For want of a better title, I’m having problems with my shed alarm.
It’s the one pictured below…
I’m very suspicious that the enabling of a 5g mast about 50 metres away triggers the alarm now, could I be correct?
I’ve had to remove it now as it goes off randomly ever since the workmen left after completing the installation of the mast. I brought it into the house and set it, never triggered the alarm, even put new batteries in, still triggers when in the shed.
Before all this and pre 5g mast it’s been fine, for around 4 months. Can’t find anything in the shed like mice or spiders that could trigger it, it’s a brand new shed last September.
If there is any sort of electronic circuitry in the sensor it could be triggered by high powered microwave emissions. I would contact the mast installers if you can to see what they say.
I find it all too much of a coincidence that they installed the mast, then the first week in January they came and did the final installment. Cabling to cabinets, other works going off with BT cabinets worked on, even had new cables put up on BT poles and underground around us.
A final set of works going off two weeks ago, connection day me thinks, our internet connection went very slow on that particular day the alarm went off first time. Now I can’t leave it in the shed, it just keeps triggering.
No big deal I’ll either buy a different one or just not bother, just intriguing it all started with this mast.
Mick,
When I bought my Mk1 15 years back, it had a Sigma aftermarket alarm.
It worked fine until, at around a dozen key areas around my town, you could park up OK, but on restart, the Sigma just beeped & jammed the ignition with what I later discovered were mobile masts, the oddest example being a fake tree in our local park.
Many the time I had to get a push to get out of range, whereupon the car started fine.
Eventually, after a few weeks of this, I had the alarm disabled and since, all is well.
I’d not be the least surprised to learn this new 5g could be the issue.
The difficult bit is getting a few folk to push your house a few hundred feet.
Thinking about this and when I left my mobile in the NC, it triggers the alarm if you set it when you’ve locked the car. A few owners have experienced that too.
It has worked well there and in the previous porch for many years and I thought it might need replacing because of old age. I even have a spare, but the first few times I noticed this it was cold and windy so I deferred, and then forgot.
It took me a while to work out what it was, until by chance I saw a large spider crawling across the sensor while fiddling with its web, and coincidentally switching it on again.
I vacuumed out the web and egg-clumps, wiped over the plastic with some Jeyes fluid and then sprayed insecticide around it, and the problem has gone.
I wish I could blame a spider, can’t find any, no webs, nothing. I can put the alarm back in there after its triggered and in around 3-4 hours off it goes again. Once it only lasted an hour before going off.
Think I’ll email Yale and ask if I can exchange it or try something else, it’s got a 2 year warranty. Cheap enough at £16 but then again what’s causing thing to keep going off?
On our last walk I saw one of those in the distance supporting a blown-over tree.
I was impressed it could take the strain, but didn’t have a camera thing.
I’ve not been out since so I don’t know if it’s been rescued.
It is possible that the shed alarm is susceptible to the radio waves being emitted from the mask. The effect is called electromagnetic interference (EMI). If you’re old enough, you may remember sometimes seeing “snow” on a TV picture when some cars passed by. Similarly, you may have heard buzzing on a car radio due to problems with the ignigitiion system capacitor. The shed may be in an unfortunate “sweet-spot” for this EMI. Moving the alarm into the house, or even just a few metres away from the mast may be enough to reduce the level of interference. Think of a remote locking on a car - too far away and it will not operate, move closer and at a certain distance it will work.
There are regulations and standards that all electronic products must meet to ensure electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). Unfortunately, these cannot cover all situations, particularly for an inexpensive battery-operated device. You are unlikely to be able to persuade anyone to turn the mast off.
If your alarm is activating regularly (a couple of times or more a day?) you could try a little experiment. This may sound a bit odd, but turn on the alarm then wrap it in baking foil. This will shield the alarm from the radio waves from the mask. Put the alarm in its usual location and wait a couple of days. If the alarm doen’t activate, interference from the mask may be the cause. To confirm, remove the foil and repeat the experiment.
If it is interference from the mast, you could try using the foil between the mast and the back of the alarm.
You’ve just mentioned the exact searching I’ve been doing earlier. EMI/RFI interference. Now I’m thinking also along the lines of, we also have a footpath passing at the side of the house alongside the road. Could mobile phones being used, taxis going by, or even the bus. They all use radios or mobile signals coupled with the mast it’s sort of stirring the airwaves.
Sorry, I’m not very much up on this terminology.
Make a shield for the alarm with a foot square piece of foil pinned to the back wall and then place the alarm in the middle of the sheet so the foil is between the mast and the alarm.
Ideally earth the foil. A piece of wire connected to the foil through a small hole in the shed wall running down and attached to something metal in the ground. Anything from a long nail or bolt to a baked bean tin will do the job.
Well the alarm went back in the shed 2 nights ago, it survived the night and most of the day until…
We live on the flight path for East Midlands airport, sometimes the aircraft come over very low and the noise is very loud even inside the house. Most notably yesterday as a very loud aircraft went over the alarm triggered. I went to the shed but always the alarm has stopped before I got to open the door, I just left it and came indoors.
Nothing more from it for about 3 hours and off it went again.
So I stripped it apart yesterday and the sensor look dirty, like a film over it. All cleaned up and now testing inside the garage, no more false alarms as yet.
If it does it’s going back to B&Q for a replacement.
I put it in our back room yesterday for test purposes, missus went in to load the washing machine. Never seen her move so quickly when the warning bleep (pre alarm sounding) went off. Washing dropped door banged shut and a few f’s my way
