Garage Door

[pdog13]

Good Morning,

I live on a street, and we are having an issue with our garage doors opening with the remotes. There are now about 15 houses that are not working. we have started a police report and the officer in charge of our case thinks it could be a short wave radio, or a ham. Thought i would pick your brains for the correct info. Sorry if i have any incorrect terms, i am new to this. any info would be great. I live in Lake St louis MO. The neighbor hood is about 3 years old, and most all the openers are the same brand. "Chamberland" I have lived there for about a year and a half. In the last three days all of this has started to happen. Also remote keys on cars are not working until you get next to the car.

Thanks,
Pdog13

 

[n4yek]

Sounds like the policeman has no idea so he is going to blame a 'ham'? Thats typical. :roll:

What would give him any idea that it was a ham? Is there a house around you with a lot of antennas visible? Just curious.

 

[JoeyC]

Your garage door openers are not working? Why do you think this is a problem for the police?

 

[Michael-SATX]

Hey Pdog13, in order to better pick some brains here on RR, please share some info besides that you live on a street .... in what city/state ? Here in San Antonio, TX there is a situation in which the NSA decided to use a new 2-way radio system on 389.4875 Mhz FM and thus essentially jammed many garage doors opens in an area of say 15 to 20 miles the TV news reported. Many garage door systems
operate around 340 Mhz, 360 Mhz and apparently way up around 389 Mhz ( news to me at 389 ish ).
I think you all an your officer can pretty much rule out shortwave ranges ( way to low in freq ranges )
along with HAM radios which are not know to operate anywhere near the garage door frequencies !

Good luck and don't forget to mention the details that might help people help you investigate this issue.

 

[N2JDS]

I seem to think that a while back there was a story about someplace near an airport that developed some similar problems, something at the airport was causing interference. But it was a while back, and I've Defragged my brain several times since then

 

[DaveNF2G]

Did you and your neighbors have the openers installed at around the same time? Have you checked the batteries in your remotes? Do the doors open when you push the buttons in your garages? Have the openers totally stopped working at all times, or is the failure sporadic?

 

[N_Jay]

Good Morning,

I live on street, and we are having an issue with our garage doors opening with the remotes. There are now about 15 houses that are not working. we have started a police report and the officer in charge of our case thinks it could be a short wave radio, or a ham. Thought i would pick your brains for the correct info. Sorry if i have any incorrect terms, i am new to this. any info would be great.

Thanks,
Pdog13

Most likely it is a new Federal Government system in the 390 MHz band.

Your unlicensed remote controls operate on a secondary basis on their band.

Somewhere in the manual you will find an explanation of "FCC Part-15".

Title 47 CFR Part 15 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It says that your system will not interfere and you will accept any interference.

The Police can do nothing about it. I would contact the Garage door opener manufacturer.

 

[talkpair]

i would put the remote as close as i could to the receiver in an attempt to rule out the frequency being jammed.

Next call would be to the company that installed the opener. It's possible they've already dealt with this issue.

 

[GrayJeep]

2004 MSNBC article about the possible situation-

Military radio signals could jam garage door openers - Wireless- msnbc.com

 

[pdog13]

I have added some more info to my first question. Thanks for any help.

Pdog13

 

[mikepdx]

I live on street, and we are having an issue with our garage doors opening with the remotes. There are now about 15 houses that are not working. we have started a police report and the officer in charge of our case thinks it could be a short wave radio, or a ham.

Why did you opt to call law enforcement rather than a garage door professional???
I'm mortified that LE would consider getting involved.
Wouldn't happen here.

 

[pdog13]

Hey Pdog13, in order to better pick some brains here on RR, please share some info besides that you live on a street .... in what city/state ? Here in San Antonio, TX there is a situation in which the NSA decided to use a new 2-way radio system on 389.4875 Mhz FM and thus essentially jammed many garage doors opens in an area of say 15 to 20 miles the TV news reported. Many garage door systems
operate around 340 Mhz, 360 Mhz and apparently way up around 389 Mhz ( news to me at 389 ish ).
I think you all an your officer can pretty much rule out shortwave ranges ( way to low in freq ranges )
along with HAM radios which are not know to operate anywhere near the garage door frequencies !

