The Museum of Hoaxes
locked car door open via of cell phone
Posted By:
Ron
Oct 06, 2004
 Received email that if your car door is locked and you lose (misplace) your keys and remote, call home via cell phone, have someone push the "unlock" on the other remote near a phone while you hold the cell phone next to the car. This is suppose to unlock the door, however isn't there a difference with radio waves and sound waves?
Category: Technology, Urban-Legend; Replies: 69

Comments
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Charybdis
Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 | 11:10 AM
http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/keyless.asp
The Curator
in San Diego
 Member
Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 | 11:36 AM
This will only work if you simultaneously place one foot in a bucket of water while wearing an aluminum-foil beanie cap on your head... to amplify the signal. Trust me.
Hairy Houdini
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 | 12:52 PM
A-man, I tried it. All I got was a wet sneaker and an empty foil roll. Perhaps I should have chanted "Open, seza me"
ryan
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 | 06:06 PM
it does work, use two cell phones, why would you use a house phone?!?! The signal piggy backs through as interference on the cell signal.... I use it many times, and it is fun.
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
 Member
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 | 11:21 PM
ryan,
Who said they use / used a house phone? The article said... "Call home via a cell" not to use the house phone. That wasn't given as direction. It's just probably assumed that you'd be able to use the house phone... besides did you check the snopes link above???
Jake
Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 | 02:57 PM
I tried it with a house phone, and my cell phone. it worked :D
Dave
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 | 11:03 PM
Hi all,
Ok, a little Science.
When you push that little button on your remote car door opener, you are transmitting a coded RADIO FREQUENCY. That signal is received in the vehicle and if the code sequence matches that stored on a chip, your door unlocks.
The Telephone, be it Cell phone or Landline, detects SOUND energy in the vicinity of the mouthpiece and reproduces Sound energy at the other end NOT a Radio Frequency. Hence this idea has no possibility of working.
Dave
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
 Member
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 | 08:59 AM
One might also note that radio frequency is a electro-magnetic wave, while sound is purely mechanical.
Razela
in Chicago, IL
 Member
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 | 03:35 PM
If this worked, all you would need to do to break into someone's car is to record the sound of them unlocking the car with their key button thing, and then play it back at a later time near their car. It sounds like a much stupider concept when put that way, does it not?
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
 Member
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 | 04:43 PM
According to "ryan" and "jake" it works. These guys must be fun to know... just imagine the shit you could lay on them!
FISHPRO200HP
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 02:37 PM
i did not believe it would work, so i tried it and it did work from cell to cell but i could not get it to work from a landline.
try it it is cool
Dave
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 02:45 PM
Absurd, how far away was the Cell Phone from the car?
No doubt, well within range of the RKE device. Some will work up to 300 feet away. The science is clear, no violations of the laws of physics allowed.
David B.
Member
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 03:36 PM
I'll believe this when I see it, but 'Dave' is a bit off the mark with his science.

While it is true that the first and last stages of a cell-call are sound waves, everything else is purely an electromagnetic signal.

Two stories: -

1) Some people I worked with could never understand how I'd dig in a coat pocket, bag or under a sheaf of papers and pick up my cellphone just before it started ringing. My explanation that I could feel the calls coming just made then more uneasy. The fact that I spent most of my days plugged into my Walkman listening to Radio 4 never seemed to tip them off. Whenever the phone was being 'polled' prior to the call being connected a distinctive 'clicky-clicky-click' of radio interference sounded in my ear, giving me 2 seconds to find the phone before the ringing started.

2) Back in the days of analogue cellphones (remember them), I discovered that the cheapo cellphones my employer was providing gave a rough, but audible, reproduction of any sound file played on my AlphaStation (to a range of about 2m) despite the fact that there were no speakers plugged in. Consequently, I could cause someone on the phone to hear "You're dethpicable! (Daffy)", "Waa-hoo-hoo-hoo! (Goofy), or my personal favourite 'Ni! (Monty Python)' by remotely scheduling sounds to their workstations while they were on their cellphones. That no-one else could hear these sounds was great for making people doubt their sanity. Oh, the one where my boss got into an argument with his wife because he was sure he could hear their baby crying... Priceless.

