Slow or delayed response to key fobs?

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Jeff B

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Jan 16, 2023, 8:00:28 AM1/16/23
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Hi there, I purchased an RF Explorer 6G Combo in October.  I haven't had too much time to play around with it, yet.  But, last night I downloaded the windows suite to try and see how that all works.  I have a quick question that's hopefully an easy one...

I work in the Auto industry, doing locksmithing, electronic repairs, module cloning, remote starts etc.  I primarily wanted the RF Explorer to check for interference and to test key fob (transmitter) strength.  I have a bunch of tools and programmers that will simply tell me that the fob is working, and what frequency it's sending in ASK or FSK etc.  BUT, without the RF Explorer, I wasn't able to tell how WELL or STRONG the signal from the key fob is.  Just that it works.

So, last night I grabbed a bunch of keyless entry remotes to test and compare their signal strengths.  But, for whatever reason, it seems like I have to press the buttons 15+ times before the RF Explorer will register the data on the screen!?  Is this normal?  Cause every time I press a button ie lock or unlock etc., should it not show the dBm for each press of the button??  Sometimes I have to sit and just keep pressing lock, lock, lock, lock, lock, etc and then finally the RF Explorer screen will show a spike and a max hold of, for example, -21.8 dBm.  I know a signal is being sent, so not sure if there's a setting I'm supposed to adjust or change in order to compensate for the extremely short burst from key fobs?

Is this normal?  Is there a reason why 90% of the key presses don't show any data?  I know the presses were working because I would have another frequency detector next to the RF Explorer that would emit an audible confirmation.  So it kept going 'beep', 'beep', 'beep' etc. every time, but the wave form wouldn't do anything on the RF Explorer??  I would set the center frequency to be either 315 Mhz or 433 Mhz, depending what the key fob was set to by the vehicle manufacturer.

Any thoughts or advice?  I'm fairly new to it all.

THANKS:)

JEFF

RF Explorer

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Jan 16, 2023, 8:09:10 AM1/16/23
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Hi Jeff,

The signal transmitted by the key fob is short duration packet. Depending on how you configured RF Explorer, it may not be fast enough to capture the event. For instance if you have set a large span it may take a few seconds to capture the whole spectrum and therefore not capable of capturing the short duration packet every time.

To get best results, set the center frequency and a span of only 5MHz and select DSP:Fast mode in the RF Explorer device, this should be fast enough to capture all events from a keyfob.

Regards,
RF Explorer Team

Jeff B

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Feb 2, 2023, 5:27:09 PM2/2/23
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Thank you so much, that actually worked perfect.

Next question, is there a way to view the actual data, in hexadecimal or binary, that is being sent by the vehicle fob or any other device?  I assume it would be via the Windows software and not the handheld device itself, but not sure if it's even possible or not.

Thanks again:)

RF Explorer

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Feb 6, 2023, 10:19:19 AM2/6/23
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Hi,

That is possible with a feature RF Sniffer, we do not currently offer it (previously as beta) but will do again later this year.

Regards,
RF Explorer Team

Donald Viszneki

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Feb 8, 2023, 4:43:46 AM2/8/23
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What frequencies are you interested in? There may be other more suitable tools for recording and inspecting the communique

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