Good luck and don't forget to mention the details that might help people help you investigate this issue.

I have added some more info, if you would take a look at what i have added

 

[pdog13]

Why did you opt to call law enforcement rather than a garage door professional???
I'm mortified that LE would consider getting involved.
Wouldn't happen here.

We have had some girls on the street running around 5:30 in the morning over the last couple of weeks. they were followed in the morning and approached. then all of us on the street at the same time have problems with our garage doors not working it sent up a red flagg. we are a pretty tight street all are friends and look out for each other. hope that helps

 

[MtnBiker2005]

First. Lets try to help the new RR forum member out. It's nice to get the full details from the poster. Then keep asking questions. So he wrote what has been said so far from his Neighbors/Police.. Lets stop picking out words from his post.

pdog13,
It could be this system. Looks like the system was turn on around Summer, 2009.
Someone in your area might want to scan for newer 380MHz trunked system.

Joint National Capital Region (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=5163

 

[Gator596]

Also take a look at these:
http://www.dasma.com/PDF/Publications/TechDataSheets/OperatorElectronics/TDS374.pdf
Land Mobile Radio System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
U.S. GAO - Potential Spectrum Interference Associated with Military Land Mobile Radios

 

[sjlamb]

We have had some girls on the street running around 5:30 in the morning over the last couple of weeks. they were followed in the morning and approached. then all of us on the street at the same time have problems with our garage doors not working it sent up a red flag.

NOW we're getting somewhere....

The heck with the garage door openers..... let's hear more about "the girls" running around. Seems like a small trade-off to me.

 

[ecps92]

Any new Radio [Commercial]Towers [AM/FM - TV] near-by ? Sounds like RF overload.

If not, how about a near-by Military establishment. [Ahhh, this got answered via RR DB]

My Car remote use to flake out, near the local electronics store, which sits right under the Boston TV and Radio towers in Needham, all the time.

Sounds more like a call to the Vendor/Installer than the Cops

Good Morning,

I live on a street, and we are having an issue with our garage doors opening with the remotes. There are now about 15 houses that are not working. we have started a police report and the officer in charge of our case thinks it could be a short wave radio, or a ham. Thought i would pick your brains for the correct info. Sorry if i have any incorrect terms, i am new to this. any info would be great. I live in Lake St louis MO. The neighbor hood is about 3 years old, and most all the openers are the same brand. "Chamberland" I have lived there for about a year and a half. In the last three days all of this has started to happen. Also remote keys on cars are not working until you get next to the car.

Thanks,
Pdog13

 

[N0IU]

I live in Lake St louis MO.

I live in Wentzville and am not experiencing any problems like yours, so it must be something very local.

The notion that this is being caused by some sort of radio interference may not be too far off base, although I doubt it would be on of "us". Just to be sure, you can go to QRZ and look get a list of all the amateur radio operators in Lake Saint Louis. Go to: http://www.qrz.com/db/?cmd=1 and put "63367" (without the quotes) into the search box. You will see that there are 37 matches. Do you live near any one of them?

By any chance, do you live near the hospital? I imagine there is some pretty duty RF floating around that place. Or perhaps you live near the city hall down by the Schnucks store (to all the folks who aren't from around here, that really is the name of a very large (and over priced!) grocery store chain -- honest!) That is a much newer area and perhaps the PD has made some changes to their communication system.

There is also that new shopping center called The Meadows, but I can't imagine any heavy duty RF coming from there.

Good luck! Let us know.

 

[rankin39]

You are not anywhere down near Hillsborough (if I spelled that right), south of St. Louis, are you? There is an Air Force wideband site there that often uses freqs. in the 300 MHz. band and high powered transmitters. These stations have been known to cause garage door interference for a long time now.

Bob, WoNXN

 

[mikepdx]

We have had some girls on the street running around 5:30 in the morning over the last couple of weeks. they were followed in the morning and approached. then all of us on the street at the same time have problems with our garage doors not working it sent up a red flagg. we are a pretty tight street all are friends and look out for each other. hope that helps

I see.

Well, in all seriousness you might ask a local garage door maintenance company.
If it's a common problem in your city, they may know of the offending source,
and have solutions to offer.

Good luck.