'So what?' I hear you cry. Well, it demonstrates that (1) cellphones can electromagnetically influence other electronic devices, and (2) other electronic devices can influence (at least some) cellphones. The potential is there for a simple signal of low enough bandwidth and high enough redundancy to be piggy-backed onto a cellphone call. The sound/radio distinction is not really relevant in this case.

But like I said, I'll believe it when I see it, done double-blind, at <a href="http://www.trl.co.uk/"> TRL </a>, with James Randi in attendance.
David B.
Member
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 03:37 PM
The science is clear, no violations of the laws of physics allowed.

Of course it helps if you actually know them!
Charybdis
in Hell
 Member
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 03:57 PM
Radio interference from a cell phone is a well known fact. Your cell basically screams 'Here I am!' when being polled for an incoming call. There are plenty of devices you can buy that light up or otherwise notify you when a nearby cell phone does this.

On the other hand, I don't believe that a cell phone network can transmit the radio signal accross their networks like this. It would involve the radio signal being picked up by the sound only microphone, being sent accross the network, and being transmitted by the sound only speaker at the other end. The phones operate by radio waves of course, but they are not designed to send external radio signals this way. In fact, I'm fairly sure that there are filters to remove extraneous electrical noise caused by interference, whether natural or man made. Your phone may cause interference or be affected by it, but it shouldn't transmit across the network to another phone. Especially a digital network.
David B.
Member
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 04:32 PM
It would depend on where the interference is having its effect. If it were, hypothetically, having an effect on any stage prior to the encoding and modulation of the signal into the 950+ Mhz range, then there is little the phone can do to distinguish between the interference and the signal.

The 'sound only' microphone is the smallest stage of the process, and although the digital encoding of the signal is only intended to cover the 20-20000Hz range, that does not mean a 400Mhz key-fob can't piggyback on it, as the actual frequency of the bit-pattern the fob sends is usually much lower.

It very probably is technically impossible, and I'd want to see a very convincing demonstration before I'd believe it (my remote is IR, so I can't do the "fool's errand" myself, for the sake of the board of course). But technically impossible (or more correctly, implausible) is not the same as scientifically impossible.
Dave
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 05:05 PM
Hi Boys and Girls,
Ok! I suppose we could hypothesize a Sporadic E bounce of a fourth order sub-harmonic generated by a Spread Spectrum microwave transmission in Rangoon!!! In 30 years at NSA I saw and wasted lots of time analyzing all sorts of bizarre EMF phenomena. I could quote Kotelnikov/Nyquist and demonstrate by numerous routes why this won't work. If anyone can't believe the theory, go outside and collect data. Just make sure that the Originating Cell phone/RKE device is well outside it's operating range from the target vehicle.
Dave
David B.
Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 | 08:24 AM
The fact that it doesn't work, which I don't dispute (although except for HH - who might have been joking - no-one has come forward to say they've tried it and it doesn't work), does not mean it breaks the laws of physics, is scientifically impossible, or has been forbidden by God.

As cellphones operate at 950+ Mhz, and key fobs at ~400 MHz, the Kotelnikov-Nyquist-Shannon inequality still holds. But I don't believe hi-fidelity reproduction is a reasonable mechanism for the proposed effect, and neither is 'sporadic E bounce' as that would not require the agency of a cell-phone.

If anyone can't believe the theory, go outside and collect data.

Too right! Although it's unfortunate that the only people who so far have claimed to have done so have been roundly ridiculed because they didn't report the 'right' results.
X
in McKinney, TX
 Member
Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 | 08:43 AM
David said:
As cellphones operate at 950+ Mhz, and key fobs at ~400 MHz, the Kotelnikov-Nyquist-Shannon inequality still holds. But I don't believe hi-fidelity reproduction is a reasonable mechanism for the proposed effect, and neither is 'sporadic E bounce' as that would not require the agency of a cell-phone.

