Military Radio Signal Jams Garage Doors

[NVMojo]

DENVER (AP) - What do remote-control garage door openers have to do with national security? A secretive Air Force facility in Colorado Springs tested a radio frequency this past week that it would use to communicate with first responders in the event of a homeland security threat. But the frequency also controls an estimated 50 million garage door openers, and hundreds of residents in the area found that theirs had suddenly stopped working.

"It would have been nice not to have to get out of the car and open the door manually," said Dewey Rinehard, pointing out that the outage happened during the first cold snap of the year, with lows in the teens.

Capt. Tracy Giles of the 21st Space Wing said Air Force officials were trying to figure out how to resolve the problem of their signal overpowering garage door remotes.

"They have turned it off to be good neighbors," he said.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2006/dec/02/120204678.html

[ret5hd]

1. Air Force officials were trying to figure out how to resolve the problem...

uhhhmmm...what about a different frequency, keneth?

[NVMojo]

4. sure, but it's new for this area and if you work in Homeland Security

and the plan is to bring this to your state jurisdiction ...um, duh ...more trouble is afoot.

[LiberalFighter]

11. Keep the frequency reduce the output by....

having them shove it up theirs

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. There's nothing new about this.

This has been going on for years.

Google for "military frequencies garage door opener"

Random selection, from two years ago:

Military Signals May Jam Garage Door Openers

[goforit]

3. This sounds quite commical

[applegrove]

5. Same thing happened in Ottawa - near the American Embassy.

[melm00se]

6. it happens

when wireless networking 1st came out, the Apple AirPort product interfered with French military frequencies. it took them a while to get it resolved.

[trof]

7. Similar happened to me (I think).

Used to live not too far from a large Raytheon installation in southern NH.
Every once in a while one of our garage doors would open for no apparent reason.
Sometimes we'd come home to one or both doors open when we were sure we'd closed them.
:shrug:

[LizW]

8. Ours used to open by itself in the middle of the night

And once we were on vacation and the friend who came by to check on our house found the garage door wide open. I think there are lots of things that can accidently trigger the door to open. We disable it now when we go on vacation.

[Vinca]

10. Where specifically in New Hampshire?

I ask because I live in southern NH and last summer we had the same thing happen one afternoon. All of a sudden both garage doors started going up and down. We finally had to unplug them. The next day they were fine and they haven't done it since. I got downright paranoid, figuring King George was spying on me while I was out tending the garden.:hide:

[Joanne98]

9. IEDs are detonated with garage door openers.....

They ought to beam that signal to Iraq!

[Earth_First]

12. I'm wondering how much was spent in order to develop a glorified garage door opener...

and how much more will be required to retool this equipment back at the drawing board.

Just saying... :shrug: