AUGUSTA, Ga: Army's new 390 MHz system jamming garage door openers

[KC2GVX]

From Fox News:
New radio system at Ga. Army base frustrates homeowners by inadvertently jamming garage doors | Fox News

 

[jim202]

From Fox News:
New radio system at Ga. Army base frustrates homeowners by inadvertently jamming garage doors | Fox News

This has been going on for about 2 years now around the country as the new 390 MHz. UHF government trunking systems are placed into service. The local garage door companies around the country are being overloaded in trying to replace all the radio remote control systems.

 

[KC2GVX]

I am assuming all the garage door openers are Part 15- and have that warning that they must accept unwanted interference? Therefore, I guess the homeowners can't do anything.

 

[KB7MIB]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en-US) Gecko/20081217 Vision-Browser/8.1 301x200 LG VN530)

They have no legal recourse. The only thing they can do, is have the company reprogram or replace the remote, or find a new GDO altogether that uses a different frequency.
And I thought this has been going on a lot longer than just 2 years...

 

[RDGDigital]

It has been going on for a lot longer than 2 years...

From 2009 - Military Jams Garage Doors Openers - CBS News

From 2006 - Military Radio Signal Jams Garage Doors:

From 2004 - Military radio signals could jam garage door openers - today > tech - TODAY.com

And these are only from the front page of a Google search.

 

[KC2GVX]

This is the first I have heard of this, as we do not have any 390 MHz systems near me. Who dropped the ball here? I am guessing the garage door opener manufacturer companies should have put their controls in a different band knowing the military uses these frequencies?

Edit- after reading the first article I see the military has been licensed to use this band since the 1950s. GDO's since the 1980s. Interesting effect, and surely nobody thought it would be this bad.

 

[Mike_G_D]

Prior to relatively recent heavy use of military trunking systems in the 390MHz range the only real problems with that range for low power remote control devices like garage door openers were the occasional military communications from jets, etc., and maybe some satellite stuff. Those weren't usually continuous and signal strength would vary wildly with only occasional issues with really strong interfering signals. So GDO manufacturers could reasonably expect few real issues.

Now, however, these trunking systems have continuously broadcasting control channels and very strong signal levels for control and voice channels; the systems are often pretty busy with large installations. The GDO manufacturers were simply caught off guard when those trunking systems started coming on line.

-Mike

 

[blantonl]

We don't have any details yet submitted to our database admin team about this new system - so if anyone could start to gather some details that would be great.

Also, is the system actually in the 390 MHz range? I don't think I have seen a DOD system that was over 390 Mhz... they are almost always 380-390.. thoughts?

 

[poltergeisty]

I've seen this issue with garage doors and the military for as long as I have been a member here.

 

[ecps92]

LB, see this thread brought up last month. :wink:

Seems to be RadioReference.com - Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference Database

We don't have any details yet submitted to our database admin team about this new system - so if anyone could start to gather some details that would be great.

Also, is the system actually in the 390 MHz range? I don't think I have seen a DOD system that was over 390 Mhz... they are almost always 380-390.. thoughts?

 

[ai8o]

Something similar happened in the El Paso TX,/ South East New Mexico area 10-15 years ago.

Garage doors opening and closing, failing to operate at all, etc.

"Los Federales", the Mexican Federal Police, fired up a new 390 Mhz system on a mountain near Cuidad Juarez in Northern Chihuahua.

El Paso is just across the Rio Grande from Mexico.

At first some people thought the interference was tied to activities at Fort Bliss, but the signals were soon tracked down to a mountain top in Mexico.

 

[Michael-SATX]

A few years ago San Antonio was also affected back when our NSA Data Center was being built.
The NSA-DC TRS was taken offline for several months so homeowners could have time to change
their radio modules or have their garage door openners units replaced. Lots of folks were affected
and I think many garage door companies made a few $$$ dollars in this transition time in SATX.

National Security Agency (San Antonio Data Center) Trunking System, San Antonio, Texas - Scanner Frequencies

Ah the sweet sound of P25 Encryption, used to be in the clear 3+ years ago ... so much for that
But hey, as we here in the news lately, they can't be bothered with us knowing what they are doing

These are our particular NSA-DC TRS freqs used here:
385.012500c
386.200000v
387.175000v
387.450000v
389.487500v

 

[poltergeisty]

Wow! The NSA is in Texas too? Gesh, how many facilities do they need?

 

[KB7MIB]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en-US) Gecko/20081217 Vision-Browser/8.1 301x200 LG VN530)

You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. If something happens to that one basket, all your eggs could break. So you want to spread your eggs among several baskets. (Or spread your intel gathering among several facilities.)

 

[poltergeisty]

I was reading that the NSA has facilities in Utah, Georgia, Texas, Colorado, Maryland and Hawaii.

 

[Michael-SATX]

edit ~ my finger slipped and I double posted ...

 

[Michael-SATX]

Hmm, also I heard the NSA was ONLY interested in coming to San Antonio
ONLY if Microsoft was also planning to locate a Mega Data Center here as well
Maybe they have a big fat fiber optic link between them so they can co-data mine together
Since I posted the MS-Data Center Passport TRS last month, watch our MS-DC upgrade
to a P25 encrypted digital TRS just to keep 2 to 3 folks from ocassionally listenning to them
Think about it, who out of a handfull of us actually have an RS-232 DSR Data Slicer and a old DOS laptops still
thats needed to actually trunk track a proprietary Passport TRS since no scanner model can track it to listen to.
Pile on that most folks that I know that fit the bill don't even live close enough to the MS-DC for proper signal decoding
and probably don't care to listen to them anyway even if they could. Most folks preffer other categories of listenning

 

[lep]

We don't have any details yet submitted to our database admin team about this new system - so if anyone could start to gather some details that would be great.

Also, is the system actually in the 390 MHz range? I don't think I have seen a DOD system that was over 390 Mhz... they are almost always 380-390.. thoughts?

It would be helpful if the sys ID was used more often in referring to systems. I am within range of sys ID 058A, the new 380 MHz P-25 Department of Army system at Ft. Stewart/Hunter AAF system just coming into usage here in south Georgia. I have commented in another thread about sys ID 14C that the title of that thread is incorrect in referring to 14C as the DoD system when it a NAVY system. The Wiki entries seem to be confused on delineating between DoD, Army, Air Force, and Navy systems. Perhaps db administrators can clarify, what is the sys ID of the Augusta Army new installation?

 

[Russell]

The "new" garage door opener freq is 315 MHz and it is also on a secondary basis. There are conversion kits available for the old systems. Most new openers operate on 315.

 

[poltergeisty]

Does any one know why garage door manufactures chose the 300 MHZ band? It would seem prudent to use 49 MHz.