haselwood Expo Buick Pontiac

dealership in Bremerton, first

realized something was amiss

Wednesday afternoon when a flood

of customers began calling with the

same problem.

By Thursday, virtually every new car

dealership in the Bremerton-Port

Orchard area was inundated with

hundreds of similar calls from upset

customers. The outage also affected

unsold new cars sitting on their lots.

The cause of the bizarre problem

was - and still is - a mystery. No

one so far has been able to explain

why the remote keyless entry

systems on nearly every vehicle in

the Bremerton-Port Orchard

suddenly stopped functioning at

about the same time Wednesday

afternoon and hasn't worked since.

"It's strange," DeCamp said. "A lot of

people are really upset."

Speculation about the cause has

ranged from solar flares to the Mir

space station or possible

interference from USS Carl Vinson

or some other local Navy ship.

But Navy officials say there's no

evidence that a naval vessel is

causing the problem, and experts

say such a localized problem

couldn't be caused by solar activity.

A spokesman for the Federal

Communications Commission in

Washington, D.C., which regulates

radio-controlled devices, said the

agency will look into the problem if it

persists.

The malfunction, which seems to

afflict all makes and models of new

vehicles, disappears as soon as a

car is driven outside the area.

Although a few vehicles with remote

entry seem to be immune to the

problem, the vast majority are

affected by the outage.

Larry Sharrett, general manager of

the Parr Auto Group, said all new

cars at the group's Bremerton

dealerships are affected, whether

foreign and domestic.

"It's across the board," he said. "I

simply have no idea what's causing

it."

DeCamp said remote keyless entry

devices use a radio signal in the

300- to 500-megahertz range. When

the "lock" or "unlock" button is

pushed on a handheld device, it

transmits a signal to a receiver in the

car that locks or unlocks the doors.

But in the Bremerton area,

"something is keeping it from

working by not allowing the signal to

do what it needs to do," DeCamp

said.

The problem started at almost

exactly the same time the aircraft

carrier USS Carl Vinson was

returning home to Bremerton from

seven weeks at sea, causing service

managers at some car dealerships

to suspect radio emissions from the

ship are somehow to blame.

But the ship's communication

experts checked the ship over and

could find no evidence that it was the

source of the problem.

"We've checked all of our radars and

communication suites and the ship

doesn't appear to be emitting any

frequencies that might have an effect

on these remote control devices,"

said ship's spokesman Lt. Matt

O'Neal.

Daphne Burke, spokeswoman for

Naval Station Bremerton, said there

is no evidence that any Navy ship or

shore facility is to blame for the

mysterious malfunction.

"We've been looking ... but we have

no answer," she said. "We're going

to continue to check until the

problem goes away or until they find

something out."

Solar flares, which were also

suspected as a possible cause,

have been ruled out because of the

pattern of the outage.

Joe Kunches, acting chief of the

Space Weather Operations Division

at the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration, said

intense solar activity can cause

global radio interference.

But it wouldn't cause such a localized

problem, he said, nor would it persist

for more than an hour or two if solar

activity was the source, he said. And

it definitely wouldn't continue after

the sun goes down.

John Winston, spokesman for the

FCC in Washington, D.C., said the

problem could be caused "by any

one of a number of things."

He said if the problem persists, an

agency investigator will be assigned

to look into it.

Meanwhile, Joel Maimon and

thousands of other vehicle owners

are relearning how to use their car

keys - and wondering how much

longer they will have to use them.