December Cars and Convos (1/4) - Keyless entry issues?

[mherbst]

It was great meeting everyone at the December Cars and Conversations at Mt. Soledad!

I had made an observation that I wanted to gather more information on: How many people had weird behavior with their keyless entry systems? I definitely did, and I know I was not the only one, as I heard at least 3-4 other entry alarms sound throughout the morning, and I believe I overheard someone else discussing a lockout situation.

Like most folks, I assumed that my perhaps my fob battery was failing (prematurely, in my case, as I know it was replaced fairly recently.) However, I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and noticed that my fob was back to 100% function, and it has continued to be fine since. I also noted that (oddly), I was having trouble accessing my wireless data while on-site at the event, which I thought was odd, given the hilltop location. I've spent most of my career as an embedded software guy, but I'm an Electrical Engineer by training and a recovering HAM radio operator, so the combination of keyless entry issues and wireless data issues makes me suspect that the proximity of the many radio towers at the summit there must have created one heck of a noisy RF environment. A little digging reveals this has been experienced by a lot of folks - the San Diego subreddit, and a number of car forums have posts specifically about the summit of Soledad.

All of this is to say: If you had problems on Sunday, it's probably not your car or your fob!

I'd love to get a sense of how many people had issues. At the very least, it's a good bit of local knowledge to stash away. The contingent of air-cooled and transaxle cars that I saw on Sunday certainly wouldn't have had any trouble!