Personally, I like "sporadic E bounce"...
Dave
Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 | 11:00 AM
Hi all,
Well of course I was joking a bit and simply trying to say that there are all sorts of issues of mismatches in Frequency, Modulation, Filtering and subtle issue of Clocking.
Consider the Modulation issue to start with. RKE's of Japanese origin use Amplitude Shift Keying, while those of US origin use FSK. Modern Cell phones depending on type are using TDMA or CDMA on top of FM or in the digital domain Mixed Phase and amplitude techniques.
Now what we have to believe is that the Cell phone antenna resonates to some degree to the 400Mhz RKE and then, tell me what the Cell phone
Demodulator does with the ASK or FSK signal it now sees? It no doubt detects some modulation component or maybe it does not, just consider the issues, how many things would have to fall into place to make this work! additionally, the clock rates are so different between the RKE and the Digital speech encoder of the cell phone, now we introduce multiple sampling issues which are data rate asynchronous!!!
Not likely, but again I say Go out and collect some data.
Dave
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 | 11:20 AM
Maybe people have simply mistaken the Onstar type devices for operating the locking mechanisms with a phone. I mean, they call, Onstar unlocks - they used their phone to unlock the car. Or it could have even been miscontrued further with someone watching this display, but not understanding what was actually happening.
David B.
Member
Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 | 01:06 PM
Now what we have to believe is that the Cell phone antenna resonates to some degree to the 400Mhz RKE [...]

No, we'd only have to believe that if every other possible mechanism of action had already been discounted. Please elucidate.

just consider the issues, how many things would have to fall into place to make this work

In other words, it neither violates the laws of physics nor is it unscientific, it's just highly unlikely.

the clock rates are so different between the RKE and the Digital speech encoder of the cell phone, now we introduce multiple sampling issues which are data rate asynchronous!!!

Cell phone DSPs operate at between 133 MHz and 400 Mhz (depending on model), and process audio signals in the range 20-20000 Hz into digital data, which is sent by 850/900/1800/1900 MHz carrier (GSM). ASK mode RKEs transmit a data stream of between 64 and 128 bits, at a rate less than 20000 Hz, on a carrier of around 400 Mhz.

Depending on what mechanism is proposed, there may or may not be asynchronous sampling issues. They are not inevitable.
Dave
Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 | 10:26 PM
Ok, let me try to Elucidate a bit:
When I say that "we have to believe that the Antenna Resonates to the 400Mhz RKE to some degree", That would be one of those Laws of Physics that I was talking about! I hope I do not have to point out the relationship between Frequency and Wave Length, that is fundamental stuff. Now, even though the Cell phone Antenna is clearly not cut optimally for the 400Mhz transmission, there will be some resonance, and of course cancellation.

Now as to the "Highly Unlikely" factor! well, that would not be a Law of Physics matter but rather a simple statistics issue. I would say about a 50 Sigma answer.

Finally, Since you seem to agree that neither the Microphone nor the Antenna is a likely source, what mechanism would you propose for this highly unlikely event? Magnetic Resonance, Hybrid Coil Leakage or perhaps the old blast from the past, Heterodyning!! Perhaps some sort of as yet undiscovered Sneak Circuit.

Design and perform an acceptable Experiment, you know, "The Scientific Method" else, give it up as just one more WWW Non-Sequitur!!!
~*sShimmeRr*~
in Adelaide, Australia
 Member
Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 | 03:34 AM
I was listening to a radio station 2 mornings ago where they debated this Urban Legend. So they decided to go and test it for themselves.

One of the hosts went out to the carpark and called the other who was On-Air at the time and they played what happened over the radio.

Apparently, it worked. But who knows whether the one in the carpark really did have the keys....
Snowy
in aeternum
 Member
Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 | 11:48 AM
"if you lose (misplace) your keys and remote, call home via cell phone, have someone push the "unlock" on the other remote near a phone while you hold the cell phone next to the car."

