Prox Wireless Receiver/Transmitter For Gates

Can you confirm that reads are being missed?

What I mean is that do you know for sure it is a credential/reader issue and not a controller contact or gate operator one?

Yes I think we can. We are not seeing Access Denied/not authorized events in the system. Not knowing specific times of complaints (at least not yet) we can't confirm directly at an event, but nothing in the logs seemed to indicate that the system is not acting as it should when a credential is presented. Certainly times would be beneficial to check but people don't usually go to the office right away to complain as it isn't onsite. The gate is a consideration if it had an intermittent issue of some sort.

It does seem to require a "deliberate" press of the transmitter button to activate, but nothing extraordinary long. The end-user states they review that with people when they issue the fobs/transmitter. I think trying new hardware is a bit extreme but they have apparently been living with this for a while prior to our service contract with them. I wanted to do some due diligence on the hardware and further troubleshooting first then even see if a new receiver/transmitter brand is even cost effective for them to consider. I do see that the current transmitters they are using have been replaced by a newer model, the P82WLS.

How far away do the receivers need to pick up a credential?

For long ranges over 10-20 feet, solutions like Nedap's Booster 2G setup might be worth looking at. It would require swapping out the reader and buying 'booster' holsters for all users (~$100 each) which may be a showstopper, but it boosts range of normal 125 kHz prox to about 30 feet.

We have a 2 sites using the Kantech WLS-5500 with the WLS 3710 Single Button Transmitters. Not sure the difference between the WLS-5500 and the Kantech P700WLS. The biggest issue we see with users is they try to push (tap) the button at 150' and not hold the button. We have an average a 100' to 130" read range. Is the antenna remoted above the Fence or Gate? or is it in the gate operator or another enclosure with the access control board behind the Gate? We are currently testing an RF Solution from Farpointe. Which they OEM for Mircom and KeriSys. Read range is roughly 100'. No remote antenna though.

Thanks for the input. The antenna is mounted above the gate, not in an enclosure so I don;t think we are loosing range due to that. I think the issue is the same as Jonathan states, people may press the button too early and not hold it. I don't know if there is something out there that would give better feedback as to transmission or not.

We have a fair amount of experience with transmitters and receivers, though none with the product in question. A few other things to consider:

Is the transmitter battery installed correctly? Sometimes a battery can come loose in its holder, leading to inconsistent operation.

Is the transmitter button being pressed completely? Many transmitters have an on-board LED to confirm the button was pressed and data indeed transmitted. End user education may help here.

Is the receiver being 'jammed'? Did the technicians confirm that any vehicle detection loops, gate activators and the like are not interfering with the receiver's proper operation?

And is the receiver suffering from a power brown out? This is not unheard of, particularly if the receiver is being powered from a source sharing its power with the gate activator.

Good luck. Intermittent issues always seem the most challenging.

I have heard this comment on many other sites.

This specific brand requires the user to press and hold the button until the red LED confirms it is transmitting. If the user presses the button on and off quickly, it will not work. The reason for the press and hold was to prevent accidental transmissions and battery drain by the button being continuously pressed by the user sitting on it.

Holding and pressing will only send a burst of transmission cycles then stop. The user will need to release the button and press again to send another string of transmission cycles keeping an eye on the red LED. No LED, no transmission.

The concept was to prevent code grabbers in car visors from cloning the transmitter codes thus gaining unauthorised entry to parking areas.

Users are not accustom to this type of operation since they treat it like their car remote.