[s-cars] re: RF effective distance

[Sean Douglas]

Bill:

I extended the range of my 97 by increasing the length of the antenna.
With the help of lister Brian Powell, he came up with a solution.
Basically, you need a 2 conductor solid core wire and you tap in at the
receiver at the central locking unit. I ran mine from under the rear
seat to the trunk where the cell phone receiver is, overall it was about
8 ft. It extended my range to about 20 ft.

Here is my correspondence with Brian (edited):

On Tuesday, July 15, 2003, at 09:51  PM, Sean Douglas wrote:

> I poked around under the seat today. The receiver is next to the
> battery
> under the black foam and I assume the battery must be removed to gain
> access?
>

Yes, the battery has to come out--no other way.  Remove the small black 
plug (not the large one with the clips) from the central lock unit.  
You can then remove the black sheath from the plug (before you do this, 
note the orientation of the white plug inside the black sheath.  The 
black sheath labels pins 1, 6, 7, and 12.  1 and 7 are opposite each 
other.  I then firmly inserted a bare lead from my antenna into each 
plug and tested that I had contact.  I used electrical tape to secure 
my antenna to the bundle of wires, replaced the black sheath (making 
sure I didn't push out the new antenna, and once the sheath was on, it 
wasn't going to move anywhere.  I then left the foam off, ran the 
antenna out of the window, hooked up the battery and tested.  Once I 
knew it worked great, I removed the battery, put the foam back on and 
ran the antenna (see below).  

> How long of is your *homemade* antenna? Did you run it to the outside 
> or
> does it just lay under the seat?
>

I ran mine from the box (I fed a tube from the trunk down the right 
hand side (following other wires) and it came into the cabin near the 
box.  I then pulled the antenna through that, ran it across the top of 
the trunk with the speaker wires, down behind the Motorola phone box 
behind the carpet and toward the rear of the car.  I did not bother to 
take it outside of the car, it is doing really well as it is.  All 
told, I would guess it is ~3m in length.  The antenna I used is very 
small single core wire with two leads (left unconnected at the other 
side, open-loop).



Sean Douglas
1997 Audi S6 - MTM Stage 1+
1990 Audi 90Q20V


> -----Original Message-----
> From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com 
> [mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of William Perron
> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 1:27 PM
> To: s-car-list at audifans.com
> Subject: [s-cars] re: RF effective distance
> 
> 
> Mark-
> Mine is the same.  I'd say 10 ft is about right.  -
> but mine seems to be related to the angle you are at. 
> For some reason coming at it dead straight from the
> side results in the shortest range - 6-8ft?  Best is
> above the car- like from a window in your house.  I
> can activate it from like 25 ft or so.  I too tried
> new batteries w/ no improvement.  I am wondering if
> you can increase the antenna length on the 
> receiver/controller/door lock pump...
> 
> 
> -Bill
> '95.5 S6 Avant
> '85 4kq
> 
> Original Message:
> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 14:43:14 -0500
> From: Mark Pollan <mark.pollan at mci.com>
> Subject: [s-cars] RF effective distance
> To: s-car-list at audifans.com
> Message-ID:
> <015c01c3bb68$06bd5490$456832a6 at wcomnet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> Speaking of IR vs.RF, I need to be within
> approximately 10 feet to
> unlock/lock the car with RF.  New battery, blah,
> blah...  How close do 
> you
> need to be?  Please leave the tiggler out of this.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mark
> 95.5 S6
> 
> 
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