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`Something strange is happening on Westhampton View Court.
`Shortly after Christmas, garage door openers on all five homes on the cul-de-sac stopped working. So far, no one has been able to figure out why.' -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The street where garage doors won't open -- and no one knows why
Seeded on Mon Feb 6, 2012 3:53 AM EST
Article Source: The St Louis Post Dispatch
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- Public Discussion (12)
Hoechstenbach drove around the neighborhood to look for new antennas for ham radio operators. She found none.
Oh Puleasseeeee..!!! You've got to love garbage like this. Even if there was a ham radio operator in the area and even if his station was the culprit there would be nothing the people with the malfunctioning garage door openers could do about it.
Ham radio stations are a FCC licensed primary radio service which provide a national emergency radio communications network and as such is protect from interference from unlicensed part 15 devices...
Garage door openers are intentional RF radiators which fall under title 47, Part 15 as an unlicensed radio frequency device and as such can not interfere with an FCC licensed ham radio stations.
Furthermore users of unlicensed part 15 devices such as garage door openers have no legal recourse whatsoever in dealing with any interference issues resulting from FCC licensed users and as such must accept any and all interference from licensed users and must rectify the interference problem at their own expense.
With that said it's highly unlikely that a ham radio station could cause a problem such as this for a well designed garage door opener. If a ham radio station is somehow causing the interference then its the fault of the garage door manufacture for not properly designing and shielding the garage door opener from potential RFI..
It's much more likely that the culprit is a home computer network using another part 15 device such as one of those wall plug type network adapters which uses the household AC wiring to network home computers. These things are so RF dirty that they should be outlawed.
Other probable sources of interference are the new gas and electric smart meters or even Broadband of power line technology..
Instead of trying to blame hams they should actually be asking local hams for their expert assistance in locating the interference as most hams are very adept at tracking and locating sources of RFI "RF interference"
- 8 votes
#1 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 5:16 AM ESTIf I were in the area, I'd be on it like a bloodhound. I think I already know what it is anyway.
315 MHz is in the unlicensed home automation range, and garage door openers share that band with X-10 and wireless power devices. All it would take would be to get in that neighborhood with a handheld Yagi and a couple of hours of time using a decent spectrum analyzer. I wouldn't even need that, I'd just grab my Alinco DJ-X10 comm receiver and a couple of antennas and have it nailed.
I do stuff like that all the time. Hams call it fox hunting. I hold an Advanced Class Amateur license and a Commercial FCC license. I'll hunt down interference for the fun of it, as it's actually a part of the ham radio hobby.
It's going to be a cheap home automation system, a crappy home security camera/security system or something along those lines. It's not going to be a Ham Radio Operator because Hams don't even get within a hundred MHz of there.
- 3 votes
315 MHz is in the unlicensed home automation range, and garage door openers share that band with X-10 and wireless power devices.
I agree that the problem is most likely the result of a home automation or networking device..
Unfortunately unless they have been illegally modified none of those devices should be capable of generating a strong enough RF signal to cause this type of problem. I have a strong intuition that the interference is "common mode" i.e. it's being conducted though the AC mains and not over the air.
If I was trouble shooting this problem the first thing I would do after replacing the battery in the remotes would be to unplug one of the malfunctioning garage door openers from the AC mains and connect it to an isolated power source. If the garage door opener functions normally on an isolated supply then the next step would be to shut the main breaker off to each home on the block one at a time to isolate the home generating the EMI.
- 2 votes
if the interference is from the AC main, only the 5 homes with the trouble would be on the same transformer , and one of them would be the culprit, no need to check every home on the street..
The aliens are taking over our planet and have started with the garage doors. The TV remotes are next.
- 7 votes
#2 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:54 AM ESTI knew mine was missing for some reason other than I lost it. remote abductions I hope it still works after being probed.
- 1 vote
all the openers are by the same manufacturer and the same age?? sounds like a cheap product... I also notice nobody mentions they replaced the batterys in the remote... which since some people still had working single car garage ( less use of battery?) I think they have overlooked the obvious
- 1 vote
#3 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 9:54 AM ESTSeems obvious the warranties are over and the service is now a fee for service.
- 2 votes
#4 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 12:04 PM ESTIt's Obama's fault!
Those lazy, good for nothing garage door openers just want to get on the dole and watch TV all day.
- 5 votes
#5 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 12:19 PM ESTStep One: Garage doors stop working.
Step Two: Toasters start burning your Pop-Tarts into charcoal.
Step Three: Skynet becomes self-aware.
- 4 votes
#7 - Tue Feb 7, 2012 1:37 AM ESTWell this problem has been solved. Turns out it was landscape lights transformer.
Garage door mystery in St. Charles solved
The garage door opener mystery on Westhampton View Court is solved.
The landscape lights transformer did it.
The five homeowners who live on the cul-de-sac near St. Peters had been trying to figure out why their garage door remotes quit working shortly after Christmas.
On Tuesday, two residents decided to do a systematic check of everything electric in their homes.
Hannu Heinonen went to the circuit box in his basement, and powered down everything but the garage door. Then he let Gil Ballman know via cellphone. Ballman clicked the garage door remote button, and the door opened.
"All of a sudden I heard a garage door open, and I thought 'This is wild.'" Ballman said. "I said, 'Hey, guess what? It's you, Hannu.'"
By turning on the circuits one by one, the men determined that the culprit was a 24-volt transformer box in the basement for lights in Heinonen's yard.
He's had the transformer for four years; it's unclear why it just recently started interfering with the whole neighborhood's garage door openers.
"It's not exactly rocket science; it's the most basic technology in electrical engineering," Heinonen said. "But I'm the bad boy, I guess."
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