Radio Signals May Jam Garage Door Openers

Kansas City Star ^ | Mon, Dec. 06, 2004 | JOHN J. LUMPKIN

[mollynme]

WASHINGTON - Coming soon to dozens of military bases around the country: radio signals strong enough to jam nearby garage-door openers.

Between now and 2008, the military is supplying a new radio system to roughly 125 bases that uses the same frequency as the one relied upon by more than 90 percent of the remotely operated openers, Pentagon and industry officials say.

The military radio signal is sometimes so strong that it overpowers the opener's signal, preventing the door from opening. Or it can also vastly reduce the opener's range, forcing the user to walk close to the garage before it will open.

snip

Linton Wells II, Pentagon acting chief information officer, predicted the effect will only be noticed within 10 miles of a base.

But Karasek said interference may be felt as far away as 50 miles. He estimated that at least 50 million garage-door openers in the United States use the same frequency as the new radios.

Beyond issues of convenience and cost, his group raises safety concerns about people who don't carry house keys being locked out of their homes.

The garage-door opener frequency at issue - 390 megahertz - has belonged to the military since around 1950. Openers have legally operated at that frequency since at least the early 1980s, Karasek said.

snip

The radios are coming online in at least two more places: Fort Hamilton in New York City and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The Defense and Commerce departments, the Federal Communications Commission and industry are starting discussions. Base commanders will be instructed to inform nearby communities the interference is coming.

Karasek said a solution may be for the military to program its radios to skip the garage-door opener frequency.

Entire article here.

[DugwayDuke]

See my post #19.

[massgopguy]

Quick, someone alert America's Funniest Home Videos.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Oh well. Too bad. Because garage door openers are part of a group of devices whose operating frequencies are governed by Part 95 of the FCC regulations which states, "These frequencies are not afforded any protection from interference due to the operation of fixed and mobile stations in other services assigned to the same or adjacent frequencies..."

Time to upgrade I guess.

[GingisK]

The ultimate development in weapons systems: the garage door jammer. This will certainly give us the edge in urban combat!

[mollynme]

Saw this on the local news and was wondering if it might be coming to a base near us.

[MineralMan]

On a different, but related note, I bought a wireless doorbell for my new house. Trouble is, every time a neighbor uses his garage door opener, my doorbell rings.

I replaced it with a real, wired doorbell.

[mollynme]

I hope you don't have dogs. LOL

[Thermalseeker]

A look at any spectrum map covering DC to Daylight will reveal that the military does have a few gigahertz of other spectrum available.

Exactly. The military "controls" large chunks of the RF spectrum that isn't even being used.

[Dr. Zzyzx]

When Reagan would visit his ranch in California, they'd park the Doomsday plane at March AFB. It would make garage doors open and close from time to time in the neighborhoods around the base.

[NautiNurse]

Would that also cause the cables to break as mine did several weeks ago?

Funny you should mention that. My garage door cable broke about a month after the door opener frequency problem. The cable broke 14 hours before one of the hurricanes as I was heading to the store to get ice. NOT a good day.

[Calamari]

change the batteries

[Tealc]

A malfunctioning GDO could ruin your whole day.



At least you won't get a go-ahead back... :)