If you lost your keys, how would the person on the other end push the button? and if you left them at home how the hey did you gey the car away from home??
Charybdis
in Hell
 Member
Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 | 11:55 AM
I think most new cars come with at least two sets of keys now. I keep a set at home with my parents extra set, just in case.
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 | 05:52 AM
I made 5 sets of keys for my car...and you can order multiple auto-unlock remotes. When my husband when to 'repo' his sister's car, I think it only cost him like $20 to get another un-lock device. I am notorious for locking myself out of my car, even my best friend had a copy, b/c she was usually the one standing outside my car waiting for my parents to come and unlock me.

It's not possible to lock myself out of my new car...
Dan
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 | 10:38 AM
I tried this on a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
I have a Treo600 phone with digital service through SprintPCS.
I called a Landline phone and had my cousin hit the unlock on the key fob.
IT UNLOCKED!, I had my phone against the passenger side glass. We then tried to lock the car and it would not. I locked it again then did the test again, It unlocked! However we could not get it to lock. I then hung up the phone and he tried over and over to unlock the car with no luck.

I then tried this with a 97 Mercury Grand Marquee, and could not get it to work.
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 | 06:04 AM
Too bad there's no way to actually prove this. I'll probably be a skeptic until I can try it myself.
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 | 11:20 AM
AHA!!! I tried it. I was at my parents house...

My dad has an '04 Chevr Truck. I gave my mom instructions on what I was going to do. Then I walked over to the truck & locked it. I called my mom using her Nextel Cellular phone (not using direct connect, just the regular call feature) to her home phone. She pressed the remote keyless entry...AND THE TRUCK DID NOT UNLOCK!

<b>THE TRUCK DID NOT UNLOCK WHEN A CELL CALLED TO A LANDLINE AND THE LANDLINE USER PRESSED THE UNLOCK ON THE KEYLESS ENTRY REMOTE.</b>
Josh
Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 | 03:07 AM
this post is way off the topic but imma share it anyways... I have a nokia n-gage QD, and everytime someone calls me and i put it on silent instead of answering, i hear them talking. So i tired if they can hear me back but they cant, all they hear is the ringing sound and it goes to voicemail... thats how i caught my BF talkin shit about me... lol... anyways like i said its way off the topic but im just tryna share cool sh*t...
Jeff
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 | 10:38 AM
This has got to be one of the funniest forums I have come across. Its full of a bunch of retards trying to talk with big words. You people dont even know what you are saying. A higher signal such as 900 mhz will pick up any lower transmission, just because you dont understand it doesnt mean it isnt happening. you may not be able tyo hear the signals, but the target receiver still knows they are there. Do you think all devices in an air port, or airplane operate exactly on a 900 mhz signal? No, they dont but your cell phone or PDA will still interfere. Why? Because it receives the lower signals as well. Everyone who denounces this process has either done it wrong, or has a car that scrambles its radio signal when it leaves the transmitor. I have a 99 Infiniti G20, and I will unlock my doors from across town all day long from cell phone to cell phone. Go cellect some data guys because you are stupid.
JFKLiberal
Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 | 08:35 AM
OK, a few weeks ago I played around with this and discovered several things:

1) I didnt need someone at the other end - worked just fine without the receiving phone.

2) I didnt have to be talking to anyone with a line open. As long as the cell phone was on it worked.

So I deduced that somehow the EM field from the RKE was causing an induced current that the transmitter in the cell phone was detecting then broadcasting to the cell tower, as it normally does, but the car receiver was able to pick it up and read the signal.

The receivere is expecting a signal at its synced frequency and only reads one peak in the transmission for the interval it is expecting even if there are multiples, so its transparent.

Then I got up this morning to do some more tests on it (after several weeks) to get more exact data, but nothing worked. So I am going to change my RKE battery today and see if that makes it work again.
Sofa King Lame
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 | 08:08 AM
Okay now, when I got this email I have to say, I was a skeptic. I immediately said "eff dat shit, that wont work, how lame" but like the jerkface I am, I had to try it.

