Military Radios Causing Garage Doors To Open/Close At Random

[matcom]

<snip>

It seemed at first like an open-and-shut case when the repairman came to inspect Shelley Slack's malfunctioning garage door.

The Yorba Linda resident was baffled when her garage door — and that of a neighbor — would mysteriously open and close several times a day over the last few weeks.

The repairman had a quick diagnosis: Military radio transmissions were playing havoc with her automatic garage door-opening system.

He may have been right. The U.S. military and the Federal Communications Commission both acknowledge that new military radios, part of an $800-million effort to upgrade communications at bases, have interfered with garage door openers across the country.

Both agencies have fielded numerous complaints from frustrated residents since last year, when the Department of Defense began installing radios that use the same frequency as the ubiquitous clickers.

"There's been a great deal of frustration," said Bruce Romano, an administrator with the FCC's office of engineering and technology. "Everyone's unhappy, and that's unfortunate."

The military radios operate on the same 390-megahertz frequency as the openers. Although the government has reserved that frequency for military use for more than 50 years, manufacturers of garage door openers have for decades been allowed to use it for their low-power remote transmitters.

The garage-opener interference issue was quick to surface when the first radios were switched on at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and at military installations in Pennsylvania, authorities said this week.

"All of a sudden, all sorts of homeowners couldn't open their garage doors," said Tom Wadsworth, editor of Illinois-based Door and Access Systems magazine, a trade publication. "I even talked to an Eglin colonel it happened to."

Wadsworth said the high-powered military radios "overpower" the low-output door-opener remotes.

Although officials initially claimed that only homes next to military bases were likely to be affected, they later conceded that interference could occur much farther away.

Flat, low-lying areas seem most susceptible to interference. The farthest distance that door openers have been affected is about 25 miles, said Lt. Col. Chris Conway, a Pentagon spokesman.

"It's caused problems in certain communities. We're trying to mitigate it," Conway said Thursday. Officials have conferred with representatives of the garage-door industry and considered the use of other frequencies within the military's 380- to 400-megahertz band allotment.

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-garage17jun17.story

[montanacowboy]

1. My garage door

has been opened overnight on more than one occasion - I kept thinking I must be losing my mind and forgetting to close it, but no, it is opening on its own....maybe now I know why

[matcom]

2. are you suggesting MatcomNews actually DOES provide a 'service'?

:D

who knew?