mlevin
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Here's an article.
FREDERICK, Md. (AP) -- A new radio system at Fort Detrick will
improve communication with the Pentagon. The downside: some
people may have to open their garage doors the old-fashioned way.
The Land Mobile Radio system will allow Fort Detrick and 10
other Army installations in the Washington region to communicate
with the Pentagon and civilian emergency personnel by hand-held
radios.
In a suburban sacrifice to emergency preparedness, Frederick
residents could experience a rash of dead door openers in coming
days, as the Army's Fort Detrick begins using a new radio system
linking local and federal government emergency personnel.
The new system uses a frequency that has been owned by the
military for decades but used only by a couple of consumer devices,
including garage door openers.
Testing of the system has generated a dozen calls to Fort
Detrick from residents with problems, and when the system begins
operating on 3,000 military properties across the country in coming
months, hundreds more complaints may follow.
"I think the Army ought to buy us a new opener or pay for a
converter," Marty Kreps told The Washington Post.
"If the government was fair, they'd give us a tax deduction,"
Michael Foster said.
Negative, the Army says.
"This frequency belongs to the military," said Michael J.
Batt, telecommunications engineer and frequency manager at Fort
Detrick, who is coordinating the radio system rollout. "I'd rather
know Frederick County has a radio system it can rely on in an
emergency and have to walk a few feet to open my garage."
In May, residents near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida had
problems with their garage door openers while the base was testing
its land mobile system. In November, Fort Detrick finished work on
a 150-foot radio tower, which juts above a grove of satellite
dishes about a mile from the entrance to North Crossing. In
mid-January, Detrick began testing the radios.
That was about the same time Darlene Foster returned from the
Safeway to find her garage door immobile. And the same week, Marty
and George Kreps learned that to open their garage, Marty Kreps
said, "you have to pull up to the door like you're going to run
into it."
Surfing the Internet, George Kreps learned that this was a known
problem with two possible solutions: "Either you get a $60 kit"
to change the frequency "or you spend $150 on a whole new
system."
FREDERICK, Md. (AP) -- A new radio system at Fort Detrick will
improve communication with the Pentagon. The downside: some
people may have to open their garage doors the old-fashioned way.
The Land Mobile Radio system will allow Fort Detrick and 10
other Army installations in the Washington region to communicate
with the Pentagon and civilian emergency personnel by hand-held
radios.
In a suburban sacrifice to emergency preparedness, Frederick
residents could experience a rash of dead door openers in coming
days, as the Army's Fort Detrick begins using a new radio system
linking local and federal government emergency personnel.
The new system uses a frequency that has been owned by the
military for decades but used only by a couple of consumer devices,
including garage door openers.
Testing of the system has generated a dozen calls to Fort
Detrick from residents with problems, and when the system begins
operating on 3,000 military properties across the country in coming
months, hundreds more complaints may follow.
"I think the Army ought to buy us a new opener or pay for a
converter," Marty Kreps told The Washington Post.
"If the government was fair, they'd give us a tax deduction,"
Michael Foster said.
Negative, the Army says.
"This frequency belongs to the military," said Michael J.
Batt, telecommunications engineer and frequency manager at Fort
Detrick, who is coordinating the radio system rollout. "I'd rather
know Frederick County has a radio system it can rely on in an
emergency and have to walk a few feet to open my garage."
In May, residents near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida had
problems with their garage door openers while the base was testing
its land mobile system. In November, Fort Detrick finished work on
a 150-foot radio tower, which juts above a grove of satellite
dishes about a mile from the entrance to North Crossing. In
mid-January, Detrick began testing the radios.
That was about the same time Darlene Foster returned from the
Safeway to find her garage door immobile. And the same week, Marty
and George Kreps learned that to open their garage, Marty Kreps
said, "you have to pull up to the door like you're going to run
into it."
Surfing the Internet, George Kreps learned that this was a known
problem with two possible solutions: "Either you get a $60 kit"
to change the frequency "or you spend $150 on a whole new
system."