So I called my girlfriend on my cellphone, she picked up and bitched at me about the mess I left in the bathroom this morning, and after she was done bitching I told her that I locked my keys in my car, and needed her to get my spare keys. At first she blew up, and said "hell no i'm not bringing your keys to you, call pop-a-lock you peice of shit" and i finally calmed her down enough to explain what I needed her to do.

So I put the phone up to the car window and hope for the best, but the dumb bitch didn't click the UNLOCK button, she clicked my AUTOMATIC START button, which started my car. No swear, at least I know it works, so I told her to click the correct button this time...

Nothing...

And again, nothing...

So here I am screaming and shit, going off like a madman, my gas tank was nearly on E and my keys were locked in.

I am back at work now, my car is running downstairs in the parking lot, and the keys are still locked in. When I get home I'm going to choke that hoe...
jim stormer
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 | 06:01 AM
i heard about this theory last night for the first time. so, i had to check into it. aside from the concept of random harmonics, sampling, and all that stuff (which can NOT be discounted), i have one more thought. cell phone/tower communications actually have 2 "channels". one channel is for voice stuff (up to approx. 20khz). the other is the control channel. this is used to manage the call. while i can't find many specifics on this, i did find a screen capture of a program (see http://www.winradio.com/home/trunking.htm). look at the section of the image referring to the "Control channel frequency". it's at 460Mhz. if the range of frequencies used for the control channel is broad enough to cover the 315-450 MHz spectrum used by remote keyless entry systems, perhaps the "unlock" signal is being transmitted over this control channel.
daveM
Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 | 08:13 PM
To Quote Alex B

" This will only work if you simultaneously place one foot in a bucket of water while wearing an aluminum-foil beanie cap on your head... to amplify the signal. Trust me. "

I found this works every time with just a little alteration.

I had my wife stand next to me in the driveway next to the car. she called me on the cell and then pointed her key fob at the phone while I held my phone at the car.

Presto !

And to make sure it was not a fluke, I had her put her back to the car and try again. sure enough, it worked that way too.

Dave
Jeff
Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 | 09:15 PM
Experimental Results

Heard this from a friend last week. He gave me a proof of concept and it seemed like it worked. But when I tried it at home I couldn't replicate the functionality over a longer distance. It did however work over a distance far larger then my RKE usually works from. Playing with the varibles, I discovered that I could unlock my door without anyone by the car with a cell phone still. I thought about it and tried more combinations and found that discoverd that I could lock and unlock my car from a much greater distance than usual when I held the rke close to my phone while it was connected or dialing to any other phone number, regardless of where the receiving number was. The effective range with my own cell phone was close to 1000 ft. With my room mates phone, which is from a different carrier I got much better range.

Try it see what happens
Steve n Houston
Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 | 08:54 PM
I did this twice today on two different vehicles, cell to cell and home wireless to cell

I worked both times ... didn't try to lock it back ...

IT WORKS.
Andrew
Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 | 11:47 AM
I'm amazed to say that I tried it and it worked. I got my mother to call me on her mobile, and I put mine up to my sister's car door about 8 inches away from the handle and it unlocked. Although it's strange to note that this happened in south Florida, and the other few people on this forum that claim success are also from Florida. Is there something special going on down here? We use Cingular and the car was a 2000 Honda Accord... but yes, it seriously does work. Maybe only with certain phones or certain kinds of keyless entry?
joemama
Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 | 07:21 AM
i think this cell phone RKE signal thing is a hoax.

why would you hold the cell phone a foot or so away from the door? the receiver for the RKE system is usually located somewhere under the hood (but definitely not in the door), and wires are run to the door actuator. so, if this hoax really did work, wouldn't you be better off holding your cell phone near the hood (where the receiver is) instead of near the door (where the receiver isn't)?

