Ideas for alarm switch on hood?

[Trent Bates]

I've mentioned before that the alarm is marginally decent but can't really be considered secure by any means until a hood switch is added. As it stands, once the hood is opened, the battery can be disconnected and then the alarm is dead. Offhand, I don't know how hard it is to open the hood without getting in the car first. Usually, it's not too hard to do though. A pinswitch, or mercury/tiltswitch should be added. Mercury is very bad for aluminum so that might not be the best option for an aluminum hood! ;) Tilt switches in general are usually not sensitive enough to allow a car to park at different angles while still preventing the hood from being lifted much before the alarm is triggered. The only other option that I can think of are pinswitches. I remember that Alpine had some really expensive sealed units many years ago. I used to use the cheaper common units because I couldn't justify $15 for an Alpine pinswitch at the time. The second issue is that it needs to be wired to the alarm. Any trigger curcuits better than others? Anyone else have any ideas? John M., any thoughts?