Tom Cloutier

Haha! This would probably explain the odd behavior of so many of the inhabitants! Fried brains! Also probably explains why all the clapped out late 1970's vintage diesel Volvos are oxidized that rust brown color.

Candy bars are not allowed in Berkeley. The City government spent millions of taxpayer dollars to unearth a plot by the feds to poison and addict Berkeley kids with chocolate. Winter has been eliminated from the brand of English spoken in Berkeley because cool periods don't support Al Gore's global warming hypothesis.

Cheers,

Tom Cloutier

Tom Cloutier

Last summer when this first happened (well probably the 50th time), one of the techs remarked that there was a radio tower down the street. I found that simply placing my hand over the unshielded LH provided enough protection to prevent the car from stalling. And the disappearance of the problem after replacing the cover was pretty strong circumstantial evidence! Quite a bit of head (and ball) scratching went into this diagnosis. I probably could have struggled for 100 years without stumbling upon the cause.

Sometimes a guy just gets lucky.

Tom Cloutier

Tom Cloutier

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the pic--I'd forgotten what that uh, fine officer of the law looked like. I just don't know how we would have conducted our gathering without his thoughtful concern and guidance. Don't get me started now. I wonder if we can request his assistance at this year's Sharks in the Park? Perhaps if you and he worked together on the planning to make certain we are following all the intricate rules regarding the peaceful gathering of a group of upstanding (well mostly) citizens for the purpose of sharing ribs and burgers (damn good ones too) and swapping stories, we could finally have a successful and enjoyable party. Umm, I wouldn't mention the part about tearing through the countryside at triple the posted speed limit scattering cows and cyclists!

Later,

Tom Cloutier

alex70

Seriously though, is this real? About the suspectibility of the LH to RF freq? Seems kinda odd, but curious.

Rich

Tom Cloutier

This is very real. With a little instrumentation and a few hours I'm sure it could be demonstrated that a particular frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum is zapping some component in the LH. Short of that, the circumstantial evidence seems pretty strong.

Keep it covered!

Tom Cloutier

Charley B

Actually Andre', this explains several things about you. So I'll be kinder from now on.

jon928se

Alarms and Immobilsers can be pretty sensitive to EMR at times.

Parked in a Hotel carpark in France once - deliberately where the CCTV could see the SE and under the street light completely ignoring that it was a Sodium light that hadn't ignited properly. Following morning at 0 dark early I couldn't get the immobiliser to "mobilise". Eventually I realised that the car wasn't the problem, the EMR from the Sodium Light igniter was - pushed the SE about 25m away from the light and the immobiliser mobilised normally. Moral - don't park near flickering street lights.

Mike Frye

I gotta say, if I can ever help someone start a car using this theory, I'll be considered a GOD!

... looks up at the street light, ponders a bit, 'Ah... I see yer problem. Help me push it over there...'


Car starts up and runs fine after an hour of useless tries by unsuspecting driver. 'Just as I suspected, you see the problem has to do with EM radiation and an unshielded faulty emitter...'

This is weird stuff I never would have thought of pertaining to a car.

Larry Velk

Faraday Cage. To large extent, can protect against EMP. Conductor on outside of component. Often wire cage enough.

Garth S

You can't be Sirius that radio did this .... although possibly XM could be the culprit ... New fangled stuff screwing up old LH technology ...

ew928

Them dishes on towers are microwave relays, I believe.
Point to point directed communications. Usually stuff that people don't want wandering eavesdroppers to hear.
Be cool to find out how many Mega/GigaWatts that radio tower is putting out.
Something enough to penetrate the rudimentary Faraday cage of the 928 chassis and require a full Faraday cage over the LH to protect. But that flakey LH composite chip . . .

Good God. Don't let Pakistan know about that PowerBroker Centrifuge. They'd be fabbing a gob of them and selling them to their "friends."

Been to SITM and Frenzy quite a few times. Never really had a Police protection at the show and tell events. You guys in Cali are so lucky to have so much
"Protect and Serve" for your events.

Nice folio of paperwork, BillBall. Do you CA guys have to drive around with full documentation and DNA sample and all your gas receipts?
It's good them ossifers do not drive around with depth gauge and test each of BB's rear tires to find out the left one worn so much more than the right.

John Speake

Any high speed digital circuits, like those used in the LH and EZK are susceptable to RF pickup, and in severe cases this can cause the LH?EZK to stop working.

They are most unlikely to be damaged by such exposure.

When the lid is off either LH or EZK they are more exposed to RTF pickup, and even more so when the ribbon cable to the SharkTuner is attached.

This is why the LH is in a screened box, and the signals going into the box (d.c and low frequency) and filtered. The box of an EZK is plastic, but has been metal plated to give a well screened enclosure.

In an another life I used to design high power mobile radios for vehicles, and stopping the radio signals messing up early versions of ABS etc. was quite a job. These days car electronics boxes have to pass stringent EMC tests, as any malfunction could be safety critical.

The radio masts Tom had problems with must have been very high power VHF. Signal strength dimishes as a square law rate with distance from the mast, so usually these effects are very localised.

That cop looks a right officious bast..d... but then most of them are. Like bossing people around.

SeanR

This has been an entertaining thread to read. I can't imagine what it would be like to listen in to a conversation in person.

This simple Texan would not be able to keep up and would just start to giggle.

SharkSkin

Bill, Tom, next time put a TV tray with a box of donuts at the entrance to the park -- that should keep the cops away from the gathering.

Regarding the RF issue, I have seen the spaghetti-mess of a shark in the process of being shark-tuned. I would think that a shielded ribbon cable, properly grounded, plus a wrap of aluminum foil(if you can't put the cover on) would solve the problem.

I'm sure many experts would agree:

JWise

The scary thing is, if a terrorist or other unfriendly were to detonate a nuke at the proper altitude over the CONUS, we could have a lot more to worry about than our 928's LH unit being fried...