or are they suggesting that the radio signal is transmitted across a cell phone line, which then gets turned into electromagnetic interference of some sort, which gets transmitted across the wire between the receiver and the actuator, the end result being the actuator unlocking the door?
chuck
Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 | 06:38 PM
Well I thought about this and what I have come down to is this...the fob transmitts RF your cell phone picks up an audio signal and converts it to a RF so I am not sure if it would wok I am trying to just be sensible and wonder if the Rf from my fob would be strong enough and would be able to "get to" the reciver part of the cell phone to transmitt it out to another phone...the air is compressed to make an audio sound to hit the diaphram in the mic to make it go back and forth to move it per sya and then this is converted to an electrical wave and sent out..just like our ears and brains do..but is this conversion part in a closed system? can the rf from the fob get past this audio conversion and get right to the recievr part of the phone?? Myth Buster guys could tell us or just do it yourself.
miles
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 | 04:42 PM
it works

i'm so angry right now

go try it wet blankets
azure.
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 | 06:48 AM
Miles, I'm sorry you are so mad. I just tried it last night. Cell to land line, and cell to cell. And it did not work.
piefurz
Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 | 08:16 PM
Very unlikely to work because electronic equipment is designed to block out interference. If you could disable noise filtering circuits you may have a chance of it working. I have picked up radio stations on a video camera which I heard thru an earpiece and saw a TV station image on my Sony digital still image camera preview screen. Very stong signals can get past filtering. I had a problem where a press box was picking up radio stations from nearby towers, strong signal and apparantly inadequate filtering. From the discussions I'm sure current cell phones don't use simple hetrdyning which would make this idea more possible.
Monk E Shines
Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 | 03:51 PM
Alright, so I was skeptical at first, but then I did a thought experiment. It is quite conceivable for this to happen, and its rather simple.

First for all, I will admit a single farse in my logic as I'm not an expert on microphones. However, I must say that the assumption that an E-M wave will somehow magically NOT affect a coil/magnet is idiotic if you're somewhat educated in e-m theory.

Whilst I don't have the quantitative reasoning, I can give you a good qualitative approach: Assuming an apparatus of microphones that IS affected by e-m waves(which is about 99% of the mics out on the market). What the hell makes you think that a mic/speaker cannot produce RF signals? In fact, it is VERY much likely it can, and not only such, WILL transmit this signal across any form of digital network in the form of signal, NOT noise. It is up to the network to attempt to extract this 'noise', but I contend its able to pass with what is thought to be a signal.

Enough of the technobabble btw, it only shows you know a very narrow band of technology.
Rob
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 | 08:18 AM
More experimental results.

So the family is sitting around last night, and the mother in law shares this "really useful" email she got with all thes cell phone tricks in it. My brother in law and I are both engineering types, so we don't believe it of course.

He sends his wife yonder with the car opener and goes out to his car. Several minutes later he came back in saying that it absolutely worked. I said there's no way, let's get to work and figure this out. It was repeated before my very eyes several times, and I still could not believe it.


Experiment 1 -- verizon cell to verizon cell

Absolutely did not work. Then I questioned which phone was originally used as the sender initially. It was the house cordless phone. Ahh-haa I say.


Experiment 2 -- house wireless to verizon cell

Called the cell from the house wireless, but the cell phone was nowhere near the car. The car still opened and closed when activated near the house wireless. The car was not opened and closed when the opener was held an arms length distance away from the phone.


Experiment 3 -- house wireless calling 'Time'

Called 'time' from the house wireless. The car still opened and closed when activated near the house wireless.


Conclusions
The cell phone has nothing to do with it. The remote opening device signal is somehow boosted by the by the house wireless phone. It does not work for all vehicles. It worked with a ford truck and an exterra but not a honda civic. I'm sure it would stop working once we were out of range of the house wireless phone.


myth busted?

Rob
Suzanne
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 | 05:08 PM
I got the same e-mail and My 8th grader is writing a speech about cell phones and we thought we would include it - myth or not. It didn't work for us - but a print out of this forum will be included in his bibliography. Thanks.
tjamnz
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 | 02:14 PM
Cbs news reported this.. so they must have tried it out...

deal with it skeptics. Please

Who knows? It may not work with all phone and all carriers.

