Stray emissions from a SimpliSafe security system?

Bill Roberts

After installing a SimpliSafe home security system about 10 days ago, I noticed the following strange signals on 20 meters only.  What I sense are definite birdies as well as instances of more wide band noise.  Obviously, I can still hear legitimate signals on the band.  Spurs raise noise about 2 - 3 S-units.




This equipment communicates from "base unit" to "sensors" such as flood detector, freeze detector, entry sensor, etc. in the 300-400 MHz range.  The security system "base unit" also communicates with the outside world/their monitoring center via a cellular connection.  I have placed several ferrite beads on lines between the wall wart powering the base unit and auxiliary phone lines with no change noted.  I have unplugged the wall wart, allowing the base to run on it's batteries, also with no change.  A portable SW receiver tuned to 14.235 does show a lot of noise around the base station and it's wall wart.  The station antenna is about 120 feet from the house (GAP Voyager vertical) and is fed with buried RG213 class coax rated for burial.

The only other "change" made around here is conversion from Windows 8.1 to 10 which seems to have made some incremental improvements.  I doubt this has anything to do with the new spurs in the spectrum.  Of course, I have requested some assistance from SimpliSafe but have yet to talk with an Engineer.

Radio Is a 6300 running SSDR 1.5.1.  PC is Dell 8700 with I7 4th generation 8 core CPU with 12 GB of RAM, an NVIDIA 635 card driving 2 monitors.  As stated earlier, all this is running under a new Windows 10 installation as of 11-2-2015.

Any ideas?  Thanks and 73

Rick Hadley - W0FG

Bill, FWIW, I also run a SimpliSafe system and have seen no such spurs since its installation.  I'm curious though...which cellular modem do you have, T-Mobile or Verizon?  SimpliSafe swapped my original T-Mobile board for the Verizon version because I was not getting reliable comms through with the former.

Bill Roberts

No idea.  I just made the assumption that since the SimpliSafe was the only change I made locally, it was the culprit.  A neighbor could have added something or a cable TV shield could have broken.  Who knows.  Thanks for thinking about this one.

Ken Davis

I am also using SimpliSafe system and no problems here.  Have you tried disabling one sensor at a time to see if it changes anything?

Ernest - W4EG

Thank you Bill,
I recently order the SimpliSafe system too and I am in the installation process now. I will continue to follow this on the forum.  Please keep posting your findings... I don't want to reinvent the wheel.  

Jack - WA2OLZ

WARNING - Thread hijack in progress --

Please reply direct to avoid stealing Bill's thread.

I have been thinking of getting the SimpliSafe system for my home. I'd appreciate input from those who have been using it for awhile regarding how well it works, bugs, any comparisons you may have done, etc.

Thanks & 73
Jack
JM@D8ALUS.NET

Bill Roberts

Works fine for me/us.  I was concerned that the wireless coverage would be inadequate for our home because the plaster walls are built on wire mesh.  All sensors from both ends of the house and the basement (in the sump pit)  have no problem communicating.  Customer support is fine;  They replaced a cosmetically damaged keypad quickly and at no charge.  We haven't had a break in or fire yet so I have no idea on how their monitoring service works :-)  You can save some money (25%) by buying "refurbished" equipment.

Kg5dwx

I've used for a year now, no issues