Car Security Guides

by: Andrew Krause

After years of installing alarms, I have come to praise highly DEI’s products. Now, with respect to the fact that I am a disgusting little schill when it comes to Directed Electronics, and could quite possibly be the biggest corporate kiss ass (the only barrier to which is that I am not an employee of DEI), I have worked with a wide variety of alarms. While I will admit that there are others with more features, lower costs, or similar technologies, they all suck nonetheless.

Pluses and Minuses

The first most obvious minus is that most vendors are required to install DEI’s product. If you are a DIY’er, and simply insist on installing it yourself, you usually can, but they vendor does not have to (and probably won’t) return your install fee. OTOH, if you have the means, and you are a good installer, go for it. The install is typically only about $80.

On the plus side, and there are so many, this little Viper has a lot of bite. For starters the actual alarms package size is only 1″x3″x4″. This small size makes it an easy squeeze into many small spots in your dash, or even your floor board or kick panel. I have even managed to locate one inside the kick panel frame member.

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The aim of any remote operated alarm or starter is to provide the maximum amount of distance between the user and the vehicle. Through advancements in radio transmission protocols, the useable range for these products has been extended to the limits bounded by one’s hearing or visual acuity. Most of these devices operate on the AM (amplitude modulation) band. The JT5 Starter separates itself from the rest of the remote starters because it operates on the FM (frequency modulation) band. FM has a number of advantages over AM. The best example of the difference can be seen by listening to your own car radio as it gets farther away from an AM or FM radio station — the FM radio signal can be received farther away from its transmission tower. Also, when the car goes under an overpass or bridge, the AM signal is lost or diminished while the FM signal continues to be received. The JT-5 Starter opens new possibilities with its extended FM range.

Your usual remote starter is set up to transmit commands to the vehicle only, but the JT5 Starter remote not only transmits signals to the vehicle, but it also receives them as well. The limits of any long-range remote starter are those of the user’s hearing and sight. When a driver wants to remote start their vehicle from a long distance, he or she will usually have to be able to see or hear some sign of the engine starting, whether it be the parking lights or smoke from the tailpipe. Drivers need some form of feedback to know that the vehicle in fact received the command they have sent. The JT5 Starter provides this missing link by incorporating a receiver into to its transmitter carried by the driver.
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To refer to an alarm as just an alarm is very misleading. To properly represent what’s being interfaced with a vehicle, it should be referred to as a system (realize that with today’s complicated electrical systems, computers, and airbags, only a qualified and certified professional should install an alarm in your vehicle). We recently had the opportunity to install a DEI-based system consisting of a Viper 600ESP alarm, a 508D Perimeter sensor, a 530T Window Automation System, and an 820T CarCom unit in a 1999 Mazda Miata.

The 600ESP was wired to control both the door locks and the trunk and offer standard alarm features. These features were made easy by the fact that the alarm offers on-board relays. Since the vehicle is a convertible, we decided to also employ the 508D perimeter sensor. This allows protection when the roof is down by creating a field around the vehicle and its interior.

The installation went off without a hitch - the data that DEI provided helped the installer find the wires he needed to interface with easily. Once the alarm was completely installed, he programmed the two remotes so they would offer different features via DEI’s killer Bitwriter. After the lower bolster was put in place, we were off to testing!
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