Until someone fully tests out all carriers and several phones.. from a range or more than a mile from the source. This concept cannot be truly criticized even if it didnt work for you.

Heres the CBS link...

http://uploads.atomfilms.com/Clip.aspx?key=6DB69393B558E3B0
tjamnz
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 | 02:22 PM
Im hearing this works only with GSM networks.
Dave
Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 | 11:18 PM
Seems really unlikely, -but- as far as people saying that the "home phone" (or other) -only- picks up sound waves, they don't know squat. Any phone receiver will pick up RF signals.

As a matter of fact, any electronic device will pick up RF signals, and if that device is connect to any kind of amplifier those signals will be even more pronounced.
Samsarai
Member
Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 | 10:17 PM
Ok It worked for me, here's the data.

Distance: 200 yards

Variables: Transmiter inside a brick building

Control: Multiple attemps failed without cell phone.

Test 1: cell phone* connection made and the door to the Nissan Sentra was Unlocked

Test 2: The door was relocked

Test 3: a High End Digital Audio recorder was used to record the signal a replay it to the car.
This Failed, probably due tio the rolling security code.

* the cell phones in question were a Verizon G'zOne Type - S, And an unknown smart phone on a seperate carrier.

Conclusion:
1. I highly doubt that the phones are capable of boosting the signal of a frequency not programed to function within the hardwired parameter of the phone.

2. I doubt that same phone is capable of carrying that same signal through it's cell towers.

Problem is it did work for me and in the presence of an engineer that works with radio technology. We were both amazed and stumped and I will not rest till I figure this out.
Samsarai
Member
Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 | 10:24 PM
P.S. The reason we tried the Audio Recorder was to rull out a high frequency audio remote function.

And I will be doing experiments with greater distances and will let you know.

I will also be more accurate in recording the equipment used and variables as well as controls.
idiot wind
Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 | 06:28 PM
i cant believe how dumb you all are.
mike
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 | 10:19 AM
IT DOES WORK!!!!!
How ever, you have to stick your elbow in your ear, hold a metric crescent wrench, while juggling spark plugs for a diesel engine.
david in n'awlins
Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 | 12:50 PM
what's the longest distance that this has been tested and worked?
Ed
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 | 03:51 PM
IT WORKS! I have seen it done. And...9-11 was a inside job!
jake
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 | 05:32 PM
well,, I don't know the science but we just tried it from three miles away and it worked.
doug
Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 | 05:35 PM
doesn't work just tried for A friend who was locked out of his car.
JustaGuy
Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 | 04:12 PM
I cant believe these morons who so quickly discount the real world experience of people who have done it and not just read what someone else thinks about it.

I have tried it and it works sporadically. Dont know what the details are or the criteria for getting it to work, but it does sometime work.

Please, if you dont think it works and have not experimented with it yourself, be reasonable, ask questions maybe or discuss it reasonably.

But dont show everyone what a closed-minded ignoramus you can be by telling us what you obviously dont have a clue about.

This is about some kind of EM induced currents in the key receptor in the car. It is not about IR or sound carried over the phone for Heavens sake.
Grimreaper
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 | 02:36 PM
Looks like what we have here, is a failure to communicate. All of those who believe that it works, may be correct... In as far as that they believe it works, NOT in that it does actually work. Too many variables creep into these "internet truthisms". Think of all the possible combinations; People on their cell phones all day, using garage door openers, gate remotes, car fob's, in all sorts of combinations, and in all sorts of proximity to devices, should have caused chaos by now, or should have at least created more of a buzz than we see from these sad people who think it's true.
Besides, who on EARTH just conveniently leaves their spare fob lying around, so that it's available to be used in an 'emergency' anyhow? I'd say that these people who've 'tried' it were in range of the transmitter, or were inadvertently creating conditions that boosted the RF signal. Conclusion: These same people ALSO dissolved a steak using a well known Cola soft drink...
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